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t m c » p u l s e | o c t o b e r 2 0 1 6 21 Fernandez is still helping people with his prototypes. He is in the early stages of a project with the Texas Heart Institute and BiVACOR, a Houston company headquartered at the institute, making impellers for a total heart that pumps blood through the body without a pulse. A smaller heart Iki Adachi, M.D., a congenital heart surgeon at Texas Children's Hospital, Juan Fernandez, lead machinist for Houston Methodist Hospital, working in his shop. Below right: Fernandez holds a prototype of an early version of a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) that he worked on with famed surgeon Michael E. DeBakey, M.D. Rice University Rice University bioengineering students created a low-cost neonatal breathing system as part of the Rice 360° Institute for Global Health. A study of the bubble Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (bCPAP) device showed it could save the lives of 178,000 low-birth-weight babies in Africa each year. University of Houston Jarek Wosik, a principal investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston, has developed a high-temperature super- conducting coil that allows magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners to produce higher resolu- tion images in a shorter period of time. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Steve Norris, Ph.D., vice chair for research in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UTHealth, developed a diagnostic test to positively identify patients suffering from Lyme disease. He collaborated with Alan Barbour, Ph.D. is working on a miniaturized implant- able ventricular assist device specif- ically designed for small children. Called the Infant Jarvik VAD, it is named for Robert Jarvik, M.D., inventor of the first successful total artificial heart. With support from the federal government through the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, this AA-battery-size device has undergone pre-clinical testing; Adachi anticipates approval for a human trial sometime this year. In the pediatric world, most of the ventricular assist devices are pulsatile, meaning they pump like the heart. But they can fail, which is why most adult VADs are now continuous flow devices—pumps that help push blood through the body using an impeller, Adachi said. Currently there aren't pedi- atric continuous flow devices available. Texas Children's hopes to change that. "It is more challenging to make a smaller pump with a favorable perfor- mance," Adachi said. "As such, the U.S. government has been trying to help companies that have an interest in pedi- atric devices. They have funded several different companies, and Jarvik is one of them." Jarvik tried to get FDA approval for a clinical trial two years ago, but failed, Adachi said. After significant design changes, Adachi came on board to implant the device in animals. He wasn't part of the first trial, but said the data collected seems to be much more favorable than the previous testing. A new application for clinical trial was completed in September. If approved, the Pumps for Kids, Infants and Neonates (PumpKIN) trial is likely to begin by the end of the year. Texas Children's implants about 20 to 30 VADs per year, Adachi said. "If the Jarvik pump becomes avail- able, that may change our device sup- port paradigm, and we may have more potential candidates," he said. "Now we have limited options on what kind of patient we can support." Credit: Tommy LaVergne/Rice University