Artificial Heart

SCIENTIST DEVELOP AN ARTIFICIAL HEART:

Heart muscles that actually beat, created artificially in the lab, have for the first time become a reality. In a major breakthrough that could repair millions of human hearts damaged after massive heart attack, scientists have for the first time successfully implanted artificial heart tissues that actually beat in animals.
When a heart gets damaged during a major heart attack, the result can be deadly. But scientists working on a way to repair the vital organ have now engineered tissues that closely mimics natural heart muscle that beats, not only in a lab dish but also when implanted into animals. Researchers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston and the University of Sydney in Australia have been able to combine a novel elastic hydrogel with micro scale technologies to create an artificial cardiac tissue that mimics the mechanical and biological properties of the native heart.

Right now, the best treatment option for patients with major heart damage, which can be caused by severe heart failure, for example in an organ transplant. But there are far more patients on waitlists for a transplant than there are donated hearts. Even if a patient receives a new heart, complications can arise. The ideal solution would be to somehow repair the tissue, which can get damaged over time when arteries are clogged and starve a part of the heart of oxygen. Scientists have been searching for years for the best fix. The quest has been confounded by a number of factors that come into play when designing a complex organ or tissue.