On March 24, Winston became the long-term recipient of a wireless electric artificial heart. As Winston scampers in the fields adjacent to the Medical Center, he carries within him the latest metal and plastic version of what Penn State researchers hope will someday. Perhaps by the end of the decade, become a permanent replacement for a failing human heart. It reaffirms our group's leadership role. The heart is powered by an external battery kept near the recipient.
Energy is transmitted from the battery across the skin by a pair of electric coils.
This energy is then used by an implanted electronic control system to power the small electric motor that provides the moving force for the blood pump. A tiny battery, housed in the same container as the electronics, provides about 30 minutes of operation when the external coil is removed. Before human clinical trials become a reality, the group will have to run the electric heart through its paces, beginning with additional testing on a mock circulation system that was used to verify the operation of the device before it was implanted in animals. We will have to run 10 to 20 of these devices, funning each one continuously for one to two years, looking for failures and trying to predict the reliability of the system. This will probably take four years.