We're on our way folks, almost there, soon we'll all be implanted enough to live to see our 150th birthday, and shoot a little hoops to celebrate. One of the ways we could get there is with this fully functional artificial heart that could be ready for clinical trials by the year 2011.
Alain Carpentier, head of a European research team responsible for the first ever artificial heart heart told the Daily Mail, "After 15 years of work, we are handing over to industry to produce an artificial heart."
The prototype was developed with the help of aerospace engineers. Shaped like a real heart, with the same blood flow rhythms, it uses similar technology to artificial heart valves already used around the world.
The recurring problems of most artificial hearts – immune system rejection and blood clotting – are avoided by constructing it from chemically treated animal tissues.
The device is designed for patients who have suffered a massive heart attack or late-stage heart failure, for whom drug therapy or heart transplant have failed or are not available.---Daily Mail
This is not a license to go out and get that second Big Mac today, take good care of the one you have. Besides, it'll probably be another 50 years before this one and any other after it will be anywhere near affordable.
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