Question: Will we ever be able to create mechanicle hearts?

Samuel Vennin answered on 12 Jun 2018:

We actually already did! You can find at the following link a picture:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-03-artificial-heart-implant-due-weeks.html
It is still in the trial stage, meaning that they are implanting it in one patient at a time and see how the patient is doing with it before putting other such hearts in other patients. So far, it allowed people who were supposed to die because of a bad heart to live for a few more months but all patients died so far. It is a normal result at that stage but the fact that people were able to live for a few month with these mechanical hearts is very encouraging and a good start!
The problem so far is that the researchers tried the heart on patient who were already in bad shape. It is like putting a brand new engine in a very old car. The rest of the car won’t be able to keep up with the brand new engine so the car will eventually break down. Another problem is that the mechanical heart is so far heavier (about 1.2 kg vs 0.3 kg for normal heart) and the patient needs to carry a battery with him all the time. But we are on the right tracks 🙂