Dr. Robert Kormos at the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine has secured $13.3 million in funding from the NIH's Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to carry out a 5-year heart device study in collaboration with researchers at the University of Michigan. Both the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Michigan's Center for Circulatory Support are leaders in research on and implantation of artificial hearts (also known as mechanical circulatory support devices).
Typically, patients will receive a heart transplant in the late stages of heart failure; until one becomes available, an artificial device may be implanted to maintain blood circulation. The NHLBI study will recruit 100 patients in the early stages of heart failure to test whether such devices might usefully be installed sooner to preempt future cardiovascular degeneration and improve quality of life.
The heart device that the study will use is the HeartWare Left Ventricular Assist Device™ (LVAD) pump, which has had considerable success in Europe already. HeartWare International, Inc. is also a funding partner in the Pitt-Michigan study, aiming to bring its product to the larger US Market. Their device is smaller than many previous artificial hearts, and has even been used in children. In fact, the increasing miniaturization of the technology (combined with less-invasive procedures) is the impetus for the US study proposing its wider use.
The McGowan Institute at UPMC is unique in its approach to regenerative medicine, in that it combines both biotechnology and engineering in its scientific and clinical work: the same program deals in mechanical hearts and stem cell research. McGowan Chairman and Director Alan Russell describes the breadth of approaches to regenerative medicine at the Institute as including:
- Conventional tissue engineering (combining temporary scaffolds with cellular components)
- Cellular therapies (including adult stem cells and genetically manipulated cells)
- Biosurgery (involving entirely synthetic constructs like artificial organs)
- Functional restoration using biohybrid devices (comprising both synthetic and cellular components)
While the term regenerative medicine has effectively become a synonym for stem cell research today, UPMC continues to pursue more traditional mechanical therapies in conjunction with cellular research (and hybrids of the two). As in the relatively young field of nanotechnology, biology and device technology increasingly find a new convergence as machinery gets smaller and we discover new ways to manipulate biology at the cellular level.
If you are a supplier of laboratory equipment to the medical and life sciences and would like to meet Pittsburgh Area university research scientists, purchasers, and other science and industry representatives, plan on attending the Biotechnology Calendar Pittsburgh BioResearch Product Faire™ Event on the University of Pittsburgh campus June 30, 2011.