The medical institute is currently experimenting with implants of heart pumps on calves to replace the animal's heart. The device has two pumps, one for the left ventricle and another for the right.
The center's pilot test on a dozen young cows appears to be successful, according to Dr. Bud Frazier, director of the institute's surgical center. Frazier added the artificial heart could be ready for human patients within the next three to five years.
"I'm confident we can make this technology work... We're past the Kitty Hawk experiments. We're not flying to London in eight hours yet, but we're flying to Chicago in a fixed wing with this," Frazier told the Houston Chronicle.
The institute's heart replacement experiments started 40 years ago, initiated by renowned heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey. He is now the chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine, where some of the country's first heart pumps were developed.
There are about only 2,000 hearts available annually for transplant, but demand was placed at 30,000.
On May 13, Dr. Ali Massumi made cardiology history by being the first doctor in the U.S. to replace a pacemaker placed in a mesh envelope. The envelope, made of standard surgical mesh, had two antibiotic agents that gave site-specific antibiotic protection to the pacemaker, which was surgically implanted below the collarbone of Genaro Nieto, a 72-year old resident of Houston. The procedure was performed at the Texas Heart Institute of the St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital.
