3D-printed 'electronic glove' could help keep
your heart beating for ever Custom-fitted membrane expands and
contracts with the heart, and could one day
deliver electric shocks in response to a heart
attack This photo shows the new cardiac device ― a thin,
elastic membrane ― fitted over a rabbit's heart. By JAMES VINCENT Monday 03 March 2014 Scientists have created a revolutionary new
electronic membrane that could replace
pacemakers, fitting over a heart to keep it beating
regularly over an indefinite period of time. The device uses a “spider-web-like network of
sensors and electrodes” to continuously monitor
the heart’s electrical activity and could, in the
future, deliver electrical shocks to maintain a
healthy heart-rate. Researchers from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and Washington University in
St. Louis used computer modelling technology
and a 3D-printer to create a prototype membrane
and fit it to a rabbit’s heart, keeping the organ
operating perfectly “outside of the body in a nutrient and oxygen-rich solution”. The use of high-resolution imaging technology
means that unlike current pacemaker and
implantable defibrillator technology, the thin,
elastic membrane will be custom-made to fit
“snugly” over the real heart. "When it senses such a catastrophic event as a
heart attack or arrhythmia, it can also apply a high
definition therapy,” said biomedical engineer Igor
Efimov of Washington University, who helped
design and test the device. “It can apply stimuli, electrical stimuli, from
different locations on the device in an optimal
fashion to stop this arrhythmia and prevent
sudden cardiac death,” Efimov told local radio
station KWMU-1. ‘Cardiac socks’ of a similar design have been
around since the 1980s but have previously been
crude, fabric sleeves with electrodes sewn into
place. This makes keeping the sensors in full
contact with that famously restive organ the heart
extremely difficult, if not impossible. The innovation in this new device is the use of
stretchable electronics developed by John Rogers,
a materials scientists from the University of
Illinois. Although Rogers' electronics use the same rigid
materials found in normal electronics (eg silicon),
the circuits are laid out in curved, s-shaped design
that allows them to stretch and bend without
breaking. High resolution 3D imaging was used to scan
the rabbit's heart and create a mold. Rogers himself compared the silicon sleeve to the
pericardium, the heart’s own membrane, telling
KWMU-1 that “this artificial pericardium is
instrumented with high quality, man-made
devices that can sense and interact with the heart
in different ways that are relevant to clinical cardiology.” Although immediate use for the device will be as a
research tool allowing scientists to study how
heart rate changes in response to different
conditions in the future, electronic membranes of
this sort could become common, monitoring at-
risk individuals and safeguarding them from heart attacks. The research is published in the journal Nature