And many patients can survive relying on ecmo, but will be in danger or even lose their lives without ecmo. However, such an ecmo is expensive to build and rare in quantity. It is a public resource and no one has the right to monopolize it, not even the rich.
What's more, this kind of extracorporeal circulation is prone to infection and other problems if it lasts for a long time, and there are also a series of risks, so it is not recommended to use it for a long time.
So as early as when Wu Hao and others released the smart bionic artificial heart, related patients and people asked them when they would be able to produce an artificial lung.
There are many such patients. Ever since Wu Hao and others released these medical products, they have received a large number of requests for help every day on their various social platform accounts, including related hotlines, emails, company websites, etc. There are all kinds.
These requests for help come in all shapes and sizes, and most of them are patients or their family members. Many of them are asking about other technologies, such as artificial lungs and artificial kidneys, and some are even asking about artificial intestines and artificial brains.
Regarding this, Wu Hai and the others were speechless. If everything in a person was replaced, would that person still be a human?
In fact, the artificial lung project was carried out relatively early, and it was started at the same time as the intelligent bionic electronic prosthetic eye and intelligent bionic artificial heart projects.
They all belong to the sub-projects of Wu Hao’s smart organ bionics project. This smart organ bionics project has a resounding code name, Five Elements.
The Five Elements is the basic way for our ancients to understand the world. In their simple values, the world is composed of five elements, namely the Five Elements, which are metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
In traditional Chinese medicine theory, the five elements also represent the five organs in the body, namely the heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys. The center governs fire, the liver governs wood, the spleen governs earth, the kidneys govern water, and the lungs govern metal.
This code name, as the name suggests, is to develop artificial bionic organs that can replace the five internal organs. Of course, it is not limited to the five internal organs. There are many organs in the human body, and the five elements are just a general term.
The development of the artificial lung project has been continuing. Initially, everyone thought that this project should go smoothly. It would just be a matter of miniaturizing the ecmo and placing it in the patient's chest.
However, after in-depth research and experiments, we found that this project is very difficult. The first is the issue of miniaturization. How to miniaturize such a large ecmo device and install it into the patient's lungs. In addition to the skin, the lungs are probably the largest organ in the human body. They account for half of the entire trunk, and there are two more. They can be said to be one of the most important core organs in the body.
Although there is a very large space inside the chest, it cannot accommodate an ecmo. Miniaturization is not as simple as reducing the volume proportionally. We must consider body adaptation issues and weight relationships. The human body is very aware of excess weight, so the weight of the miniaturized artificial lung must be controlled to be similar to that of the original lung. It cannot Too much beyond that.
In addition, such a device has issues with its driving energy, reliability and safety of the device's operation, as well as interference and rejection issues in the body, etc.
After all, if such a large piece of equipment is put in, will the human body be able to withstand it? Will there be any infection problems for a long time? In addition, this equipment must be connected to the aortic veins and respiratory tract, and whether this connection is safe and reliable, etc.
Wu Hao's goal is to develop a truly intelligent bionic artificial lung that can completely replace the patient's lung function. In other words, all the patient's lungs will be removed, and then a smart bionic artificial lung will be installed in the empty chest.
Such an operation is very difficult, even more difficult than a heart transplant. And the risk is very high, because the lungs are the most susceptible organs to infection. They can be directly connected to the outside world, and all the air the human body breathes enters the lungs.
And it requires the patient to be able to breathe independently without affecting other organs or causing other additional effects on the human body, etc.
It is precisely because of these problems that the progress of this project has been relatively slow, so much so that the smart bionic electronic prosthetic eye, smart bionic artificial heart, and even the bionic artificial kidney have been released, but the smart bionic artificial lung has not yet moved.
Although Zou Xiaodong doesn't pay much attention to these scientific research projects, he is still quite concerned about this project. After all, this is a life-saving technology that can save someone's life at a critical moment. Everyone has friends, everyone has relatives, it’s hard to say this.
What's more, Zou Xiaodong's mother is in poor health and suffers from asthma, which gets worse in winter. Although he is rich now, Zou Xiaodong bought a luxurious villa on Nanhai Island and sent his parents there for the winter, so as to avoid and resolve the worsening of his mother's condition.
But he also knew that as his mother's age increased, her condition would only get worse, so he had been paying close attention to this project, and that's why he asked.
Of course Wu Hao knew this, so he was not surprised by Zou Xiaodong's question, and it was about his mother. Wu Hao did not tease him, but replied to him: "The project is progressing relatively smoothly. The engineering prototype has been developed. Out.
The shape is similar to that of a real lung, and it is also divided into left and right halves. The outside is attached with a special skin-friendly silicone material that can reduce irritation to the human body. This material is stable and not easy to decompose and age, making it suitable for long-term use.
Just like real lungs, we also designed and developed left and right lung halves for this artificial lung. They all have independent operation functions, complement each other, and serve as backups for each other.
In other words, we have a small ecmo on both sides.
In this way, even if one of them fails, the other one will work normally. It will also actively increase the power to provide patients with more than 80% of blood oxygen and maintain the basic physiological health of the human body.
In this way, the patient will have enough time to rush to the hospital or corresponding institution for corresponding treatment.
In addition, in the energy supply part, we have also installed our latest super solid-state batteries, and installed super solid-state batteries on both left and right lungs, three on each side, two of which are main batteries and one is a backup emergency battery. .
In this way, even if there is a problem with one or both batteries, the device can still operate normally.
Even if all four main batteries have problems or the power is exhausted, the two backup emergency batteries can provide the patient with about four to six hours."
