New artificial heart pump assists and repairs defective hearts

By William Atkins
Monday, 08 September 2008 18:54

Science - Health

American inventors and faculty at the University of Utah have developed an artificial heart pump that can assist the pumping of a person’s natural heart, but also helps to repair it by taking cardiac stem cells from the blood stream and injecting them into the heart.


David A. Bull, Rafe C. Connors, Harold M. Erickson, James Yockman, and Sung Wan Kim have applied for a patient for their “Ventricular Assist Device” that is “Capable of Implantation of Stem Cells."

This description is also the title of their patient application, as found on the website of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

A generic ventricular assist device (VAD) is a small battery-operated heart pump that is implanted near the defective heart within a patient in need of a heart transplant.

This VAD helps the defective heart to pump blood, which relieves the ailing heart of some of its duties, while maintaining an adequate blood pressure and blood flow.

However, this unique VAD, by these Utah inventors, also helps to repair the defective heart because it is designed to take in stem cells naturally found in the blood stream and inject them into the heart. These cardiac stem cells then go to work to make repairs on the defective heart.

Why is this device so important in the world of heart transplants? Please read on.