Cardiovascular Systems
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally, taking almost 18 million lives a year. CVDs are a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels such as coronary heart diseases.Thankfully, there are many successful treatment options available today. However, there is still room for enhancement of state of the art technologies and current research is increasing in this field.
The goal of our group is to contribute to enhanced treatment options for cardiovascular diseases, predominantly in bypass surgeries and stenting. The main research focuses on the automated design of patient- and lesion-specific stent designs, which can be additively manufactured. The aim is to create a software-based workflow to achieve fully automated stent-design generation starting from the input of a CT scan. Additionally, we are working on the improvement of support structures and post-processing of thin-structured SLM parts such as stents.
Besides, we are still working on our long ongoing development project “ConVes”, where we aim to develop a suture-less anastomotic device. The project was founded in 2015 in the frame of a Focus project where an in vivo proof of concept was achieved. In close collaboration with the German Heart Centre and the Charité in Berlin, we are now developing an improved, second generation device. More information on the project can be found here: ConVes Focus Project