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Cardiac tissue engineering offers the prospect of a novel treatment for acquired or congenital heart defects. Previously, our studies have shown a significant mass of vascularized cardiac tissue can be generated using a vascularized tissue engineering chamber approach in nude rats. In this present study, syngeneic rats were investigated as an animal model for cardiac tissue engineering using the arteriovenous loop (AVL) chamber in the presence of a functional immune system. Neonatal cardiomyocytes implanted into the AVL chamber survived and assembled into a contractile flap confirming the basic features we previously showed in growing a cardiac construct. There was no significant loss of the assembled cardiac muscle from immune response. The engineered cardiac muscle flaps (ECMFs) formed were transplanted to the neck vessels of the same animal using a microsurgical technique, and all …