In the national final of the 8th "Creative Youngsters—China Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition held in Wuhan, Hubei Province, Tianjin University won the gold medal with the project "Heart Pulse Linkage--Accurate Visualization of Small-caliber Artificial Vessels in Vivo", becoming the only award winner coming from Tianjin Municipality.

According to the "China Cardiovascular Health and Disease Report 2019", about 330 million people are troubled by cardiovascular diseases in China. To treat these diseases, small-caliber blood vessels are in great demand to make vascular replacement. However, the sources of existing small-caliber blood vessels are quite limited, considering that re-operation of autologous transplantation causes great damage, while allograft leads to kinds of rejection reactions.

Initiated by Dr. Li Shuangyang and guided by Professor Dong Anjie from the School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, the project imitates the three-layer structure of natural blood vessels and realizes non-invasive and non-radioactive monitoring of the implanted artificial blood vessel’s condition, so as to obtain accurate, dynamic, and overall information. It is expected to bring new breakthroughs to the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

The China Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is a highly-recognized nationwide competition covering research fields like optoelectronic information, general health, intelligent manufacturing and other categories. This year, about 4500 projects nationwide enrolled in the competition, and a total of 45 projects made into the finals.

By Ren Xiangyun

Editor: Eva Yin