Artificial heart ready to be planted by 2011

Cardiac patients everywhere may soon benefit from a new artificial heart that does what none has succeeded in doing before, namely, mimicking closely the natural functions of the human heart. The company which manufactures the heart is starting the production of the hearts which are to be used in the first human patients by 2011. Developed by world-renowned French cardiac surgeon, Dr. Alain Carpentier, the heart has been successfully tested on animals and is now going to be assembled in a new laboratory outside Paris. Carpentier's artificial heart, wrapped in synthetic skin specially designed to keep the body from rejecting it, could help reduce the deadly gap between supply and demand for heart transplants. For Carpentier, it's the start of new episode and the term of many years of research and convincing. Artificial hearts have been developed before, but what makes Carpentier's heart unique and much closer to the real thing is its ability to measure the body's activity levels and change its pace accordingly thanks to the latest electronic sensor technology. The revolutionary sensor technology capable of almost perfectly regulating heart rate and blood flow according to the patient's needs comes from an unlikely source: European aerospace giant EADS engineers who use the electronic sensors in guided missiles. Following further development, the heart will be tested on patients whose lives are at risk and who have no other options for treatment. "We expect to have human implants starting with the clinical trials at the beginning of 2011" said Marcello Conviti the head of Carmat, the company which is to assemble the hearts. According to Marcello Conviti, 100,000 patients in western countries need a new heart. Only 5000 of them are lucky enough to have a real heart transplant. Conviti hopes that this new heart can someday save all of them: In term, it is hoped that the prosthetic replacement could do away with world-wide donor shortage forever.