A team led by John Rogers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has used a 3D printer to create an anatomically accurate reproduction of a rabbit heart. Once they created the heart, the embedded tiny instruments in a silicon membrage designed to fit tightly ovre the heart. The items in the membrane included sensors that measure pH and temperature along with LEDs for mapping and gold electrodes to stimulate the heart. The key part of the success here is that they have created a silicon sheath that fits over the heart firmly yet doesn't interfere with the pumping of blood. The future potential for this device is as a pacemaker that is able to keep the heart beating. The technology looks promising and the team is working on a few issues such as with the power supply and wireless data communication. You can see a video of the device in action here.
