Heart Failure a Thing of the Past with Texas's Bionic Heart

The bionic heart being developed at Texas Heart Institute does not beat and yet mimics the human heart, providing hope to millions worldwide suffering from heart disease.

The artificial heart does not pump blood but propels it through the body. It has only one moving part, reports ABC News. The human heart on the other hand beats 42 million times a year. Replicating it with moving parts means frequent wear. The bionic heart is being developed by BiVACOR at Texas Heart Institute.

BiVACOR's chief medical officer William Cohn said that researchers from all over the world are working on the device, according to Zee News. The bionic heart measures smaller than a soda can. The disc in the heart spins at 2,000 to 3,000 times a minute and has fins suspended by magnetic fields. The heart can compensate for changes in body's activity. It was learnt that the device can adjust to keep the spinning even as in case of exercising or when coughing.

The prototype of bionic heart developed by the team has shown high efficiency in animal studies. The tests have shown animals performing as expected on treadmill. The animals lived for a month before researchers put them down to study liver and kidney. They found that both kidney and liver function with the bionic heart, satisfactory.