{"id":194399,"date":"2024-08-12T11:29:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T16:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/maglev-titanium-heart-now-whirs-inside-the-chest-of-a-live-patient"},"modified":"2024-08-12T11:29:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T16:29:40","slug":"maglev-titanium-heart-now-whirs-inside-the-chest-of-a-live-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/maglev-titanium-heart-now-whirs-inside-the-chest-of-a-live-patient","title":{"rendered":"Maglev titanium heart now whirs inside the chest of a live patient"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/maglev-titanium-heart-now-whirs-inside-the-chest-of-a-live-patient2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the first time, the fully mechanical heart made by BiVACOR, which uses the same technology as high-speed rail lines, has been implanted inside a human being. The feat marks a major step in keeping people alive as they wait for heart transplants.<\/p>\n<p>The total artificial heart (TAH) was implanted as part of an early feasibility study overseen by the US Food and Drug Administration. According to a statement from the Texas Heart Institute where the implantation surgery was carried out, the heart \u201cis a titanium-constructed biventricular rotary blood pump with a single moving part that utilizes a magnetically levitated rotor that pumps the blood and replaces both ventricles of a failing heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>BiVACOR, which has been working on the device since 2013, says that the advantage of using a magnetically levitated rotor to drive the device\u2019s blood-circulating function is that there is no friction, which can be such a damaging force to machinery that <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/newatlas.com\/materials\/superlubricity-friction-machines\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">scientists are looking at ways to reduce its effects<\/a>. The device is by no means the first <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/newatlas.com\/3d-printed-heart-real-thing\/50487\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">artificial heart<\/a> to be used \u2013 the first successful implant took place in 1969 \u2013 but it is the first to employ this novel use of maglev technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, the fully mechanical heart made by BiVACOR, which uses the same technology as high-speed rail lines, has been implanted inside a human being. The feat marks a major step in keeping people alive as they wait for heart transplants. The total artificial heart (TAH) was implanted as part of an early [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}