Scientists create heart helical structure model for artificial heart

Scientists create heart helical structure model for artificial heart:  Bioengineers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have successfully developed a biohybrid model of human ventricles. Paving the door for creating artificial hearts.

Creating a human heart is essential because, unlike other organs, the heart cannot recover from damage on its own. But to achieve that, scientists must duplicate the intricate heart anatomy. Including helical geometry that produces the twisting movements during a heartbeat.

Although it has long been thought that the twisting action is crucial for pumping large amounts of blood, scientists could not demonstrate that. This was partially due to the difficulty of making hearts using various geometrical shapes.

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Scientists create heart helical structure model for artificial heart

Scientists have shown that muscle alignment enhances the blood volume that the ventricles can pump when contracting in the new research published in Science.

Kit Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS and senior author of the publication, stated that this work represents a significant advance in organ bio fabrication and moves us one step closer to realizing our dream of creating a human heart for transplant.

Focused Rotary Jet Spinning, a novel additive textile production technique, develope by researchers to achieve the conclusion (FRJS). Due to this, they could create helically oriented fibers with diameters varying from a few micrometers to hundreds of nanometers.

Researchers used the model to verify Edward Sallin’s theory that significant ejection fractions required helical alignment. Sallin was the former head of the department of biomathematics at the University of Alabama Birmingham Medical School.

In reality, the human heart comprises many layers of helically oriented muscles at various angles. Huibin Chang, a postdoctoral scholar at SEAS and a co-author of the paper, said: “With FRJS, we can duplicate such complicated structures in a reasonably accurate manner, generating single and even four-chambered ventricle structures.