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Penn Helps Develop Nanoscale Device that Tracks Heart Function ~ New Sensors Stick to Organs

A team of cardiologists, materials scientists, and bioengineers have created and tested a new type of implantable device for measuring the heart’s electrical output that they say is a vast improvement over current devices. The new device represents the first use of flexible silicon technology for a medical application.

"We believe that this technology may herald a new generation of active, flexible, implantable devices for applications in many areas of the body," says co-senior author Brian Litt, MD, an associate professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and also an associate professor of Bioengineering in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

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Silicon Electronics for Mapping Cardiac Electrophysiology »
"New Sensors Stick to Organs to Monitor Health" »

Research »

Penn Scientists Receive $8M for Regenerative Cardiac Research from the NationaI Heart Lung Blood Institute

Two Penn researchers have been awarded $8 million for collaborative stem cell research projects. Edward Morrisey, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology and Scientific Director of the Penn Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Mortimer Poncz, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia received the funding from the National Heart Lung Blood Institute (NHLBI) as part of a $170 million effort to create the NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium, which will bring together "hubs" of investigators from the heart, lung, blood, and technology research fields.

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Clinical Trials »

Personalized Medicine for the Heart: The Complex Genetics Initiative

Over the next five years 100,000 adults seeking patient care at the University of Pennsylvania Health System will be invited to join the Genetics of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Phenotypes Study, a DNA bank being designed to investigate the genes involved in cardiovascular disease. The study, part of the Complex Genetics Initiative, hopes to learn about the genetic causes of these diseases and how different people respond to the same medications and treatments.

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New Heart Valves Without Open Surgery: The PARTNER Trial

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is one of a handful of medical centers participating in the PARTNER trial - a new procedure (Download PDF) that could change the lives of more than 120,000 heart patients. The procedure gives patients new heart valves, but without a major incision, and without general anesthesia.

10 NBC Video / 6 ABC Video / Philadelphia Inquirer (PDF)
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