An inside look in to the Heart
In a lab in the basement of a University of Minnesota building, researchers have performed heart transplants with humans, swine, canines and guinea pigs acting as donors. But the recipient of the different transplant hearts always stays the same.
The Visible Heart Laboratory transplants a heart and maintains its physiological processes by placing it into an apparatus that allows for truly unique research for scientists and premier bench testing for the lab’s collaborator, Medtronic, a medical technology company based in Minneapolis.
Paul Iaizzo, associate director of the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, said male swine otherwise going to the slaughterhouse provide the majority of the hearts used for research. However, the lab has also had the opportunity to work with about 40 human hearts deemed unfit for the donor list.
Once the heart is acquired, it is cut out of the donor in a room adjacent to the apparatus, according to Iaizzo, who said he is the only person to perform the procedure for the 700-800 hearts the lab has seen since it began work in 1997.
Iaizzo, who is the principal investigator of the lab, said he then places the heart into the apparatus, which is another process he has performed exclusively since the lab started.
Placing the heart into the apparatus to mimic the correct physiology is a procedure many scientists have not been able to replicate because of the delicate nature of the process, according to Iaizzo.
This article is really interesting because of the unique way these researchers are observing the heart. They are taking images of the heart that have never been taken before. By allowing the heart to function outside of the body they can actually see how everything works as if the heart was in its natural place. Images taken by these researchers give us a better understanding of the anatomy of the heart as well. They mimic the physiology of the body through the equipment attached to the heart and future experiments can mimic abnormal physiological conditions such as heart attack, thus they can witness what really happens to the heart during a heart attack.
http://www.mndaily.com/2010/04/29/u-researchers-get-inside-look-heart
The Visible Heart Laboratory transplants a heart and maintains its physiological processes by placing it into an apparatus that allows for truly unique research for scientists and premier bench testing for the lab’s collaborator, Medtronic, a medical technology company based in Minneapolis.
Paul Iaizzo, associate director of the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, said male swine otherwise going to the slaughterhouse provide the majority of the hearts used for research. However, the lab has also had the opportunity to work with about 40 human hearts deemed unfit for the donor list.
Once the heart is acquired, it is cut out of the donor in a room adjacent to the apparatus, according to Iaizzo, who said he is the only person to perform the procedure for the 700-800 hearts the lab has seen since it began work in 1997.
Iaizzo, who is the principal investigator of the lab, said he then places the heart into the apparatus, which is another process he has performed exclusively since the lab started.
Placing the heart into the apparatus to mimic the correct physiology is a procedure many scientists have not been able to replicate because of the delicate nature of the process, according to Iaizzo.
This article is really interesting because of the unique way these researchers are observing the heart. They are taking images of the heart that have never been taken before. By allowing the heart to function outside of the body they can actually see how everything works as if the heart was in its natural place. Images taken by these researchers give us a better understanding of the anatomy of the heart as well. They mimic the physiology of the body through the equipment attached to the heart and future experiments can mimic abnormal physiological conditions such as heart attack, thus they can witness what really happens to the heart during a heart attack.
http://www.mndaily.com/2010/04/29/u-researchers-get-inside-look-heart
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