Tag: heart disease

The Future of Medicine: The Era of Artificial Hearts

05Between artificial knees, total hip replacements, cataract surgery, hearing aids, dentures, and cochlear implants, we are a society that is fast becoming transhuman. Basically, this means we are dedicated to improving human health through substitution and augmentation of our body parts. Lately, bioprinting has begun offering solutions for replacement organs; but so far, a perfectly healthy heart, has remained elusive.

Heart disease is the number one killer in North America, comparable only to strokes, and claiming nearly 600,000 lives every year in the US and 70,000 in Canada. But radical new medical technology may soon change that. There have been over 1,000 artificial heart transplant surgeries carried out in humans over the last 35 years, and over 11,000 more heart surgeries where valve pumps were installed have also been performed.

artificial-heart-abiocor-implantingAnd earlier this month, a major step was taken when the French company Carmat implanted a permanent artificial heart in a patient. This was the second time in history that this company performed a total artificial heart implant, the first time being back in December when they performed the implant surgery on a 76-year-old man in which no additional donor heart was sought. This was a major development for two reasons.

For one, robotic organs are still limited to acting as a temporary bridge to buy patients precious time until a suitable biological heart becomes available. Second, transplanted biological hearts, while often successful, are very difficult to come by due to a shortage of suitable organs. Over 100,000 people around the world at any given time are waiting for a heart and there simply are not enough healthy hearts available for the thousands who need them.

carmat_heartThis shortage has prompted numerous medical companies to begin looking into the development of artificial hearts, where the creation of a successful and permanent robotic heart could generate billions of dollars and help revolutionize medicine and health care. Far from being a stopgap or temporary measure, these new hearts would be designed to last many years, maybe someday extending patients lives indefinitely.

Carmat – led by co-founder and heart transplant specialist Dr. Alain Carpentier – spent 25 years developing the heart. The device weighs three times that of an average human heart, is made of soft “biomaterials,” and operates off a five-year lithium battery. The key difference between Carmat’s heart and past efforts is that Carmat’s is self-regulating, and actively seeks to mimic the real human heart, via an array of sophisticated sensors.

carmat-artificial-heartUnfortunately, the patient who received the first Carmat heart died prematurely only a few months after its installation. Early indications showed that there was a short circuit in the device, but Carmat is still investigating the details of the death. On September 5th, however, another patient in France received the Carmat heart, and according to French Minister Marisol Touraine the “intervention confirms that heart transplant procedures are entering a new era.”

More than just pumping blood, future artificial hearts are expected to bring numerous other advantages with them. Futurists and developers predict they will have computer chips and wi-fi capacity built into them, and people could be able to control their hearts with smart phones, tuning down its pumping capacity when they want to sleep, or tuning it up when they want to run marathons.

carmat_heart1The benefits are certainly apparent in this. With people able to tailor their own heart rates, they could control their stress reaction (thus eliminating the need for Xanax and beta blockers) and increase the rate of blood flow to ensure maximum physical performance. Future artificial hearts may also replace the need for some doctor visits and physicals, since it will be able to monitor health and vitals and relay that information to a database or device.

In fact, much of the wearable medical tech that is in vogue right now will likely become obsolete once the artificial heart arrives in its perfected form. Naturally, health experts would find this problematic, since our hearts respond to our surroundings for a reason, and such stimuli could very well have  unintended consequences. People tampering with their own heart rate could certainly do so irresponsibly, and end up causing damage other parts of their body.

carmat_heart2One major downside of artificial hearts is their exposure to being hacked thanks to their Wi-Fi capability. If organized criminals, an authoritarian government, or malignant hackers were dedicated enough, they could cause targeted heart failure. Viruses could also be sent into the heart’s software, or the password to the app controlling your heart could be stolen and misused.

Naturally, there are also some critics who worry that, beyond the efficacy of the device itself, an artificial heart is too large a step towards becoming a cyborg. This is certainly true when it comes to all artificial replacements, such as limbs and biomedical implants, technology which is already available. Whenever a new device or technique is revealed, the specter of “cyborgs” is raised with uncomfortable implications.

transhuman3However, the benefit of an artificial heart is that it will be hidden inside the body, and it will soon be better than the real thing. And given that it could mean the difference between life and death, there are likely to be millions of people who will want one and are even willing to electively line up for one once they become available. The biggest dilemma with the heart will probably be affordability.

