MIT engineers have developed a custom robotic heart that can be 3D printed from a soft and flexible polymer-based ink. Medical images of a patient’s heart are first converted into a 3D computer model, which is then printed. To mimic the heart’s pumping action, sleeves are wrapped around the printed heart and aorta, and a pneumatic system is used to rhythmically inflate the sleeve’s bubbles to contract the heart, mimicking its pumping action. The 3D printed heart replicas could potentially be used by research labs and the medical device industry as realistic platforms for testing therapies for various types of heart disease.
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.ade2184