Health issues are inevitable in our life just like finding fake news and accounts on Facebook (Sorry Mark). Right now, the world is fighting from nCOVID-19, which is the world’s first infodemic (an excessive amount of information concerning a problem such that the solution is made more difficult), has already taken lives of 4636 people all over the world. Here’s a video that explains why viruses like SARS and COVID-19 are bound to happen in China courtesy of Vox (P.S.- It’s not paid promotion)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54
Another great video that explains what can we learn from nCOVID-19 courtesy of TEDx-Talks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqw-9yMV0sI&feature=youtu.be
Heart is the source of our life and also of all the romantic songs around the world. And it’s failure causes the highest number of deaths (about 10 million in 2016 acc. to WHO). Researchers and scientists have been working on artificial hearts for more than 50 years, a handful of them have been developed and only a few of them have made it into human trials.
Making an artificial heart is a challenge considering that the human heart beats about 112,000 times day, and 42 million times a year. So you have to develop a mechanical device that’s small, biocompatible, energy-efficient and durable as well.
The most common mechanical device used is called LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device). It adds its pumping power to an ailing heart, focusing on the left ventricle, which pumps the oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. However, LVADs can cause the right ventricle to falter requiring intensive drug treatments and sometimes the implantation of a right ventricular device.
Maglev heart, designed by the Bivacor company, uses the magnetic levitation principle (which is suspending an object with the help of a magnetic field). Its outer shell is made up of 3-D printed titanium which is a noncorroding metal. Patients just have to wear a 4-kg external controller pack that contains two rechargeable batteries providing 5 hours of operation each.
It contains one motor and one rotating disk (which is suspended in a magnetic field) which simultaneously pumps the blood to the lungs and the body. The larger set of impeller vanes pumps blood at higher pressure necessary to pump the blood throughout the body and the smaller one pumps the blood to the lungs at lower pressure. Some oxygenated blood leaks from the high-pressure side to the low-pressure side, which cleans out the casing and ensures that there are no areas where stagnant blood can form dangerous blood clots.
Here the blue blood resembles the oxygen-depleted blood and the red one resembles the oxygen-rich blood .
It’s important to keep the rotor properly suspended and to prevent it from bumping into the sides of the casing, which could damage the components and smash blood cells. This positional control system works as follows: Tiny contactless sensors send out magnetic fields that interact with the rotor, determining its exact location many times per second. If the rotor is moving in one direction or another, the control system puts electrical energy into electromagnetic coils within several actuators, causing them to cancel out that movement.
Biocompatibility is one of the biggest challenges in the field because the interactions between a mechanical device and biological systems are so complex. For example, the delicate blood cells and other blood components can be damaged by rough transit through a device. As a key design feature of the heart, they ensured that the blood has plenty of clearance between the levitating rotor and the casing and conduits. All flow paths have clearance gaps of at least 240 micrometers during normal operation, which is more than 20 times the size of a red blood cell. This design reduces the shear forces to which the blood is exposed, and also ensures that there’s no blood stagnation within the casing.
The testing of the one of a kind heart started with a cow for 90 days. Throughout the trial, the calf stayed healthy, energetic and gained weight at a normal rate. It even jogged on a treadmill for 30-minute stretches.
Now the company is envisioning the first human trials. Gravely ill patients will go into the operating room with failing biological hearts beating feebly in their chests, and come out of surgery with smoothly functioning Bivacor artificial hearts.
If the patients can rise from their hospital beds, hug their family members, and continue their lives for many years to come, this could be a great step forward in the long quest for a total artificial heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54
Another great video that explains what can we learn from nCOVID-19 courtesy of TEDx-Talks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqw-9yMV0sI&feature=youtu.be
Heart is the source of our life and also of all the romantic songs around the world. And it’s failure causes the highest number of deaths (about 10 million in 2016 acc. to WHO). Researchers and scientists have been working on artificial hearts for more than 50 years, a handful of them have been developed and only a few of them have made it into human trials.
Making an artificial heart is a challenge considering that the human heart beats about 112,000 times day, and 42 million times a year. So you have to develop a mechanical device that’s small, biocompatible, energy-efficient and durable as well.
The most common mechanical device used is called LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device). It adds its pumping power to an ailing heart, focusing on the left ventricle, which pumps the oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. However, LVADs can cause the right ventricle to falter requiring intensive drug treatments and sometimes the implantation of a right ventricular device.
Maglev heart, designed by the Bivacor company, uses the magnetic levitation principle (which is suspending an object with the help of a magnetic field). Its outer shell is made up of 3-D printed titanium which is a noncorroding metal. Patients just have to wear a 4-kg external controller pack that contains two rechargeable batteries providing 5 hours of operation each.
It contains one motor and one rotating disk (which is suspended in a magnetic field) which simultaneously pumps the blood to the lungs and the body. The larger set of impeller vanes pumps blood at higher pressure necessary to pump the blood throughout the body and the smaller one pumps the blood to the lungs at lower pressure. Some oxygenated blood leaks from the high-pressure side to the low-pressure side, which cleans out the casing and ensures that there are no areas where stagnant blood can form dangerous blood clots.
Here the blue blood resembles the oxygen-depleted blood and the red one resembles the oxygen-rich blood .
It’s important to keep the rotor properly suspended and to prevent it from bumping into the sides of the casing, which could damage the components and smash blood cells. This positional control system works as follows: Tiny contactless sensors send out magnetic fields that interact with the rotor, determining its exact location many times per second. If the rotor is moving in one direction or another, the control system puts electrical energy into electromagnetic coils within several actuators, causing them to cancel out that movement.
Biocompatibility is one of the biggest challenges in the field because the interactions between a mechanical device and biological systems are so complex. For example, the delicate blood cells and other blood components can be damaged by rough transit through a device. As a key design feature of the heart, they ensured that the blood has plenty of clearance between the levitating rotor and the casing and conduits. All flow paths have clearance gaps of at least 240 micrometers during normal operation, which is more than 20 times the size of a red blood cell. This design reduces the shear forces to which the blood is exposed, and also ensures that there’s no blood stagnation within the casing.
Now the company is envisioning the first human trials. Gravely ill patients will go into the operating room with failing biological hearts beating feebly in their chests, and come out of surgery with smoothly functioning Bivacor artificial hearts.
If the patients can rise from their hospital beds, hug their family members, and continue their lives for many years to come, this could be a great step forward in the long quest for a total artificial heart.
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