This Maglev Heart Could Keep Cardiac Patients Alive When They Wait For Organ Donor

A team of experts from Bivacor, a private medical company, has been working for around eight years, all the way back in 2001, to create a bionic heart that can keep cardiac patients alive. This creation is shared by three of the company’s engineers on IEEE Spectrum writeup.

The magnetic levitation will generate power, and this steampunk apparatus will harness that energy to spin a disc at a fast speed, pumping blood to all over the patient’s body as well as returning the oxygen-depleted blood to the lungs.

This Bivacor heart is not meant to replace a real heart, but rather, it serves as a temporary measure to keep the patient alive when they wait for a donor.

In comparison with other artificial hearts available now, the Bivacor heart is far lighter and smaller, weighing only 650 grams. It also has an external controller with batteries that the patient can wear. All of this means that users can go on with their daily life while wearing this artificial heart.

The experts behind this Bivacor heart does not try to make one that is similar to a real human heart like other counterparts that are 3D-printed. This organ has no ventricles, no valves, but rather, a magnetically levitating centrifugal pump, which can provide the body with a continuous bloodstream. However, that means the one who is wearing this heart will have no pulse.

A test was conducted in April by Texas Heart Institute’s surgeons and Bivacor on a brown cow. The test subject manages to stay alive and healthy for the whole 90-day trial. It could even jog on a treadmill for half an hour.

Bivacor hopes that they can have the agreement of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a human trial when they submit the request in 2020.