A leading candidate for a £30 million grant being offered by The British Heart Foundation’s ‘big beat challenge’, says that it believes it will have developed a long-life robotic heart by 2028, if it secures the necessary funding. Artificial hearts currently available are made of plastic and are only used as an emergency short term solution to keep patients alive while waiting for a heart transplant.
But a team of scientists from the Netherlands, led by Amsterdam University’s Jolanda Kluin, are in the process of developing an alternative that could last for many years. Their robo-heart combines artificial materials with tissue grown from the recipient’s own cells.
The device will have a soft outer casing, or shell, made of artificial muscles that will pulse in exactly the same way as the natural organ does in order to pump blood around the body. The lining of tissue grown from the host’s cells will prevent infection and mean the device won’t be rejected by its host’s body. The combination should mean that, in most cases, these examples of the latest biotechnology developments last for as long as their hosts needs them.
Source: The Times
The big beat challenge is an initiative of the British Heart Foundation aimed at reducing heart-related deaths. The four short-listed candidates for the single biggest grant in the charity’s history were announced yesterday and included the Dutch robo-heart team.
The other 3 shortlisted contenders for the £30 million grant are a potential “vaccine” against heart attacks, a genetic cure for inherited heart diseases and a new generation of wearable sensors to monitor patients at risk of heart issues.
Researchers at Cambridge University are in the process of creating 3D maps of the fatty deposits that build up in arteries, as well as analysing their genetic make-up. The project believes that information can “lead to a new wave of medicines and vaccines that can prevent heart attacks and strokes”.
The second of the other contenders is a project under the direction of Oxford University’s Hugh Watkins. It aims to find a way to cure heart diseases resulting from a faulty gene by locating and editing the gene itself, correcting the underlying genetic defect.
Finally, the robo-heart’s third shortlisted contented for the grant is a new generation of wearable devices being developed by Belgian researchers. These heart activity trackers are to be worn by patients throughout the day. The team say the data their devices would gather on heart activity could “transform diagnosis, monitoring and treatment” of heart diseases.
Medical, biotechnological and technological advances are seeing steady progress in the treatment and prevention of heart diseases and conditions year on year. While the overall direction is positive, Professor Sir Nilesh Samani of the British Heart Foundation hopes that the organisation funding grants like the £30 million prize now on offer will lead to “a giant leap. [Our] ‘man on the moon’ moment.”
The winner of the big beat challenge, and recipient of the £30 million grant, will be announced later this year. The exact date has yet to be confirmed.