THI Engineer aims to radically improve devices for heart failure patients through global collaborations
Texas Heart Institute’s Alex Smith and his University of Houston (UH) mechanical engineering advisor for doctoral studies, professor Ralph Metcalfe, are collaborating with an aim to radically improve blood-pumping devices for patients with heart failure. Dr. Smith joined Texas Heart Institute in January 2014 and is mentored and advised by THI professional staff member Dr. Billy Cohn. Together, their goal is to develop better, less invasive treatments for patients suffering from heart failure. Treatments that are often necessary earlier in the course of disease, long before critical stages of heart failure manifest.
The project links Houston-based THI, UH, St. Luke’s Hospital and Rice University, with international collaborators around the globe at Soochow University in China, Griffith University and ICETLAB at Prince Charles Hospital in Australia, Gunma University in Japan, and University of Cambridge and University of Bath in the United Kingdom.
