Harvard’s synthetic heart valve is designed to grow in step with the human body

Researchers have developed a promising synthetic heart valve that may eventually be used for growing children. Harvard’s Wass Institute and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) created what they call FibraValve. This implant can be manufactured in minutes using a spun-fiber method that lets them shape the valve’s delicate flaps on a microscopic level — ready to be colonized by the patient’s living cells, developing with them as they mature.