Healing Hearts – Wolfram Zimmermann, Professor and Lab Researcher at the University Medical Center Göttingen – How the Development of Engineered Heart Muscle May Be Giving Hearts a Second Chance

Wolfram Zimmermann, professor and lab researcher at the University Medical Center Göttingen, delivers an interesting overview of his lab's work.

Zimmermann discusses heart failure and what exactly happens to the heart, and the solutions that his lab is seeking to bring to reality as medicine advances.

Zimmermann's lab focuses heavily on research related to remuscularization of the failing human heart and the development of engineered heart muscle (EHM) for clinical applications in heart failure repair. Additionally, the lab is interested in multiplexing EHM and combinations with other engineered macro organs specifically for applications related to the new discovery of regenerative therapies.

Zimmermann discusses the depth of his research and their hopes for the future. In regard to advances in myocardial tissue engineering and heart regeneration, we can now see that with the availability of human pluripotent stem cells, the sophisticated engineering of human myocardium for direct and significant therapeutic applications, or as a type of model system for realistic simulations of human heart pathologies, is now possible.

Zimmermann talks about the development of their laboratory technology and how it will affect their future. He discusses the building of tissue and the regulatory requirements that have an impact on their work. He discusses the evidence that shows his lab's approach is relatively safe, and discusses safety concerns in general. And he outlines the various cellular elements and explains how the transplantation of engineered tissue patches that contain specific cells are used for cardiac repair.