April 15, 2024
Brandon J. Tefft, PhD, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been awarded a $572,770 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation for a project seeking to reduce the need for repeat surgery for individuals with congenital heart valve defects and increase the visibility and reputation of scientific innovation and discovery to students in the Milwaukee area.
Children born with congenital heart defects often require repeat valve replacement over a lifetime, as the original valve replacement does not grow over time with the size of the heart of its host. In his project, titled, “CAREER: Origami-inspired design for a tissue engineered heart valve,” Dr. Tefft seeks to use a novel origami-inspired approach to engineer a degradable scaffold for generating living heart valve replacements. This approach will address valve durability obstacles present in current valve replacement options. Dr. Tefft will then populate the scaffold using cells derived from host umbilical cord blood, which can be engineered to develop into the types of cells normally found in human heart valves. This novel approach is anticipated to produce a growing heart valve solution superior in structure and function, thereby reducing the need for repeat surgery as the patient grows.
Dr. Joy Lincoln and the Congenital Heart Disease tissue bank at the Herma Heart Institute of Children’s Wisconsin are integral collaborators on the project. Dr. Lincoln, the director of the tissue bank, plays a crucial role in supplying the valvular cell types needed for seeding the tissue-engineered heart valves. These cells are derived from patient samples collected and stored in the tissue bank. Dr. Lincoln's expertise ensures that the cells behave appropriately to achieve functional tissue engineered heart valves, further enhancing the project's potential impact.
In line with the award’s objective of sponsoring faculty positioned to grow the visibility of science-based engineering advancements in an educational setting, Dr. Tefft will use this award to support the development of various educational outreach programs in the Milwaukee area, including an origami engineering challenge and a "Science in the News" seminar series, which is expected to be held in middle schools and public libraries in the Milwaukee area.
The NSF's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program provides prestigious awards to early-career faculty, aiming to foster leadership in research and education within their department or organization. It emphasizes the integration of education and research to establish a strong foundation for a lifetime of leadership. Dr. Brandon Tefft is the director of the Cardiovascular Regenerative Engineering Laboratory, also known as the CaRE Lab, which specializes in cardiovascular regenerative engineering, cardiovascular device design, tissue engineered vascular grafts, heart valves, and biomedical nanotechnology. In addition to his laboratory activities, Dr. Tefft serves as the Chair of a TERMIS-TWIG discussing cardiovascular regenerative engineering and session host for the 2024 TERMIS World Congress. He has recently received a product-development award from the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering for his work on improving endothelialization of small-diameter vascular grafts and teaches two courses in tissue engineering for the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at Marquette University and the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Learn more about Molecular, Cellular, and Tissue Engineering at the Marquette University and Medical College of Wisconsin Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering.
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