ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY: THE ABIOCOR HEART
             On September 13, 2002, mankind reached another technological milestone. Tom Christerson, a patient in Kentucky completed his first year of life sustained by a self-contained artificial heart. The heart, considered the body's engine, keeps all the other organs working by supplying them with blood and nutrients. All of the body's organs require blood to function. This means that a product of advanced technology, the plastic and titanium Abiocor heart, is now performing one of the most vital functions of a living human being.
             The Abiocor heart is the result of decades of research. 1The first artificial heart dates back to the mid-fifties when a team of scientist's led by Willem Kolff, a Dutch-born physician, tested their model in animals. In 1969, a team led by Denton Cooley of the Texas Heart Institute successfully kept the first human patient alive for more than sixty hours with their model. Then, in 1982, a team led by William DeVries of the University of Utah, implanted the Jarvik-7 artificial heart into a patient named Barney Clark, who lived for 112 days.
             2The Jarvik-7 was an air-driven pump that required Clark be bound to a compressor the size of a washing machine. Tubes from the compressor passed through his chest wall restricting him to his bed and causing constant infections. His blood kept clotting as it passed through the pump and he suffered numerous strokes before he died.
             After Clark's death, hopes for an artificial heart faded. Scientists focused on heart transplants and today, 386 percent of patients who receive a heart transplant survive for at least one year. More than 70 percent live for at least four years. However, there are only 4,000 hearts available for transplanting each year and at least 700,000 people suffer from heart failure. Faced with this shortage, scientists knew they had to design a smaller, ...