Celebrate Innovation: 3D Printed Heart

In our Inventor Chronicles video series, Cleveland Clinic inventors share their backgrounds, goals, challenges, and advice for new inventors. Each episode follows a different inventor’s journey, from initial inspiration to life-changing invention.

“Our team is an in-house design and prototyping core service that operates within the Lerner Research Institute. We can come in at any level and help them design and prototype to prove the concept. It makes parts layer by layer by layer. And because of that (3D printing) can make any shape.” – Ryan Klatte, Senior Principal Research Engineer at Cleveland Clinic.

“The example of 3D printing of organs, and hearts in particular, tells us that what happens in the lab can be brought in to the patient and it improves what we do. So, if you want to measure the fastest way of something that goes from bench to bedside, that would be a 3D printed heart.” – Hani Najm, MD, Chair, Pediatric & Congenital Heart Surgery at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Najm and Ryan Klatte, share how their collaboration in the creation of a 3D printed heart helped advance the what’s capable in congenital heart surgery. By creating a 3D printed heart, Dr. Najm was able to determine in advnace how long connections needed to be and where to stitch, which brought great value during the time of the operation and lead to greater patient care.

“You can’t be operating and innovating at the same time,” shared Dr. Najm, “The ability to have a 3D printed heart allows for this innovation. Now I can hold the heart, flip the heart, look at it from inside, look at it from outside, and figure out exactly how I can repair it in the operating room.”

“Just knowing that we’re helping to advance something that is going to help people, that’s gratifying,” said Klatte.

Cleveland Clinic Innovations brings the best ideas from the brightest minds in medicine to patients around the world by connecting inventors and their ideas with strategic industry partners to create products that transform the future of healthcare. Since our inception in 2000, Cleveland Clinic Innovations has helped inventors receive 2,500+ patents, executed more than 840 active licenses and launched over 100 start-ups to turn ideas into next-generation products for patients.