Design a Heart Valve model, Part 1:

Introduction:

Biomedical engineering involves developing and testing solutions to problems of the human body, in cells, or other biological systems.

The heart is essentially a pump, and its valves act as controls to help ensure the correct direction and pacing of blood flow. If they do not work as intended, then blood flow through the heart is impeded. Thus, biomedical engineers need to understand how the heart and its valves work, including the physical properties of the valves.

Students are presented with an engineering challenge that asks them to develop a material and model mimicking valves functions that can be used to test the properties of aortic valves without using real specimens.

Developing material that is similar to human heart valves makes testing easier for biomedical engineers because they can test new devices or ideas on the model valve instead of real heart valves, which can be difficult to obtain for research.

Students are provided with a variety of background information, are asked to research the topic to learn more specific information pertaining to the challenge, and design and build a (prototype) product.

After students test their products and make modifications as needed, they convey background and product information in the form of website portfolios and presentations to the potential buyer.

Challenge problem:

"You are a team of engineers for a bio-materials company that has a cardiovascular systems client who wants you to develop a model that can be used to test the properties of heart valves without using real specimens."

Part 1: What Do I Need to Know about Heart Valves?

Learning Objectives

Students should be able to:

• Identify major structures of the human heart on diagrams and virtual specimens.

• Describe the flow of blood through the human heart.

• Describe the structure and function of heart valves.

Take the Pre-quiz On Google classroom

Remember the Challenge problem:

"You are a team of engineers for a bio-materials company that has a cardiovascular systems client who wants you to develop a model that can be used to test the properties of heart valves without using real specimens."

A) Brainstorm and fill out a group Padlet.com discussing these questions (share your group's Padlet.com on Google Classroom):

1. What are your initial thoughts on this?

2. What things do you already know about this topic, and what things do you think that you would need to know to successfully complete this task?

3. How might you go about accomplishing this task?

4. What information do you need to create an accurate model?

5. How could your materials be tested?

B) Learn some basic information relevant to the problem:

1. Research heart valve mechanics, valve tissue anatomy and details by:

   • reading the transcript of an interview with a biomedical engineer HERE

   • learning more specific information on how heart tissues work—their structure and composition in the scientific document HERE.

Assignment 1 and Heart Dissection

1. Discussing the transcript and scientific document above. Create a google doc and share it with your group. Collaborate in writing what important information have you gathered about hearts and hearts valves that can help you develop your design. Attach it to the assignment on Google Classroom.

2. Perform a Virtual heart dissection to understand heart structure, and to learn more in-depth information about the heart (Below):

Virtual Heart Dissection

1. Go to the following website and explore the virtual models:

• https://anatomytool.org/content/heart-collection-page

2. Go to the following website and watch the video:

• https://youtu.be/9I-XcW0XXzg

3. Go to the following website and read the human heart dissection procedure:

• https://www.biologycorner.com/anatomy/circulatory/heart/heart_dissection.html

4. Write in your journal what you learned from the Virtual Heart Dissection above (from the above videos the reading.)

5. Sketch and label the outside and cross-section (inside) views of the human heart.