Yuan-Tsan Tseng obtained a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and a D.Phil in Material Science from University of Oxford. He is currently a research fellow at the Magdi Yacoub Institute and also an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London. His research area is in cardiac valves tissue engineering, where a careful orchestrated spatial and temporal arrangement of cells, signalling molecules, biomaterials and mechanical stimulations are essential to the success of tissue engineering. He specialised in the interface between biology and materials with attention in specifying cellular behaviour using intelligent designed materials. He is currently investigating the biomechanics of the cardiovascular tissues, nanofibrous scaffold development, bioreactors and bioactive peptide for tissue engineering applications. Recently, he has focused on utilising 3D image reconstruction and rapid prototyping techniques to develop the functional medical device in tissue engineered heart valve.
Biological scaffolds serve two main functions; to mimic the mechanical property of the tissue and exert an active control over cellular events. Using tools in bio-engineering, my project is aimed at producing aligned nanofibers using jet spraying techniques to mimic the anisotropy nature of cardiac tissues. Chemical and biological signaling incorporation within the aligned nanofibers forms a composite scaffold that can incorporate appropriate cells and become a bioactive scaffold to repair damaged cardiac tissue as a cardiac patch or to mimic the structure of a heart valve. The study and development of tissue engineered constructs of heart valves and cardiac patches will tackle several fundamental challenges in the field of tissue engineering. These include the development of bio-mimicking materials, controlled mechanical properties and smart materials to direct cellular behaviour. The advance in the bio-materials development will contribute to the global effort to creating an artificial living tissue to repair or replace damaged tissue.
