Bursac's research interests include engineering of heart tissue substitutes with controllable geometry and function; experimental and therapeutic applications. Optical mapping of electrical propagation in excitable tissues.
A final common pathway of many cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction or heart failure is irreversible damage of the cardiac muscle tissue. This effect is generally attributed to the inability of cardiac cells to replicate after injury and the lack of a substantial source of stem cells in the heart.
My research goals are the following: 1) to use cell, and tissue engineering techniques to develop novel experimental modalities that flexibly mimic the structure of healthy and diseased heart at multiple organizational levels from single cell to two- and three-dimensional cell networks, 2) to apply genetic, pharmacological, and electrophysiological spatio-temporal alterations to study physiological, pathophysiological and developmental structure-function relationships in cardiac muscle, and 3) to utilize these studies to identify possible targets for novel antiarrhythmic therapies and to improve design rules for gene and tissue engineering treatments of diseased heart.
Possibility to engineer cardiac cell networks with user-defined, reproducible architecture can facilitate separation and systematic study of the role of structural and genetic factors that contribute cardiac function and disease. Micropatterning of extracellular matrix proteins using soft lithography and microcontact printing techniques and engineering of synthetic and natural scaffolds are employed to flexibly mimic structure-function relationships of healthy and diseased heart at multiple organizational levels. Immunoassaying and optical recordings with voltage and calcium sensitive dyes in this system allow for structure-function evaluation of engineered tissue before and after possible implantation, and analysis of complicated spatio-temporal changes in electrical activity encountered in cardiac arrhythmia and fibrillation. Computer models that incorporate cardiac cell geometry, distribution of intercellular connections, discrete tissue microarchitecture and electrical cell membrane properties can aid the experimental design and interpretation of results.
| Office Location: | 136 Hudson Hall |
| Office Phone: | +1 919 660 5510 |
| Email Address: |  
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| Web Page: | http://bursaclab.bme.duke.edu/people/bursac.html |
Teaching (Fall 2008):
Bursac's research interests include engineering of heart tissue substitutes with controllable geometry and function; experimental and therapeutic applications. Optical mapping of electrical propagation in excitable tissues.
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