Spray-On Heart Muscle
The first artificial heart patented in the US went to Paul Winchell, more commonly remembered from 1950’s television as a ventriloquist and comedian. Like many other devices, including the Jarvik 7, artificial hearts were complicated “machines.” Today’s state-of-the-art device probably is the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart, which is only a more sophisticated version of Winchell’s patent. But researchers at the Zurich Heart Project in Switzerland are experimenting with a design that relies on an electrospun polymer scaffold and “sprayed-on” gelatin-encapsulated living myocytes. When the gelatin sheathing dissolves, the cells joint into forming layers of muscle fiber. Thus far, this has only been accomplished in mouse hearts, but hope exists for doing this with human cells which won’t risk tissue rejection. MORE
Image Credit: Lukas Weidenbacher, Zurich Heart Project and MDTMag.com