BioLung - a bridge to lung transplantation

130 millions Americans have lung disease and of those more than twenty percent die waiting for lung transplantation. There is critical donor organs shortage in the United States. In response to this shortage researcher in our own back yard have been working over the past eight years on developing artificial organ that can serve as a bridge to lung transplantation.

Dr. Robert Bartlett, a surgeon at the University of Michigan Medical Center, is leading the research on BioLung while working with a company located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Michigan Critical Care Consultants (MC3) who makes the device.

BioLung is a device designed to fully support the respiratory needs of patients as a bridge to lung transportation or lung recover. BioLung is the size of a soda can (see picture below). This device will be connected to the right ventricle of the heart. It will depend on the heart to send blood through the lung, where it releases carbon dioxide and take in oxygen as it flows through the arrays of microfibers. Biolung then passes oxygen rich blood into the left atrium and then to the rest of the body.

Dr. Bartlett and MC3 is working on finding optimal shape of fiber arrays; distance between the fiber and the number of fiber needed within the artificial lung.

Although BioLung has only been tested in sheep and the results have been promising, rigorous animal studies are needed. The device still needs to go through human clinical trials. Only after BioLung is approved by the FDA will it be commercially available. Nevertheless, the device will provide the time needed to patients waiting for a transplant. Due to the small size of BioLung it will allow the patients to live a relatively normal lives while they wait for transplant.

Check out the 30-days study conducted on sheep using the BioLung here.

-B