Custom-Made Robotic Hearts Beat True

April 25, 2023

(MIT Technology Review) – No two hearts beat alike—and that can make it more complicated to treat heart disease. But a team of MIT engineers and others has developed a way to copy a patient’s unique heart in robotic form to help test different therapies more accurately. The procedure involves first converting medical images of a patient’s heart into a three-dimensional computer model, which the researchers then 3D-print using a polymer-­based ink that can squeeze and stretch once cured. The result is a soft, flexible shell in the exact shape of that person’s heart. The team can also use this approach to print a patient’s aorta, the major artery that carries blood out of the heart to the rest of the body. (Read More)