Researchers at UNSW Sydney have developed a fully synthetic soft robotic heart that accurately replicates the complex movements and internal anatomy of the human heart. The technology could improve the treatment of cardiovascular disease, support the development of safer medical devices, and advance personalized medicine.
The research, published in the journals Nature Communications and Advanced Science, describes a model of the left side of the heart that incorporates artificial valves, papillary muscles, and chordae tendineae—the structures that are essential for normal heart function and are frequently affected by cardiovascular disease.
The robotic heart can reproduce conditions in which heart valves begin to leak, allowing blood to flow backward. Such abnormalities increase the risk of heart failure and other serious cardiovascular complications.
According to the project's lead investigator, Thanh Nho Do of the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Medical Robotics Laboratory at UNSW Sydney, the innovation is particularly significant because cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide.
The researchers focused especially on heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), a complex condition commonly associated with hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, kidney disease, obesity, and diabetes. Because HFpEF presents differently from patient to patient, developing effective treatment devices has been especially challenging.
The new model consists of a flexible silicone structure equipped with soft robotic "muscles" that reproduce both the contraction and twisting motion of the heart. These artificial muscles are powered by hydraulic pressure and are designed to mimic the layered architecture of natural heart muscle.
The device also replicates the function of the mitral valve, which regulates blood flow between the heart's chambers. Using the model, researchers successfully simulated conditions such as mitral valve prolapse and mitral regurgitation, in which blood leaks backward through the valve.
Using ultrasound imaging and pressure measurements, the team demonstrated that the robotic heart behaves similarly to a human heart. Under healthy conditions, it produced normal pressure and blood-flow patterns, while disease simulations generated the characteristic abnormalities seen in patients, including backward blood flow and reduced pumping efficiency.
The platform was also used to evaluate a new soft robotic catheter, which successfully navigated through the moving structures of the artificial heart. This demonstrates the model's potential as a testing platform for next-generation minimally invasive surgical devices.
According to the researchers, the technology could reduce the need for animal testing and, in the future, enable the creation of patient-specific heart models based on medical imaging data to help physicians plan complex cardiac procedures.
The authors emphasize, however, that the technology is currently at the proof-of-concept stage and will require further validation using clinical data and more anatomically sophisticated heart models before it can be introduced into routine medical practice.
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