Beamer July 20, 2011
President Len Golding opened the meeting with a request for Happy Bucks donors. No takers. Len announced that two people were going to the membership seminar on August 20. It will be held at Kent State University. Cost is $5.00, which BMR will reimburse. If lunch is included, cost is $12.00. For more information members should go the Rotary District #6630 web site.
Rich Newsome reported that the Geauga County Home will give us two weeks' notice for the planned wallpapering of several rooms. We will do the cleaning and sizing of the walls. He asked for volunteers for this project, anticipating a need for four to five volunteers.
Dick Hills shared a joke about Obama bin Laden not being dead because he voted in Chicago. He followed that with a joke about a broken down truck, a blonde, a chimpanzee and $100 for delivery to the zoo. Not to be outdone, Jim Pascoe told a joke about a dinner on a cruise with a "knock-down gorgeous" lady and an avid golfer. He followed that joke with one about a driver being five miles over the speed limit in a 30 mph zone.
Heads or Tails: Tom Blair won the bottle of a very fine Petite Shiraz valued at $29.00.
Larry Cashion is now home, recovering from recent surgery.
PROGRAM: The evening's Roundtable sought to resolve the question of where we will hold our meetings for the rest of the coming year. The choices were Punderson Manor in Newbury Township, where we have been meeting for several years, or another site- in particular, Welshfield Inn in Troy Township. Two committees researched the various options. Bob Johnson and Tracy Jemison researched Punderson and Dan McClelland and Rich Newsome researched Welshfield Inn and other possible sites. Bob Johnson and Dan McClelland made presentations regarding what information their respective committee was able to obtain.
A lengthy discussion among the members covered the following points in depth: Quality of food, distance and reliability. Following the discussion, a paper ballot vote was taken. Thirty-three votes were cast, reflecting that 33 members attended this meeting. Welshfield Inn got 22 votes. Punderson got nine votes and two votes were invalid. Len asked those members who were not at this meeting to e-mail their vote to the Club Secretary Chris Livers. Her e-mail address is: clivers@juno.com.
Our next meeting will be at the Captains game in Eastlake.
PROGRAM last week: Len Golding, cardiologist and heart researcher, told us the story of the heart device he is working on that will replace the biological heart when it can no longer function as it should. There are many advantages to this device, now in the development stage.
The heart, he said, has two sides: right and left. When replacing the heart it is necessary to replace both pumps, which creates a problem. The replacement is a really big device. If you replace the heart, you have to have something "to squirt blood out".
The two main devices are the Jarvic and the Utah. Essentially they are air driven devices, two pumps "velcroed" together. They are legal only for temporary use until a transplant can be found. Another device was developed but unfortunately almost all patients who received it "stroked out".
Len stated that there are 2,200 heart transplants done in the United States each year. However the need is 77,000. Engineers wanted a device with only one moving part. Replacing the heart requires a continuous flow pump. If the speed of a heart replacement device is ratcheted up and down rapidly, it creates a pulse. An engineer brought an idea to Len's attention. Len had a small endowment and used it to build a prototype. Then he got $250,000 and made more prototypes. Len said he chased more money and now has $5.7 million to spend over four years.
The goal is for this device, now in development, to totally replace the heart. It will function without wear and will have a five-to-10 year durability. "Do we need a pulse? Len asked rhetorically. Some animals run for three years without a pulse, he said. A young man depulsed for 31 days; a transplant was done. That man is still alive today.
The device that engineer Dave Horvath proposed to Len is run through his laptop. Len then showed us a demo of the heart transplant device that he and Dave Horvath have been working on. With plastic, Len said, a prototype can be made rapidly. The critical issues are as follows:
1. Can you balance the flows on the right and left sides?
2. Preventing destruction of the red blood cells. They found that with a later version of their device, destruction of red blood cells was less than with a single pump.
3. They are gearing up to put the heart transplant device that they are developing into animals to test for clotting reactions.
4. The device needs 10-11 watts. That is about the same amount of current in the device in use now.
5. Now pumps are made only out of titanium. This raises issues of changing how the pump works versus how resistance pumps are balanced.
Dave Horvath did a failure analysis, Len said. He looked at how many failure modes there are. He found 14 failures for traditional pumps; nine for a two-pump system and four for this device.
Len anticipates that in five to six years trials in humans will begin. There are other groups working on other possibilities, he noted, but so far the device he is working on at the Cleveland Clinic has the greatest promise.