AustraliaDr. Do Thanh Nho and colleagues from the University of New South Wales, Australia designed a left ventricular artificial heart, capable of simulating movement, blood pressure and flow like a real heart.
This heart can recreate the parameters of normal hearts and patients with heart disease (such as heart failure). The research results were published in Science Robotics magazine, the world’s leading journal in the field of robotics. The research team also filed a patent for this technology.
Artificial heart technology aims to support doctors in diagnosing and treating patients who need heart valve implants, people who need to use artificial heart pumps while waiting for a donated heart or after heart surgery.
Share with VnExpress from Australia, Dr. Do Thanh Nho, 39 years old, Director of the Medical Robotics Laboratory, project leader, had the idea in 2021 when he worked at several hospitals in Sydney. At that time, clinical cardiologists were very concerned because many patients using artificial heart valves and heart pumps developed complications after implantation. They want to have an artificial heart similar to the patient’s heart, allowing them to try transplanting and check if there are complications or dangerous parameters before performing it on the patient. This is the reason Dr. Nho started researching artificial hearts using the same soft robot technology that his lab pioneered.
The team began the process of creating a left ventricular artificial heart by focusing on regenerating the heart muscle structure. First, a real human heart is scanned, using 3D software on a computer to determine the arrangement angles of muscle fibers in the inner, middle and outer layers. Next, the team used previously developed artificial muscle fibers and aligned the muscle fibers exactly to the shape and angle of real heart muscle fibers. The choice of artificial muscle type and multi-layer structure allows creating a dense myocardial network that most closely resembles a natural heart.
The left ventricle is the main and most complex pumping chamber of the heart, he explains. This part works in a special way thanks to a continuous system of cardiac muscle fibers arranged with many overlapping layers and with different angles. If left ventricular function can be recreated, creating the right ventricle and the remaining atria will be very easy.
The left ventricle of the heart with 3 layers of myocardium, simulating the real human heart. Image: Research team
According to the research team, the two most important mechanisms of an artificial heart are the ability to reproduce parameters related to mechanical properties, forces affecting the structure and function of the heart (biomechanics), numbers related to flow dynamics, blood pressure in the heart, blood vessels (hemodynamics).
Initially, they had difficulty regenerating multiple layers of heart muscle on top of each other and arranging them, machining and manipulating them to accurately recreate the human heart. After many failures, the team successfully designed and created a left ventricle of the heart with 3 layers of myocardium including the epicardium, myocardium and endocardium. Thanks to a structure most similar to a real heart, the team has created three-dimensional biological movements, contractions, blood pressure and flow most similar to a human heart.
“Up to now, the world does not have an artificial heart capable of reproducing such parameters as the human heart. Currently, only a research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US has also developed artificial heart technology, but has not been able to successfully recreate the parameters of a human heart,” Dr. Nho said.
Associate Professor Dr. Phan Hoang Phuong, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales said: “This is the first soft robot heart in the world capable of regenerating myocardial biomechanics and hemodynamics.” of the human heart”.
The research team is expanding the work and starting to integrate more organs inside the heart such as heart valves, aorta, ventricles, and papillary muscles. To test the feasibility, the team used the new heart to evaluate heart pump systems for people with heart failure and flexible catheter surgical devices (catheters). The purpose is to support minimally invasive endoscopic heart surgery to repair heart valves or other cardiovascular-related procedures. As a result, the artificial heart also predicts complications that occur with a left ventricular assist heart pump (LVAD) and an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP). These are cardiovascular support devices used to enhance blood flow and reduce the burden on the heart in cases of heart failure or after heart surgery.
Operation of artificial heart. Video: Research team
Professor Nigel Lovell, dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Tyree IHealthE Institute of Health Technology, said that the usefulness of this work is its ability to accurately recreate the movement, blood pressure and flow of blood. blood of normal people and people with heart disease. This capability provides clinically meaningful information to those developing new medical devices and early-stage surgical procedures. This reduces their reliance on animal testing and the associated financial and ethical costs.
The device could serve as a tool to assist clinicians in assessing the anticipated impact of cardiovascular interventions, such as valve or heart pump implantation, before a patient undergoes surgery. Doctors can also use it to study the mechanisms behind certain cardiovascular diseases and their treatments. “This will be a revolution in cardiology,” Professor Nigel Lovell emphasized.
Dr. Do Thanh Nho. Image: NVCC
Dr. Do Thanh Nho was born in Hiep Thanh commune, Go Dau district, Tay Ninh province, in a farming family. He is a former student of Quang Trung High School, Go Dau. In 2004, he studied at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and was selected for the Talented Engineer class, majoring in Manufacturing Engineering. In 2011, he received a full scholarship for the doctoral program, majoring in surgical robotics at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang University of Technology, Singapore. Dr. Nho is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA. He joined the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Australia as a senior lecturer (Scientia) and established the Medical Robotics laboratory.
His main research interests include minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery robots for cardiovascular and gastrointestinal cancers, 3D bioprinting, soft robots, artificial muscles, smart fabrics, cardiac devices, and advanced devices. human abilities and rehabilitation of the disabled, and emotional reconstruction devices. He currently owns more than 10 international patents.