Before tissue-engineered blood vessels reach the clinic, they must withstand the mechanical stresses of the vascular system - an assessment that is essential, but often expensive. One University of Pittsburgh research team is now dramatically lowering that cost, reducing the price of a key cardiovascular research tool from $40,000 to just $750 and opening the door for broader adoption across laboratories.
Daniel Shiwarski, assistant professor of bioengineering at the Swanson School of Engineering, developed HemoLens, a custom-built, open-source system designed to evaluate the strength and flexibility of both natural blood vessels and tissue-engineered blood vessels. With findings recently published in the December 2025 edition of Device (10.1016/j.device.2025.100996), his team’s work demonstrates that high-quality vascular measurements don’t require expensive hardware, just thoughtful engineering.
“There is a serious need for a customizable, low-cost, biomechanical myography platform that uses affordable manufacturing processes.” Shiwarski said. “We developed HemoLens to address the high cost of these existing systems and to make it easier for researchers to study vascular function across a wide range of cardiovascular applications.”
The most commonly used method to test how blood vessels behave under pressure ex-vivo is pressure myography. With this technique, arteries, veins, or tissue-engineered vascular systems are pressurized to mimic physiological conditions, allowing researchers to measure real-time changes. While widely used, these commercial myography systems rely on highly specialized, precision-engineered components, cost about $40,000, and lack options for customization, according to first author Antonio PereiraTavares, a third-year bioengineering PhD student in the Shiwarski Tissue Engineering Lab.
“Most existing tools for this type of research require really expensive components, and because some of these systems are old and outdated, doing minor upgrades each year leaves costs for labs high.” PereiraTavares said. “But now, 3D printing has become so advanced that we've figured out how to create systems of the same quality much quicker and much cheaper than ever before.”
To keep costs low, Shiwarski’s team developed HemoLens primarily from 3D printed components and paired the hardware with open-source software, eliminating traditional manufacturing and development expenses to dramatically reduce the system’s overall cost to just $750.
“Advances in 3D printing have made it easy to reduce costs, but the real shift came from the open-source maker community—components that once cost $50 to $100 are now available for just a few dollars.” Shiwarski said. “When you combine that with low-cost cameras and single-board computers, it becomes possible to build powerful systems like HemoLens at a fraction of the traditional price.”
While inexpensive, HemoLens is a highly advanced research tool. A dedicated module allows the device to regulate pressure under normal physiological conditions or mimic disease states such as hypertension, revealing how chronically elevated blood pressure causes vessels to stiffen and lose their ability to stretch over time. And, as an open-source technology designed to be adopted by the broader research community, the impact of HemoLens will extend far beyond the lab where it was developed.
“Providing open-source technology has always been a core focus of our lab , and our goal has consistently been to make bioengineering tools more accessible.” Shiwarski said. “We're already integrating HemoLens across our research pipelines, and several other labs are now building their own versions as well. I hope the next step for HemoLens is widespread use.”
Device
Experimental study
Lab-produced tissue samples
Pressure myography and cardiac flow simulator for mechanical characterization of native and engineered blood vessels
12-Dec-2025
D.J.S. has an equity stake in FluidFormBio, Inc, which is a startup company commercializing FRESH 3D printing. D.J.S. performs consulting for FluidFormBio, Inc.