| Thin, flexible fibers made of carbon nanotubes have now proven able to bridge damaged heart tissues and deliver the electrical signals needed to keep those hearts beating. | |
| Scientists at Texas Heart Institute (THI) report they have used biocompatible fibers invented at Rice University in studies that showed sewing them directly into damaged tissue can restore electrical function to hearts. | |
| “Instead of shocking and defibrillating, we are actually correcting diseased conduction of the largest major pumping chamber of the heart by creating a bridge to bypass and conduct over a scarred area of a damaged heart,” said Dr. Mehdi Razavi, a cardiologist and director of Electrophysiology Clinical Research and Innovations at THI, who co-led the study with Rice chemical and biomolecular engineer Matteo Pasquali. | |
| “Today there is no technology that treats the underlying cause of the No. 1 cause of sudden death, ventricular arrhythmias,” Razavi said. “These arrhythmias are caused by the disorganized firing of impulses from the heart’s lower chambers and are challenging to treat in patients after a heart attack or with scarred heart tissue due to such other conditions as congestive heart failure or dilated cardiomyopathy.” | |
| Results of the studies on preclinical models appear as an open-access Editor’s Pick in the American Heart Association’s Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology (“In Vivo Restoration of Myocardial Conduction With Carbon Nanotube Fibers”). The association helped fund the research with a 2015 grant. |
Image Credit: Texas Heart Institute
News This Week
Polaritons open up a new lane on the semiconductor highway
On the highway of heat transfer, thermal energy is moved by way of quantum particles called phonons. But at the nanoscale of today's most cutting-edge semiconductors, those phonons don't remove enough heat. That's why [...]
EU seeks agreement on world’s first AI law
The European Union will seek to thrash out an agreement on sweeping rules to regulate artificial intelligence on Wednesday, following months of difficult negotiations in particular on how to monitor generative AI applications like [...]
Lightning sparks scientists’ design of ultraviolet-C device for food sanitization
Scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a portable, self-powered ultraviolet-C device called the Tribo-sanitizer that can inactivate two of the bacteria responsible for many foodborne illnesses and deaths. The Tribo-sanitizer's UVC [...]
3D Eye Scans Emerge as a Crucial Tool in Combating Kidney Disease
A new study indicates that 3D retinal scans could revolutionize the early detection and monitoring of kidney disease, offering a non-invasive and efficient diagnostic tool. 3D eye scans can reveal vital clues about kidney [...]
Researchers develop a blood test to identify individuals at risk of developing Parkinson’s disease
Research carried out at Oxford's Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences has led to the development of a new blood-based test to identify the pathology that triggers Parkinson's disease before the main symptoms occur. This [...]
“Challenging the Paradigm” – Scientists Develop New Approach To Stop Cancer Growth
Biochemists at Case Western Reserve are concentrating on the degradation of a key protein that drives cancer; represents a major shift in research. Biochemical researchers at Case Western Reserve University have discovered a a new function [...]
Researcher develops a chatbot with an expertise in nanomaterials
A researcher has just finished writing a scientific paper. She knows her work could benefit from another perspective. Did she overlook something? Or perhaps there's an application of her research she hadn't thought of. [...]
Research shows human behavior guided by fast changes in dopamine levels
What happens in the human brain when we learn from positive and negative experiences? To help answer that question and better understand decision-making and human behavior, scientists are studying dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter [...]
Tiny robots made from human cells heal damaged tissue
The ‘anthrobots’ were able to repair a scratch in a layer of neurons in the lab. Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells that are able to repair damaged neural tissue1. The [...]
Antimicrobial Resistance – A Global Concern
Key facts Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the top global public health and development threats. It is estimated that bacterial AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019 and contributed to [...]
Advancing Pancreatic Cancer Treatment with Nanoparticle-Based Chemotherapy
Pancreatic cancer, a particularly lethal form of cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the western world, often remains undiagnosed until its advanced stages due to a lack of early symptoms. [...]
The ‘jigglings and wigglings of atoms’ reveal key aspects of COVID-19 virulence evolution
Richard Feynman famously stated, "Everything that living things do can be understood in terms of the jigglings and wigglings of atoms." This week, Nature Nanotechnology features a study that sheds new light on the evolution of the coronavirus [...]
AI system self-organizes to develop features of brains of complex organisms
Cambridge scientists have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system—in much the same way that the human brain has to develop and operate within physical and biological constraints—allows it to develop features [...]
How Blind People Recognize Faces via Sound
Summary: A new study reveals that people who are blind can recognize faces using auditory patterns processed by the fusiform face area, a brain region crucial for face processing in sighted individuals. The study employed [...]
Treating tumors with engineered dendritic cells
Cancer biologists at EPFL, UNIGE, and the German Cancer Research Center (Heidelberg) have developed a novel immunotherapy that does not require knowledge of a tumor's antigenic makeup. The new results may pave the way [...]
Networking nano-biosensors for wireless communication in the blood
Biological computing machines, such as micro and nano-implants that can collect important information inside the human body, are transforming medicine. Yet, networking them for communication has proven challenging. Now, a global team, including EPFL [...]
