Artificial Heart
The concept of the artificial heart has been around since the 1950's (Bellis, 2009). The idea is that people who need a solid organ transplant have to wait too long on the transplant list for a new heart causing them to die while waiting. Thus, scientist attempted to create a device which could prolong death while waiting for a new organ. However, current attempts have only prolonged the patient's life for around 100 days, after which they needed a new human heart or faced death (Alberta Health Services, 2007). Though a completely artificial heart has yet to prove a sustainable solution, work is still being done on it with hopes of an eventual breakthrough abolishing the need for a transplant list at all.