William Atkins
Thursday, 07 May 2009 06:30
Science -
Health
Page 1 of 2
NASA announces that a substance initially applied for aerospace research has now been used as an important piece of an implantable medical device for people with heart failure.
The May 6, 2009 article “
Cardiac patients take NASA super plastic to heart ” describes how an advanced aerospace resin created at NASA’s
Langley Research Center (Hampton, Virginia) can be successfully used for medical devices because it is biologically inert; that is, the human body does not react adversely to it when it is inserted inside.
The resin, called Langley Research Center’s Soluble Imide (or LaRC-SI) has highly desirable characteristics for many applications, especially in medicine.
It is highly flexible in its composition and very compact in its usage, while being resistant to chemicals and withstanding extremely cold and hot temperatures.
Rob Bryant, a senior researcher at NASA Langley and also the material’s inventor, stated,
“One of the advantages of this material is that it lends itself to a variety of diverse applications, from mechanical parts and composites to electrical insulation and adhesive bonding.” [NASA]
The NASA article states that the substance was licensed, in July 2004, to Minneapolis-Minnesota-based
Medtronic Inc. Since then, the LaRC-SI has been used within the company’s
Attain Ability left-heart lead.
In fact, on May 6, 2009, the company
announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of the Attain Ability left heart lead (Model 4196) with cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices for heart failure patients.
Heart failure occurs in humans when the heart muscles fails to pump effectively, so is unable to provide enough blood and oxygen to the body.
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