Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US. The heart’s inability to repair itself after injury like other organs makes heart disease deadly. Researchers are working hard in the field of tissue engineering to be able to fabricate an entire heart for transplant. Bioengineers from Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) “have developed the first biohybrid model of human ventricles with helically aligned beating cardiac cells.” Kit Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS and senior author of the paper explains that “This work is a major step forward for organ biofabrication and brings us closer to our ultimate goal of building a human heart for transplant.” 

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