Zurich Heart: The Heart of Tomorrow
In industrialized countries, approximately 1-3% of the adult population suffers from severe heart failure (cardiac insufficiency), which amounts to up to 10 million people across the EU. Patients with end-stage heart failure receive a donor heart transplant, if available. However, a suitable organ is often not available, and therefore mechanical artificial hearts (ventricular assist devices, VAD) must be implanted to support the pumping function of the insufficient heart.
However, all artificial hearts currently on the market have significant disadvantages in long-term use. The goal of the “Zurich Heart” project is therefore to improve and further develop today's artificial heart systems.
Between 2012 and 2024, around 20 research groups from ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, the university hospitals in Zurich, the German Heart Center at Charité in Berlin, and Empa conducted research on innovative components for contactless transmission of drive energy, improved surfaces to prevent embolisms, highly efficient and adaptive control and sensor technologies for optimizing pump performance and flow, hyperelastic hybrid membranes, and soft materials that more closely resemble human physiology.
This resulted in over 100 scientific publications and 50 dissertations.
Some projects are continuing. However, the consortium was dissolved with the closure of Hochschulmedizin Zürich.
