Next-Gen Dragon Heart: A New Blood Pumping Solution for Pediatric Patients with Heart Failure
Monday, May 19, 2025
10:00 AM-12:00 PM
BIOMED PhD Research Proposal
Title:
Next-Gen Dragon Heart: A New Blood Pumping Solution for Pediatric Patients with Heart Failure
Speaker:
Giselle C. Matlis, PhD Candidate
School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems
Drexel University
Advisor:
Amy Throckmorton, PhD
Professor
School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems
Drexel University
Details:
Severe pediatric cardiac decompensation has a mortality risk of 50-65% and is the leading cause of death in children. Heart transplantation is the current standard of care for end-stage pediatric heart failure, if they can survive the high waitlist mortality (13-17%). As a viable alternative, the implementation of pediatric blood pumps are used as prolonged bridge-to-transplant therapeutic options. In recent years, the clinical application of blood pumps in children has increased from 63% to 73%. This is due to these devices having fewer co-morbidities, higher likelihood of survival, and improved quality of life. Despite the increased use of pediatric blood pumps, device options are severely limited for infants, children, and young adults. To address this unmet clinical need for versatile and compact pediatric blood pump devices, the long-term goal of this research is to develop and translate the Drexel Dragon Heart (DH), a novel hybrid, continuous-flow, magnetically levitated, blood pumping system for pediatric patients. The DH uniquely combines two blood pumps into a single housing; it positions the axial blood pump (pulmonary circulation) inside of the centrifugal blood pump (systemic circulation) for compact packaging. The axial and centrifugal pumps have separate fluid domains and rotate around a common central axis. This further allows for device usage as a medical device for partial or full cardiovascular support, or as a left-sided or right-sided blood pump based on patient support requirements.
In support of the goal, our research is currently focused on the development of the outer centrifugal blood pump, which is designed to support the systemic cardiovascular circuit and most substantially contributes to the overall device size. We are leveraging an existing, validated magnetically levitated axial flow pump for pulmonary support. The centrifugal blood pump is designed to accommodate the required flow capacity and pressure generation to support the pediatric systemic cardiovascular load, and this pump produces flows of 1-5 L/min for pressure rises of 60-140 mmHg at rotational speeds to 10,000 RPM. We have generated strong preliminary data by modeling and experiments in support of continuing development.
The purpose of this dissertation research is to design, build, and test the next-generation DH centrifugal blood pump, according to these Specific Aims: 1) establish a new pump design and prototype that achieves design requirements by iterative modeling and hydraulic testing. This will be accomplished by design improvement methods, modeling, and testing of prototypes using a blood analog water-glycerin mixture and quantitatively evaluated against design requirements; 2) demonstrate the ability of a fully integrated, magnetically levitated pump prototype (i.e., centrifugal + axial pump) to support pediatric patients without deleterious blood cell trauma by hydraulic and hemolytic testing. Leveraging prior validated protocols, we will test and measure the hydraulic performance and hemolytic potential of the fully integrated and magnetically levitated DH prototype; and 3) characterize and advance the centrifugal pump, via a second design phase, in combination with a new, integrated, smaller axial pump design by modeling and hydraulic evaluation.
Contact Information
Natalia Broz
njb33@drexel.edu