Heart disease isn't well understood. Half the people who have heart attacks don't have the conventional risk factors. We re trying to understand how the mechanical factors are influencing where it develops and the rate at which it develops. We're interested in how mechanical forces alter cell structure and function. Very few medical people look at it from the perspective of mechanical force.
Heart disease is just one of the many applications of bioengineering.
Nerem believes the Whitaker grant will enable Georgia Tech to break a lot of new ground in the field. Basically, tissue engineering involves the reconstruction of certain tissues and organs. Nerem, for instance, is currently working on a project to build artificial blood vessels. The idea, he explains, is to take fatty tissue from a patient's body and then reconstruct the cells into a blood vessel, which could in turn be used to replace a worn out artery in the case of heart disease, through bypass surgery. Nerem and his students are working on a system to cultivate the cells, which can then be transplanted.