Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

Vast numbers of patients world-wide suffer from cardiovascular diseases; this has led to growing use of implants designed torestore normal blood flow in diseased vessels. However, their success is limited: Vascular grafts (tubes made of plastic),sutured to blood vessels to replace diseased arteries, are prone to occlusion and limited to large-diameter vessels, thusexcluding arteries of the heart or the lower limbs. Other implants such as stent-grafts are less invasive, because they areinserted by catheter into the diseased blood vessels. However, frequent complications limit their use to patients with highoperative risks. These complications are mainly related to the inadequate mechanical and biological properties of thesynthetic materials used. The present proposal aims to combine promising innovations developed by two successfulmultidisciplinary research teams, namely to create a new generation of vascular implants using (i) scaffolds with mechanicalproperties that better match those of blood vessels; (ii) surface modification, which enables improved cell response andtissue healing around the implant. Both technologies (even more, their combination) will permit greatly-improved healing andtissue regeneration around these implants, thereby reducing clinical complications and enabling more patients to be treated.Technologies will be tested in vitro and in animals, to confirm their beneficial effects and to enable rapid transfer to industry.This ""joint venture"" is strongly endorsed and supported by CORONEO, a Montreal-based company that conducts R&D andcommercialization of implants and instruments for cardiovascular medicine, as well as by an international leader in themanufacture of endovascular stent-grafts. Therefore, this project will not only address urgent health problems in Canada'sageing population, but will also help develop ""made-in-Canada"" technology for one of the currently most lucrative medicaldevice markets (16 billion $/yr).