The Texas Heart Institute Innovative Device & Engineering Applications (IDEA) Laboratory is where creativity and innovation meet healthcare. This was the first full year of operation of the IDEA Lab, whose mission is to discover and implement innovative solutions in the development of cardiovascular devices.

Led by Yaxin Wang, PhD, and working in close collaboration with O.H. Frazier, MD, a major focus of the group is on ventricular assist devices for pediatric populations with heart failure, for whom current treatment options are extremely limited.

The lab is also exploring miniaturized pump designs to help adult patients who were born with a single heart ventricle and who underwent surgeries as children to provide “Fontan” circulation.

Other areas of investigation include improving systems for ex vivo lung perfusion to increase the pool of donor lungs that are acceptable for transplant. The IDEA lab is funded through an NIH R01 grant and through foundation grants that were awarded in 2021.

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