Medical Design Briefs - October 2024 - 39

n Project Aims to Improve LVADs
Researchers are bringing together
multiple areas of technical
expertise to improve LVAD
performance and outcomes.
One team will develop a smart
magnetically levitated (Maglev)
drive system that can sense the
body's physiological changes
and automatically adjust the pump speed to meet the patient's
daily output requirement, such as for exercising and sleeping.
The device's blood compatibility also is expected to be significantly
increased by applying special slippery hydrophilic coatings
to LVAD components to reduce the risk of blood clotting.
Another group will use machine learning to optimize the
LVAD design to decrease the risks of blood clotting and
blood damage. The team also will develop a novel pump inlet
design, inspired by current stent and transcatheter aortic
valve technology, to remedy the common problem of clot
formation where the blood flow enters the LVAD.
The teams then will combine their synergistic technologies into
a new LVAD prototype device that will be tested both in a benchtop
flow loop and in preclinical models. The LVAD would greatly
reduce the complications associated with long-term mechanical
circulatory support. (Image credit: Texas Heart Institute)
For more information, visit www.medicaldesignbriefs.com/
roundup/1024/LVADs.
n Material Improves Implantable Technology
Borophene is more conductive,
thinner, lighter, stronger,
and more flexible than graphene,
the 2D version of carbon. Now,
researchers have made the material
potentially more useful by
imparting chirality - or handedness
- on it, which could make
for advanced sensors and implantable medical devices. The
chirality, induced via a method never before used on borophene,
enables the material to interact in unique ways with different
biological units such as cells and protein precursors.
The researchers synthesized borophene platelets - similar
to the cellular fragments found in blood - using solution state
synthesis, which involves exposing a powdered version of the
material in a liquid to one or more external factors, such as
heat or pressure, until they combine into the desired product.
The researchers found that certain amino acids, like cysteine,
would bind to borophene in distinct locations, depending
on their chiral handedness. The researchers exposed the
chiralized borophene platelets to mammalian cells in a dish
and observed that their handedness changed how they interacted
with cell membranes and entered cells. (Image credit:
Dipanjan Pan.)
For more information, visit www.medicaldesignbriefs.com/
roundup/1024/implantable.
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Medical Design Briefs, October 2024
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http://www.medicaldesignbriefs.com/roundup/1024/roundup/1024/LVADs http://www.medicaldesignbriefs.com/roundup/1024/roundup/implantable http://info.hotims.com/86260-825 http://info.hotims.com/86260-825 http://info.hotims.com/86260-747 https://www.medicaldesignbriefs.com

Medical Design Briefs - October 2024

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