One hundred days. Three months and a handful of weeks without a real heart in the chest, only a complex mechanism, an artificial heart called BiVACOR. We talked about it here the first time, in terms of perspective, last August. Today a forty-year-old Australian can tell the experience firsthand, and what the scientific community is now asking is as simple as it is frightening: will the future be dominated by mechanical bodies or will we still cling, desperately, to the fragility of human flesh?
Artificial like no other
"It is an unprecedented clinical success", the doctors of the hospital declared with justified pride. St Vincent's Hospital of Sydney. And they are not wrong, because what happened in Australia has the flavor of a change. The involuntary protagonist of this extraordinary story is a man in his forties from New South Wales, who for over a hundred days lived thanks to a completely artificial heart. An absolute record that, until recently, would have seemed absurd even to the most visionary mind.
But what exactly is this technological marvel called BiVACOR? It is a complete artificial heart, the first in the world capable of totally replacing a human one thanks to a magnetic levitation rotary pump. In simple terms: a small hi-tech engine, levitated with magnets that avoids mechanical friction and reproduces natural blood flow. Science fiction? Not anymore. Life without a “true” heart, until yesterday considered at best an unlikely hope, is today a concrete and palpable reality.
How to live with an artificial heart
Imagine no longer having that familiar heartbeat, that regular rhythm that has accompanied you since birth. Here, the Australian patient (a man in his forties suffering from severe heart failure) spent more than three months without that reassuring “thump-thump”. In its place, a constant and discreet mechanical buzz, almost imperceptible, an electronic soundtrack that has become the new music of his body.
During this time, he wasn’t confined to a hospital bed. Instead, he went home, walked the streets, and lived a relatively normal life, waiting for a seemingly impossible human heart transplant. Think about it: for a brief, incredible time, his life depended solely on a device made of metal and circuitry. What does this tell us about our relationship with technology?
Of course, the BiVACOR is not meant to last as long as a human heart: so far, the record of our Australian patient is precisely about 100 days, nothing compared to what a transplanted heart guarantees on average. Yet, it was enough to demonstrate that, perhaps, technology is finally ready to change the game in the long and desperate race against death.
Daniel Timms' Dream Comes True
Behind this extraordinary innovation there is a story worth telling. Its protagonist is Daniel Timms, an Australian engineer from Queensland, who designed this mechanical heart after losing his father to severe heart failure. Timms, for years, has pursued the ambition of creating something that was not just a temporary palliative, but a real alternative to the fragility of the human heart.
«Every year in the world 23 million people suffer from heart failure, but only 6.000 receive a donated heart», Timms recalls.
The Australian government believed in this vision, investing 50 million dollars in the project. And today, that money seems to have started to pay off.
Artificial heart, the joy of animal rights activists
Such a striking result also has ethical implications. Just think of the press release we received from PETA France. That alone is worth a world:
Science has shown that a human can survive at least 100 days with a titanium heart, far longer than patients who have received a heart transplant from a pig that is also desperate to survive. These scientists are right to reject stolen animal organs in favor of superior models that do not involve killing a living being. However, prevention is better than cure: every day, humans die from preventable heart disease caused by a diet rich in animal meat and other animal products. Avoiding animal parts can significantly reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and other potentially fatal health problems.
Anissa Putois, Head of Communications and Campaigns PETA France, shows us a “necessary and possible perspective” on this level. And one more reason to welcome this project with great enthusiasm.
And tomorrow? Will we all have an artificial heart?
Of course, it's not all as simple as it seems. While the excitement over this extraordinary discovery is justified, we must be cautious. The cardiologist David Colquhoun, an external member of the team that followed the experiment, recalls a crucial fact:
«The functioning duration of this artificial heart (over 100 days) is still significantly shorter than that of donated hearts, which function for more than ten years».
In short, for now the artificial heart is a temporary solution, a sort of “bridge” towards the definitive transplant. But this is precisely the point: if today the BiVACOR is used to gain time, in a (distant?) future it could become the definitive alternative. Is it realistic to think that one day man will be able to choose between a natural heart and an artificial one, perhaps like today one chooses between a diesel or electric car?
The Future of the Artificial Heart Has Just Begun
The real revolution, however, could be even more profound. When technology finally surpasses the lifespan of the natural heart, what will stop us from preferring the artificial one? We would no longer have to wait exhaustingly for a compatible donor, nor risk rejection, and perhaps even the possibility of updating the implant periodically, as if it were the software of a telephone.
But there is another side to the coin: Does relying entirely on technology make us more vulnerable? Nature has equipped us with imperfect but tested organs over millions of years of evolution, while our technology, even the most advanced, remains fragile and dependent on electricity and constant maintenance.
Personally, I admit to being divided: on the one hand excited about the innovation and the lives it can save, on the other uneasy about becoming so dependent on a still-young technology. One thing is certain: if this Australian man's story is truly a glimpse of our future, we will soon have to ask ourselves many more questions about our humanity and the price we must pay to keep it intact.
And you, are you ready to trust an artificial heart?
