Principal Investigator Alexander Slocum
The goal of this project, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, is to develop technology for beating-heart repairs in the context of mitral valve prolapse.
Performing repairs inside the beating heart is difficult in terms of both instrumentation and imaging. While structural intracardiac repair is currently a hot area for medical startups, proposed catheters and devices do not approach the level of effectiveness that is currently possible during open-heart surgery. The project encompasses the development of patient-specific, mitral valve repair optimization methods and the design of their corresponding devices. Through these new repair methods and devices, an optimal repair will assure anatomically correct leaflet coaptation throughout the lifetime of the patient.