New Rochelle, NY -- The biological scaffold that gives structure to a heart valve after its cellular material has been removed can be freeze-dried and stored for later use as a tissue-engineered replacement valve to treat a failing heart, as described in an article in Tissue Engineering, Part C: Methods, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (http://www. liebertpub. com ). The article is available free online at http://www. liebertpub. com/ ten

Shangping Wang and colleagues from Leibniz University, Corlife, and Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, studied various strategies for freeze-drying porcine heart valves. After the cellular material was removed, they freeze-dried the heart valve scaffolds with or without sucrose and hydroxyl ethylene starch, and then compared the stability and elasticity of the freeze-dried scaffolds to assess the effectiveness of these lyoprotectants in preventing degradation of the scaffold. They report their findings in the article "Freeze-dried Heart Valve Scaffolds." (http://online. liebertpub. com/ doi/ abs/ 10. 1089/ ten. TEC. 2011. 039 8)

"Advances in heart valve technology are essential for improvement of patient care," says John Jansen, DDS, PhD, Methods Co-Editor-in-Chief and Professor and Chairman, Department of Biomaterials, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, The Netherlands. "The authors have discerned critical methods for heart valve scaffold preservation that may fundamentally change the way that heart valve reconstruction is performed."

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Tissue Engineering is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published 42 times per year in print and online in three parts: Part A--the flagship journal; Part B--Reviews; and Part C--Methods. Led by Co-Editors-In-Chief Dr. Antonios Mikos, Louis Calder Professor at Rice University, Houston, TX, and Peter C. Johnson, MD, President and CEO, Scintellix, LLC, Raleigh, NC and Vice President, Research and Development, Avery Dennison Medical Solutions, the Journal brings together scientific and medical experts in the fields of biomedical engineering, material science, molecular and cellular biology, and genetic engineering. Tissue Engineering is the Official Journal of the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS). Complete tables of contents and sample issues of all 3 parts are available online at http://www. liebertpub. com/ ten

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Stem Cells and Development, Human Gene Therapy and HGT Methods, and Biopreservation and Biobanking. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at http://www. liebertpub. com

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