Video of the Month: 3D Replicas of the Heart

Published in Fundamentals - Fundamentals September 2019

heart replica

Burning up for you baby! One way to treat the most common type of irregular heartbeats is to burn, or ablate, the heart tissue where the abnormalities start. However, this treatment is often a procedure of trial-and-error, and patients frequently have to return for repeat procedures. Biomedical engineer, Natalia Trayanova is on a mission to eliminate this problem by creating precise maps of where these irregular heartbeats begin. Her replicas allow researchers to test for and predict where irregular heartbeats persist far more precisely than what can be determined in the clinic. This approach has the potential to eliminate the guesswork in treating heart rhythm disorders and to prevent repeat procedures.