On December 2, 1982, the first permanent artificial heart was transplanted into a patient named Barney Clark by surgeons at the University of Utah. It was a groundbreaking event, but reliably restoring broken hearts is an ongoing research and development issue.
Lehigh University has had its share of important contributors to heart health and innovation. Below are just a few.
Pneumatic Heart-Assist Pump
William S. Pierce ’58 ’88H, who earned a BS in chemical engineering at Lehigh before going on for a medical degree, is the cardiothoracic surgeon and chemical engineer whose pioneering work led to the development of the first pneumatic heart-assist pump – and to Pierce’s world renown as a father of the ventricular assist device. The device is a mechanical pump, used to support heart function and blood flow in weak or failing hearts.
The Pierce-Donachy Ventricular Assist Device was designated an International Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1990.
The original pneumatic heart assist pump has been used in nearly 5,000 patients for right, left, and biventricular support.
Nicole Byram ’02, BS in chemical engineering, was inspired by Pierce and his groundbreaking work on the artificial heart when she met him during a shadowing experience at Penn State College of Medicine during her senior year in high school. Upon learning that Pierce graduated from Lehigh with a chemical engineering degree, Byram instantly knew she wanted to follow the same path.
After her first year at Lehigh, Byram spent every summer with the Penn State group, working on the artificial heart and ventricular assist device that was then in development. This led to Byram landing her first job with the renowned Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, working in biomedical engineering in the artificial heart and cardiac assist programs.
Byram is now part of the Cleveland Clinic’s Innovation Department as the engagement partner for the Heart, Vascular, and Thoracic Institute. In that role, she works with clinicians, researchers, and other caregivers to develop ideas into life-changing healthcare solutions for millions of patients worldwide.
Mathematical Heart Valve Modeling
Yue Yu, assistant professor of mathematics at Lehigh, focuses her research on the areas of mathematical biology, machine learning, and scientific computing – in particular, on the question of how to create useful mathematical models and numerical tools that predict how biomedical materials degrade. She hopes this understanding will eventually help researchers improve the design – and extend the lifespan – of bioprosthetic heart valves.
“I am especially interested in modeling how the mechanical responses of soft tissues vary, with new mathematical theory and computational tools. Hopefully, our development will provide physical and casual interpretations for tissue fatigue mechanisms from its microscale origin,” Yu says.
Heart “Parts”
Tom Duerig ’74, BS in engineering physics, founded Nitinol Development in 1991 to find medical applications for Nitinol, an alloy of titanium and nickel that exhibits shape memory and super-elastic behavior at body temperature.
“Our timing was lucky in that the field of interventional cardiology was being established,” Duerig says. “We fell in with a few cardiologists who taught us what stents were (though they didn’t yet exist) and pioneered some laser micro-machining techniques, and together, we developed the first self-expanding stents.”
The company later expanded its Nitinol medical applications into venous filters, heart valves, and the treatment of aneurysms. Duerig, who retired in 2019, says Nitinol “continues to be the go-to alloy for heart valves, aneurysm repair, peripheral vascular stenting, and cardiac ablation.”
In retirement, Duerig founded and serves on the board of other young companies, including Starlight Cardiovascular, which is developing devices for pediatric cardiologists, which he says is “a severely underserved market.”
"I wanted to harness tissue engineering and stem cell science to recapitulate human biology and physiology in the lab"
“Heart-on-a-Chip”
Misti Ushio ’98G, MS in chemical engineering, is the founder and former CEO of TARA Biosystems, which was acquired earlier this year. After spending the first part of her career in big pharma, Ushio was working in life sciences capital investing when she became interested in taking biology to the next level.
“I wanted to harness tissue engineering and stem cell science to recapitulate human biology and physiology in the lab,” she says.
Her company created lab-engineered human heart “biology-in-a-dish” to enable pharmaceutical research and development teams to test the safety and efficacy of drugs before they go to human trials.
“It’s really a model of the heart that we can create in the lab to get an early read on how medicines and developments could affect the human heart – positively or negatively,” Ushio says.
Shifting Heart Care from Hospital to Home
Steve Stephansen ’77, BS in electrical engineering, is CEO of LifeWave Biomedical, which is developing the first highly scalable heart-failure patient management solution to reduce hospitalizations and improve patient quality of life.
“We’re helping patients better manage their heart failure disease at home and avert hospitalizations,” Stephansen says. “Heart failure is the disease of greatest incidence and prevalence in the U.S. It affects one in four individuals and has the highest cost of care to the Medicare system because of its high hospitalization.”
“We’re helping patients better manage their heart failure disease at home and avert hospitalizations.”
LifeWave is developing a low-cost lung sensor device and digital platform that will facilitate remote clinical management and patient self-management in the home. “The lung sensor can measure lung fluid/congestion at a very early stage and permit the patient and cardiologist to reverse the lung fluid build-up to avert impending hospitalization,” Stephansen says. Patients who experience multiple hospitalizations have much shorter life expectancies and poorer quality of life.”
Stephansen believes the future of health care will be home-based. “COVID-19 has accelerated this trend with Medicare approving a greater number of reimbursement codes and physicians finally embracing remote care. Technology-enabled healthcare, like LifeWave’s, will allow individuals to better care for themselves and enjoy better health,” he says.
Nanomedicine Approaches to Non-Surgical Aortic Aneurysm Repair
Anand Ramamurthi, Peter C. Rossin Endowed Professor and Chair of the bioengineering department, investigates non-invasive approaches to reverse abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) at an early stage of their growth.
“AAAs are rupture-prone expansions of the aorta, the main artery that carries blood away from the heart to the rest of the body,” Ramamurthi explains. “They develop due to irreversible breakdown of wall structures (elastin) that allow vessels to stretch and recoil like a rubber band. Risky surgery is the only treatment option available to the primarily senior patient demographic at present.”
One of the non-invasive approaches Ramamurthi’s research program investigates involves intravenous injection of nano-sized polymer particles that target a protein which controls elastin breakdown, regeneration, and repair within the AAA. The study also investigates how these circulating polymer particles may be chemically or biologically modified to allow them to recognize the diseased tissue be retained in the AAA wall to release a drug in the long term.
A second project focused on the same issue investigates how biological packets called extracellular vesicles (EVs) – which are secreted by adult stem cells obtained from the bone marrow of patients or healthy donors – can be delivered to AAA patients to regenerate or repair elastin.
“Both these treatment approaches can potentially restore healthy vessel structure in high-risk older patients diagnosed with small AAAs,” Ramamurthi says, “without need for surgery, and possibly via one-time dosing in a minimally invasive outpatient procedure.”