Out of 1,159 forward-thinking engineering innovations from 60 countries, micro heart pump developer Procyrion Inc. of Houston, Texas earned the $20,000 grand prize in the 2015 “Create the Future” Design Contest, organized by the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs and Medical Design Briefs magazines.
With its catheter-deployed heart pump Aortix™, Procyrion aims to give NYHA Class III-IVa heart failure patients a better quality-of-life by allowing the heart to rest and heal while increasing blood flow to vital organs. The small but powerful micro pump is placed downstream of the heart in a simple cath-lab procedure and works to support heart function by accelerating native blood flow. Designed specifically to reduce the risks associated with existing technologies (e.g. stroke, infection, and catastrophic device failure), Aortix is thinner than a No. 2 pencil, yet was still able to reduce the workload of the heart by almost 40% in pre-clinical studies. Developed by renowned Texas Heart Institute cardiologist Dr. Reynolds Delgado III, Aortix was selected by senior editors at Tech Briefs Media Group and judged by an independent panel of design engineers for its overall design, engineering innovation, manufacturability, and marketability.
“We’re passionate about Aortix and the impact it will have on the millions suffering from chronic heart failure. This recognition further validates our work and the need for improved patient health,” said Omar Benavides, Ph.D., senior product development engineer, Procyrion. “None of us are in this for the recognition, but it is much appreciated. The award will help support our first human trial, which we expect to begin in the first half of 2016.”
Contest categories included aerospace and defense, automotive and transportation, consumer products, electronics, medical, machinery/automation/robotics, and sustainable technologies. The 2014 grand prize winner was Los Angeles-based Contour Crafting, developers of a computerized construction method that 3D prints large-scale structures directly from architectural CAD models.
The Procyrion team will receive their award at the Create the Future Design Contest awards ceremony on November 6, 2015 in New York City, NY. In addition, Procyrion’s innovative technology will be featured in the November issues of both NASA Tech Briefs and Medical Design Briefs.
Procyrion’s Aortix is an experimental device and not yet approved for use in humans.
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