The Vision

Based on their experience over the last twenty years with heart assist devices, Dr. Gray, Dr. Rob Dowling, and their colleagues have the knowledge base to improve the performance of existing devices and develop them into bio-adaptive heart innovations. One of the most promising improvements would be to combine the electro-mechanical capabilities of heart devices with the capabilities of miniature biofeedback sensors. Heart devices currently on the market have a limited ability to meet the changing metabolic demands of the body. Biofeedback sensors, however, will enable these heart devices to be much “smarter” by allowing the devices to respond to physiological changes that occur throughout the day (standing up, walking, sleeping, exercising). This new technological niche of developing biofeedback sensors will have a profound clinical and economic benefit. In the future, there may also be biologic solutions that can be integrated with heart assist devices and biofeedback sensors to further improve performance and create truly bio-adaptive heart innovations that are “living machines.”

To pursue this vision, Dr. Gray will serve as the surgical director responsible for clinical excellence. He will be joined by a scientific director who will be recruited within the next year. The scientific director will be responsible for the technical excellence of the Institute. He will oversee the activities of bioengineers recruited to the Institute and will interface with engineers in the Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville and with engineers at other collaborating universities and corporations. Together, Dr. Gray and the scientific director will develop the research-and-development agenda for the Institute. This agenda will form the basis for the business plan.

The main “customers” of the Institute will be the National Institutes of Health and corporations involved in the medical device and biofeedback sensor industry. Funded by research grants, the Institute will provide these customers with a range of services throughout the entire product life cycle, from concept to lab to bedside.