Bioengineering Advances and Cutting-edge Technology

There is a forty-year history of research collaboration by doctors at Tokyo Women's Medical University and engineers at Waseda University. The synergism culminated in 2008 with the establishment of the Center for Advanced Biomedical Sciences within the framework of the Tokyo Women's Medical University-Waseda University Joint Institution for Advanced Biomedical Sciences (TWIns). The center provides a singular environment for consolidating research in life science, bioengineering, and medicine. At first our new conceptual laboratories, called "DRY Lab" is introduced. There are three laboratories: Surgical Training Lab, GLP-compliant Lab and Medical Visualization Lab. These laboratories have a complement function of an animal (WET) laboratory. Secondly, an implantable centrifugal blood pump called EVAHEART as an exemplary product of this collaboration is introduced. Cardiac surgeon Kenji Yamazaki of Tokyo Women's Medical University, Sun Medical Technology Research Corporation, Waseda University, and the University of Pittsburgh originated the EVAHEART project in 1991. More than fifty companies contributed technologies that improved performance of the device. Teamwork between groups with divergent thinking and expertise led to optimized designs of components such as the impeller, shaft/seal mechanism, and blood-compatible materials. In clinical trials, fourteen of eighteen patients treated with EVAHEART had favorable postoperative outcomes. In the first case, the pump sustained the patient for more than three and one-half years. Among the four patients who died, none had a cause of death related to the device itself. Consequently, it is confirmed that this synergistic environment will help us create new scenarios and trials which are unconstrained by conventional knowledge.