Spring / Summer 2013 - Rochester Institute of Technology

Focus Area | Exploring the Heart
LVAD Clinical Testing: Steven Day (front left) and colleagues from
the Utah Artificial Heart Institute have completed prototype development
of the hybrid magnetic axial flow Left Ventricle Assist Device (LVAD)
and carried out initial clinical testing of the device on live bovines.
Further animal testing is the next step in the development process.
Novel Blood Pump: Clinical results have demonstrated that the use
of rotary pumps as assist devices is effective in maintaining normal
physiological conditions in heart patients. All rotary pumps approved for
clinical use have some type of mechanical bearings and considerable
design effort has been put into designing these bearings, to reduce
mechanical wear and to reduce hemolysis (cell damage) in pumps
with mechanical bearings. This idealized axial flow pump has a simple,
unobstructed single blood flow path and novel hybrid magnetic bearings
that overcome the strong axial forces on the impeller without compromising
the idealized flow path.
temporary basis before and after various
types of heart surgery, in patients
awaiting heart transplants, or longer
term for some patients who are not
candidates for a transplant.
Results of the University of Utah
project have been promising. “We had
reached the animal-studies stage,” says
Day, noting that the cost to continue is
about $1 million per year. “Now, we’re
trying to figure out what to do next, to
submit a new proposal to the National
Institutes of Health or a foundation,
or find commercial sponsorship.
We haven’t given up.”
Meanwhile, at RIT two teams of
students are working with Day as part
of the Kate Gleason College of Engineering’s
multidisciplinary senior design
program. The current projects focus
on wireless power and cable connectors
for heart pumps.
“Over the past few years we’ve done
six or more senior design projects related
to the blood pump,” Day says. More than
60 students have been involved in design
projects or as co-ops or on master’s
degree thesis projects.
Day also collaborates with the
University of Rochester Cardiovascular
Engineering Lab (www.urmc.rochester.
edu/labs/Cardiovascular-Engineering-
Lab/), which brings RIT researchers
and students together with UR physicians
including Karl Q. Schwarz, professor
of medicine and director of the Echocardiography
Laboratory and Mobile
Cardiovascular Imaging Service at the
UR Medical Center.
Schwarz has sponsored several heartrelated
research projects over the past
decade. Students built an artificial heart
simulator device to use as a tool for
cardiovascular research—for example,
to test the performance of artificial
heart valves.
“For me, in terms of access to technology,
it’s like a candy store here,” says
Schwarz of Day’s lab in RIT’s mechanical
engineering department, where he is a
frequent visitor. “The RIT students are
very goal-oriented, task-oriented. We’re
getting some good research done and
forwarding the education of students.
It benefits everyone.”
On the Web
The Virtual Heart
TheVirtualHeart.org
Biomedical Engineering
www.rit.edu/kgcoe/biomedical
Computing and Information Sciences Ph.D.
phd.gccis.rit.edu
26
Spring/Summer 2013 Report