Collaborators at Rice University, Texas Heart Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, and North Carolina State University have been awarded two grants from the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health to develop and optimize left ventricular assist devices (LVADs). I received the money. A support pump implanted as an alternative to heart transplantation for patients with end-stage heart failure.

“These are two very interesting projects that are going to help people with severe heart disease,” said Rice University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, who co-investigated the two grants. Joseph Cavallaro said. “Our multidisciplinary team is addressing many of the major electrical and mechanical challenges that limit the use of LVADs today.”

Approximately 7 million people in the United States are affected by heart failure, and approximately 400,000 die each year. For patients with advanced heart failure, LVADs are increasingly being used as a targeted therapy, a way to provide permanent mechanical heart support. Therefore, it is highly necessary to reduce device-related complications such as infection, stroke, and bleeding.

The goal of the two research projects is to develop engineering solutions to reduce complications related to blood clotting and tissue damage, as well as driveline complications such as infection and movement limitations.

Cavallaro, an expert in very large scale integrated system design, signal processing, wireless communications and computer engineering systems, said: “This research project is critical to the development of next-generation LVADs with the potential to serve as a long-term destination. ”. It is a treatment to help a limited number of patients with advanced heart disease who may not be candidates for heart transplants. ”

In the Department of Defense-funded project, Cavallaro and his group will develop an external power source (a wearable rechargeable battery) and a transmitter to wirelessly power the implanted pump. The system also includes a communication link for the centrifugal pump to provide feedback to the external power system.

“Our plan to use wireless energy transfer to power LVADs promises to reduce the current risk of infection through control and power cables through the skin,” Cavallaro said. Ta. “Wireless energy transmission increases freedom of movement and improves quality of life.”

For more information about the DOD-funded project, see the Texas Heart Institute announcement.

In this NIH-funded project, Cavallaro and his team will sense physiological changes in the body and automatically adjust pump speed to meet the patient’s daily output requirements, such as exercise and sleep. They plan to develop a “smart” magnetic levitation drive system that can do this.

“Machine learning algorithms will better adapt LVAD performance to changes in patient activity,” Cavallaro said.

A detailed announcement of the NIH-funded project can be found on the Texas Heart Institute website.

The researchers on the two grants are Lakshmi P. Dashi, the Rosell Vanda Wesley Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter School of Biomedical Engineering and director of Georgia Tech’s Cardiovascular Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Arun Kumar Kota, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University. OH Frazier, MD, Director, Texas Heart Institute Preclinical Surgical and Interventional Research Center. said Yaxin Wang, director of the Texas Heart Institute’s Innovative Devices and Engineering Applications Lab.

Mehdi Razavi, MD, is a clinical electrophysiologist and director of the Division of Electrophysiology Clinical Research and Innovation at the Texas Heart Institute, an adjunct associate professor of bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering at Rice University, and a member of the Department of Defense. He is also a grant co-investigator.

Award information:

Department of Defense – Award Number HT94252310663
This research was supported by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs and received $7,836,599 through the Department of Defense Health Programs, Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program, and Intensive Program Awards. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health or the Department of Defense.

National Institutes of Health – Award Number R01HL166724
The above research was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Photo Caption: Joseph Cavallaro is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science at Rice University. (Photo credit: Gustavo Raskosky/Rice University)

Link:

Vertical integrated projects: https://eceweb.rice.edu/research/vertical-integrated-projects

Rice Wireless: https://wireless.rice.edu/

George R. Brown School of Engineering: https://engineering.rice.edu/

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: https://eceweb.rice.edu/

Department of Computer Science: https://csweb.rice.edu/

Department of Bioengineering: https://bioengineering.rice.edu/