Machine Keeps Heart Beating Outside of Body

Posted by Alex in Medicine, Science & Tech, Video Clips on June 3, 2009 at 7:16 am


Researchers at the North Carolina State University has developed a machine that can keep a heart beating outside the body. The potential medical benefit is huge, though for whatever reason I kept on thinking about Dr. Frankenstein:

"Researchers can obtain pig hearts from a pork processing facility and use the system to test their prototypes or practice new surgical procedures," says Andrew Richards, a Ph. D. student in mechanical engineering at NC State who designed the heart machine.

The computer-controlled machine, which operates using pressurized saline solution, also allows researchers to film the interior workings of the pumping heart – enabling them to ascertain exactly which surgical technologies and techniques perform best for repairing heart valves.

Link – via jwz

Oh, there’s a video all right:


[YouTube Clip]


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11 comments to "Machine Keeps Heart Beating Outside of Body"

  1. Foreigner1
    June 3rd, 2009 at 10:09 am

    Before you know it, you'll see a testperson that is pulled apart and that lives scattered thoughout the whole lab- Heart here, brain in another corner connected to the WWWeb and some robotic arms and hands next to the original arms and legs. Lungs, kidneys and stomach redundant but just for the sake of science kept working in the next corner. And then some drooling scientists caring and nurturing all over all those parts... Welcome tot the 21st Century in all its Glorious Future! :-(

  2. mbunds
    June 3rd, 2009 at 10:15 am

    This heart isn't "beating"; it's being force-fed fluid with a pump. Compare this video to one of an actual living heart for proof....

  3. Christophe
    June 3rd, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    I did that to a frog once, in a biology class. The heart kept beating long enough to attach it to a monitoring device (basically drawing the heart's ECG on a paper)
    Pretty cool, feeling like the priest in the Raiders of the lost ark ;)

  4. Rudy Ascott
    June 3rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    I love science more than anything.

  5. JoeD
    June 3rd, 2009 at 5:40 pm

    Welcome to the 1930's. Charles Lindbergh and Dr Alexis Carrel were doing breakthrough research on this 70 years ago:

    http://www.amazon.com/Immortalists-Charles-Lindbergh-Alexis-Forever/dp  /006052815X

  6. Ali S.
    June 3rd, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    Kali Maaaa!! Kali Maaa!! *hold heart in hand*

  7. xopl
    June 4th, 2009 at 9:50 am

    Related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4VAv8y2hHM

  8. free games for kids
    June 4th, 2009 at 9:58 pm

    That kinda made me cringe...

  9. Kalel
    June 5th, 2009 at 11:53 am

    Fascinatingly icky.

  10. charles
    June 12th, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    That is correct that the heart is not beating. This is especially important with respect to valve function most significantly the left ventricle. Contraction of the ventricle improves valve function for mitral valve repair

  11. takumi
    November 7th, 2009 at 9:54 am

    Can it beat any faster?


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