This cardiac regeneration research gathered the European consortium partners to establish the project foundations
January 30th (Spain). The BRAVꓱ project started with its kick-off meeting held on January 27th-29th at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra’s Madrid (Spain) headquarters. BRAVꓱ is an ambitious project whose objective is to design and create a biological device to support a sick heart. It aims to recover the heart’s functionality in people suffering from ischaemic heart disease (IHD). IHD is one of the most frequent heart diseases, which is also a leading cause of death in the European Union. This international project is led by the Clínica Universidad de Navarra, in collaboration with the Cima Universidad de Navarra, and it involves 14 institutions from Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Portugal. This European project was selected within the Horizon 2020 Program (H2020), obtaining € 8 million funding for five years.
Laying the foundations of BioVAD
BRAVꓱ project combines cell therapy with bioengineering to develop a biological device named BioVAD (biological ventricular assist device). This bio-device will be capable of strengthening the blood pumping of a sick heart, thus giving it support.
During the meeting in Madrid, in which 40 attendees from different European institutions participated, aspects of data management were presented, as well as ethical issues and dissemination of results. Besides, attendees participated in several scientific sessions focused on 3D bioprinting, computational modeling, and the technological design of BioVAD worked. Also, they evaluated the treatment of stem cells for the generation of micro cardiac tissue. With the bases of the project set, the consortium will meet again in September in the city of Leuven (Belgium). Until then, they will continue advancing in the project development to achieve, in approximately one year, its first milestone: to design the first BioVAD printable generation.