The focus of the seminar series is to call for experts related to academia and research in the areas related to biomechanics, variability, motor disorders, physical therapy, and related studies.

Presentation Title: Understanding the 3D mechanical behavior of hydrogel-injected myocardium after heart attack

Presentation Abstract:

Expansion of the left ventricle following myocardial infarction (MI) is a major contributor to heart failure. Injectable hydrogels have emerged as a promising approach to mechanically reinforce damaged myocardium and limit adverse remodeling, but the influence of material properties and injection parameters is not well understood. In this work, we present three-dimensional finite element simulations informed by mechanical testing of infarcted myocardium to examine how hydrogel volume, stiffness, and placement affect tissue-level mechanics at early and late post-MI stages. Our results show that hydrogel injections locally increase tissue stiffness and reduce myocardial strain under physiological loading, suggesting a mechanical mechanism for limiting post-infarct expansion. The degree of strain reduction is governed primarily by hydrogel volume and stiffness, with relatively low sensitivity to precise spatial placement, providing design insight for future injectable MI therapies.

About the speaker:

Jennie Tobler-Gaston (she/her) is the Institutional Repository Coordinator at the University of Dr. David Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomechanics at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and completed his postdoctoral training at Yale University. His research focuses on integrating biomechanical data with computational models of cardiovascular disease to advance surgical decision-making.