Testing new cardiac techniques and devices on live animals requires proper oversight, regulation, and considerable expense. To overcome this, researchers at North Carolina State University developed a machine, specifically intended for study of mitral valve repair, that can pump a pig's heart straight from the slaughterhouse. "Researchers can obtain pig hearts from a pork processing facility and use the system to test their prototypes or practice new surgical procedures," says Andrew Richards, a Ph. D. student in mechanical engineering at NC State who designed the heart machine.
It's aliiiive. Kinda.
Machine Keeps Animal Hearts Beating for Research
Tags: mad science, mpegs, parts
Current Music: Danielle Dax -- Touch Piggy's Eyes ♬
2 Responses:
n.b. the new (and awesome) part here is that they can restart and keep beating a heart that was removed in, ah, less than surgically controlled circumstances.
Keeping a heart beating when you've got a team of surgeons connecting it valve-by-value to the perfusion apparatus as you remove it from the test animal is a 20+ year old trick. (Back in the late 80s / early 90s, I worked for a guy who did it on a weekly basis.)
Y'know Bill Cosby did a whole 15 minute routine about the Rod Serling radio play which started this way. It was funny until I heard that radio play and was young enough for it to freak me out the same way.
So my reaction to this is DO NOT WANT.