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from the be-still-my-bleeding-[silicone]-heart dept.
It looks like a real heart. And this is the goal of the first entirely soft artificial heart: to mimic its natural model as closely as possible. The silicone heart has been developed by Nicholas Cohrs, a doctoral student in the group led by Wendelin Stark, Professor of Functional Materials Engineering at ETH Zurich. The reasoning why nature should be used as a model is clear. Currently-used blood pumps have many disadvantages: their mechanical parts are susceptible to complications while the patient lacks a physiological pulse, which is assumed to have some consequences for the patient.
“Therefore, our goal is to develop an artificial heart that is roughly the same size as the patient’s own one and which imitates the human heart as closely as possible in form and function,” says Cohrs. A well-functioning artificial heart is a real necessity: about 26 million people worldwide suffer from heart failure while there is a shortage of donor hearts. Artificial blood pumps help to bridge the waiting time until a patient receives a donor heart or their own heart recovers.
The soft artificial heart was created from silicone using a 3D-printing, lost-wax casting technique; it weighs 390 grams and has a volume of 679 cm3. “It is a silicone monoblock with complex inner structure,” explains Cohrs. This artificial heart has a right and a left ventricle, just like a real human heart, though they are not separated by a septum but by an additional chamber. This chamber is in- and deflated by pressurized air and is required to pump fluid from the blood chambers, thus replacing the muscle contraction of the human heart.
Would you rather replace your organs with models made from soft materials, or titanium?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @07:39AM (3 children)
So why not make 2 hearts? One as a failover in case the main one dies? You know, have 2 micropumps that keep pressure at 50mmHg continuously .. if one fails, you have a failover. Then you have the additional one that provides for the pulse of additional 50mmHg.
Then if the pulsating heart fails, you have the micropumps. And 2 micropumps so not a single point of failure either. Then replace as needed.
Now this doesn't solve all circulatory issues since strokes or narrowing of arteries or aneurysms are problem there too. But it removes the single point of failure.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday December 05 2017, @08:06AM (1 child)
You missed the obvious one about where on the chest to put two silicone hearts...
But that brings up the other issue with " replace your organs with models made from soft materials, or titanium?", which is it may not be the material of _your_ organs that is the only concern, "would you rather have your hands on silicone or titanium?"
Mind you, the future is probably soft robots and hard humans.
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 05 2017, @12:28PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday December 05 2017, @03:03PM
Sorry, that still won't make you a Time Lord.