Currently, the Carmat heart costs about $200,000. However, this is to be expected when a new technology is still in its early development phase. In a few years time, when the technology becomes more widely available, it will likely drop in price to the point that they become much more affordable. And in time, it will be joined by other biotechnological replacements that, while artificial, are an undeniably improvement on the real thing.

The era of the Transhumanism looms!

Source: motherboard.vice.com, carmatsa.com, cdc.gov, heartandstroke.com

The Future of Medicine: Gene Therapy and Treatments

DNA-1Imagine a world where all known diseases were curable, where health problems could be treated in a non-invasive manner, and life could be extended significantly? Thanks to ongoing research into the human genome, and treatments arising out of it, that day may be coming soon. That’s the idea behind gene therapy and pharmacoperones – two treatment procedures that may make disease obsolete in the near future.

The first comes to us from the Utah School of Medicine, where researcher Amit Patel recently developed a non-invasive, naked DNA approach to deal with treating heart problems. His process was recently tested o Ernie Lively, an actor suffering from heart damage, who made a full recovered afterwards without ever having to go under the knife.

gene_therapyIn short, Patel’s method relies on a catheter, which he used to access the main cardiac vein (or coronary sinus), where a balloon is inflated to halt the flow of blood and isolate the area. A high dose of naked DNA, which codes for a protein called SDF-1, is then delivered. SDF-1, which stands for stromal cell-derived factor, is a potent attractant both for stem cells circulating in the bloodstream, and for those developing in the bone marrow.

Stromal cells, which manufacture SDF-1, are the creative force which knit together our fibrous connective tissues. The problem is they do not make enough of this SDF-1 under normal conditions, nor do specifically deliver it in just the right places for repair of a mature heart. By introducing a dose of these cells directly into the heart, Patel was able to give Lively what his heart needed, where it needed it.

gene_therapy1Compared to other gene therapies, the introduction of SDF-1 into cells was done without the assistance of a virus. These “viral vector” method have had trouble in the past due to the fact that after the virus helps target specific cells for treatment, the remnant viral components can draw unwanted attention from the immune system, leading to complications.

But of course, there is still much to be learned about the SDF-1 treatment and others like it before it can be considered a viable replacement for things like open-heart surgery. For one, the yield – the number or percentage of cells that take up the DNA – remains unknown. Neither are the precise mechanisms of uptake and integration within the cell known here.

Fortunately, a great deal of research is being done, particularly by neuroscientists who are looking to control brain cells through the use of raw DNA as well. Given time, additional research, and several clinical trials, a refined version of this process could be the cure for heart-related diseases, Alzheimer’s, and other disorders that are currently thought to be incurable, or require surgery.

pharmacoperones-protein-foldingAnother breakthrough treatment that is expected to revolutionize medicine comes in the form of pharmacoperones (aka. “protein chaperones”). a new field of drugs that have the ability to enter cells and fix misfolded proteins. These kind of mutations usually result in proteins becoming inactive; but in some cases, can lead to toxic functionality or even diseases.

Basically, proteins adopt their functional 3-D structure by folding linear chains of amino acids, and gene mutation can cause this folding process to go awry, resulting in “misfolding”. Up until recently, scientists believed these proteins were simply non-functional. But thanks to ongoing research, it is now known their inactivity is due to the cell’s quality control system misrouting them within the cell.

protein1Although this process has been observed under a microscope in recent years, a team led by Doctor P. Michael Conn while at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) was the first to demonstrate it in a living laboratory animal. The team was able to cure mice of a disease that makes the males unable to father offspring, and believe the technique will also work on human beings.

The team says neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s, as well as certain types of diabetes, inherited cataracts and cystic fibrosis are just a few of the diseases that could potentially be cured using the new approach. Now working at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), Conn and his team are looking to conduct human trials.

DNA-molecule2One of the hallmarks of the coming age of science, technology and medicine is the idea that people will be living in post-mortality age, where all diseases and conditions are curable and life can be extended almost indefinitely. Might still sound like science fiction, but all of this research is indicative of the burgeoning trend where things that were once thought to be “treatable but not curable” is a thing of the past.

It’s an exciting time to be living in, almost as exciting as the world our children will be inhabiting – assuming things go according to plan. And in the meantime, check out this video of the SDF-1 gene therapy in action, courtesy of the University of Utah School of Medicine:


Sources: extremetech.com, gizmag.com