The Eindhoven-based company LifeTec Group has succeeded in making the heart of a deceased woman beat again.
The heart was connected on a work table to different snakes that simulate the flow of blood and oxygen. This made the human heart beat again. This makes the LifeTec Group researchers one of the few in the world who can make a dead heart work again.
Marco Stijnen, head of innovation, emphasises to Eindhovens Dagblad that the heart does not come to life again. “They are beating, but they are not alive. It is and remains dead material.”
Special assignment
The company needed an outdated human heart for a secret assignment. That’s why they ordered one from the United States. Until her death, the heart was “carried” by an eighty-six-year-old American woman.
Normally the Eindhoven company works with young pig hearts, but this has some disadvantages compared to an (older) human heart. Practicing with an actual human heart is more realistic, but it is also easier to test certain things during a recovery operation. For example, whether a suture remains in place and whether there is a leak somewhere else.
After viewing the results, the human heart is processed in the medical residual waste.
Source: Studio040
Translator: Dirk
