Crowdfunding, which Gunma University has been promoting with the aim of raising development costs for pediatric ultra-small artificial hearts, has achieved the target amount of 3,000 million yen. The plan is to complete the first prototype by the end of February 2023.Although crowdfunding has ended, Gunma University will continue to accept donations for artificial heart development costs.
According to Gunma University, this project is "I want to save pediatric patients with severe heart failure! Development of an ultra-small artificial heart", and was led by Associate Professor Nobuyuki Kurita of the Graduate School of Science and Technology.Support continued to exceed the initial target from the start of donation solicitation, and 59 million yen was collected in 3,088 days, achieving the target amount of 3,000 million yen.
An artificial heart is a device that acts as a substitute for the pumping function of the heart.Heart transplantation is effective for patients who are difficult to treat with drugs, but it takes an average of about 4 years for the donor to be found and the transplantation to be realized, and an artificial heart is used while waiting.In particular, since children have few heart donors, this waiting period tends to be longer than that of adults, but the development of artificial hearts for children has been delayed due to the difficulty of commercialization.
Gunma University plans to develop an implantable artificial heart that can be used for a long time using an ultra-small magnetic levitation motor.We would like to develop the first prototype by the end of February 1 and the second prototype by the end of June 2023, and use them for critically ill pediatric patients.
