7News Just InArtificial heart device implanted into Australian patient for first time
An Australian biomedical engineer is changing and saving lives with his artificial heart device. Developed over 25 years, it's been implanted into an Australian patient for the first time.
For more, Samantha Cheney reports.
The biber Core artificial heart is the work of Brisbane inventor doctor Daniel Timms, who spent twenty five years developing it. It's made from titanium and about the size of a fist, it weighs just six hundred grams. What sets it apart from other artificial hearts is that it pumps blood around the body using a single rotor, and where other artificial hearts mimic just the left side of the heart, the biber Core replaces both sides, capable of pumping more than twelve liters a minute. The first Australian transplant is part of a feasibility study to show how the revolutionary device works. There have already been a number of others in the US this year. At this stage, the titanium heart is aimed at keeping patients.
Alive long enough for an actual heart transplant.
Ultimately, though, the aim is to make it a permanent replacement for the human heart.
