Your New Heart: Improving Care for Children with Congenital Heart Disease

When Michael Davis talks about his research, he doesn’t begin with technology or funding. He starts with a purpose. 

“From a 10,000-foot level,” Davis said, “I’d say my research has to do with fixing hearts.” 

Davis, a professor of biomedical engineering and cardiology at Georgia Tech and Emory University and director of the Children’s Heart Research and Outcomes (HeRO) Center, spoke with host Angela Gil Nelms on Episode 1 of Holy Shift! Biomedical Breakthroughs Shaping Tomorrow, where he discussed research aimed at repairing damaged heart tissue—and improving long‑term quality of life for children and adults with serious cardiac disease. 

For decades, treatments for heart disease have focused on managing decline rather than restoring function. In adult patients, heart attacks permanently damage muscle that does not regenerate on its own. In children, Davis explained, the challenge is different—but often more devastating. 

“Kids don’t have heart attacks,” he said. “They’re born with defects that just happen. And the best we can do for some of them is just to try to plug it in and see what we can do.” 

That reality led Davis and his team to explore regenerative medicine approaches—using stem cells and biomaterials to help the heart rebuild itself. While his work initially focused on adult heart failure, Davis said about a decade ago his lab began applying those same principles to pediatric heart disease. 

One of his lab’s primary research focuses is hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare but severe congenital condition in which the heart’s left ventricle—the organ’s main pumping chamber—fails to develop. 

“If you were born with it in the ’40s and ’50s, you were just sent to hospice,” Davis said. “You could survive maybe a week.” 

Today, surgical advances have made survival possible, but not without significant cost. Children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome undergo multiple surgeries early in life, and even then, long‑term outcomes remain uncertain. 

“Even though it only accounts for about one to two percent of all congenital heart defects,” Davis said, “it accounts for about 40 to 50 percent of all mortality.” 

The surgeries that allow these children to survive reroute blood flow, so the heart’s right ventricle must pump blood to the entire body—a role it was never designed to handle. 

“That right ventricle will eventually, in these patients, a lot of times fail,” Davis said. “And these kids will end up on the transplant list.” 

Beyond heart failure, Davis said the cascade of complications can affect nearly every organ system. Reduced oxygen flow during surgeries can lead to cognitive and developmental challenges, liver disease, and limited exercise tolerance. 

“It’s a whole cascade of things,” he said. “You start with the heart, then it goes to the brain. It goes to the lungs.” 

To interrupt that cascade, Davis’s team is testing stem cell–based therapies designed to support heart tissue early in life. In one completed clinical trial, researchers injected stem cells directly into the right ventricle of pediatric patients during surgery, with the goal of improving heart function and reducing inflammation. 

“We’re hoping,” Davis said, “that by giving these kids a little bit of boost when they’re younger and able to repair a little bit better, that we might have better long‑term outcomes.” 

The results, he said, were encouraging. 

“One of the big findings of our study was a massive decrease in hospitalization and cardiac complications in this population,” Davis said. “They were released from the hospital sooner. Things got better for them and their families.” 

His lab is now expanding that work into a larger pediatric trial and has also launched a new combined adult and pediatric study focused on dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle becomes thin and weakened. 

Alongside regenerative therapies, Davis’s research is also reshaping how heart disease is monitored. Using data-driven and artificial intelligence–supported approaches, his team is working to replace invasive heart biopsies with blood-based biomarkers. 

“Can we take a drop of your blood and see, is this therapy working or not?” Davis said. 

Previously, heart transplant patients—many of them children—underwent repeated biopsies to monitor rejection. 

“I couldn’t imagine if my kids were dreading this six-month thing where they know they’re going to go in, get knocked out, and somebody’s going to get a piece of their heart,” Davis said. “That’s a whole lot of stress and anxiety.” 

A simple blood test, he added, can dramatically reduce trauma for both patients and caregivers. 

Beyond the clinic, Davis emphasized the importance of education and community engagement. His lab regularly hosts local high school students, offering hands-on demonstrations that show how biomedical research translates into real-world care. 

“We’re treating the patients,” he said, “but we’re also trying to inform the community about how we are treating the patients, so they can all be responsible for that caregiving and that scientific discovery process.” 

Despite the promise of this work, Davis acknowledged that translating science into clinical care is expensive and complex. Many of his trials rely on a combination of federal funding, philanthropic support, and donor advocacy. 

But he argues the long-term investment is essential. 

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Davis said. “Just because something has good short-term outcomes doesn’t mean the long-term outcome is beneficial. We can and should be doing better now.” 

For Davis, that belief drives everything from his lab’s research agenda to his push for earlier intervention, especially for diseases that affect small pediatric populations. 

“Kids aren’t tiny adults,” he said. “We need things that are specific for kids.” 

It’s a lesson Davis learned not only through science, but through the lives of the patients he hopes to help—children whose future, he believes, should be defined by possibility rather than limitation. 

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