NASA ENGINEER, HEART PATIENT, HAD MAJOR ROLE IN DESIGN OF HEART PUMP



June 12, 2000



John Ira Petty
Johnson Space Center
281/483-5111

<h4>Release: J00-39</h4> <h3>NASA Engineer, Heart Patient, Had Major 
Role in Design of Heart Pump</h3> 

Employees Used Shuttle Technology to Benefit Patients on Earth



NASA/Johnson Space Center engineer David Saucier would have been 
proud.



Saucier, who worked on the huge turbopumps feeding propellant to the 
Space Shuttle&rsquo;s main engines, suffered a heart attack in 1983. 
The following year Dr. Michael DeBakey transplanted a heart into 
Saucier&rsquo;s chest.



During Saucier&rsquo;s recovery, the two talked &ndash; about heart 
pumps and space technology, and how the two might be combined. The 
eventual result was the miniaturized ventricular-assist pump. Its 
first U.S. implant was announced Thursday.



A total of 32 have been implanted into patients in Europe since late 
1998, with good results, DeBakey said at a press conference 
announcing the beginning of U.S. trials.



Six months after his transplant sixteen years ago, Saucier was back at 
JSC with renewed vigor and dedication and a newfound dedication to 
applying shuttle technology to help people with heart problems.



With fellow JSC workers Greg Aber, Jim Akkerman, Dick Bozeman, Jim 
Bacak and Paul Svejkovsky and with DeBakey, and Baylor College of 
Medicine specialists Robert Benkowski, George Damm, Dr. Kazumi 
Mizuguchi, Dr. George Noon and Dr. Yukihiko Nose, Saucier saw the 
concept move toward the reality that is helping the heart of a 
31-year-old woman in Houston&rsquo;s Methodist Hospital today.



"Since my own transplant, I have spent a lot of time visiting people 
waiting for a donor heart," Saucier said during that development 
phase. "Sometimes they don't make it and it's very tough to watch 
people struggle so valiantly and then lose the battle. I feel a real 
sense of urgency to come up with a practical alternative to 
transplant surgery."



Saucier and the others began working evenings and weekends -- on the 
pump&rsquo;s design. In 1992, NASA began funding the project.



"The team was very dedicated," DeBakey said "and we made a certain 
amount of progress considering we were working part-time in all of 
this. I got the impression after our first meeting that we had some 
really good minds on this problem, and that certainly proved to be 
the case.&rdquo;



NASA&rsquo;s Ames Research Center contributed to the design of the 
pump that moves blood efficiently and without damage. Shuttle 
technology, particularly that of the liquid hydrogen pumps serving 
the main engines, also was applied.



"My goal is to have a permanently installed LVAD pump that can take 
the place of a heart transplant," Saucier said. "That's when I'll be 
satisfied."



The VAD, initially called the NASA/DeBakey heart pump, became even 
more than Saucier envisioned.



In addition to being a more permanent device to help heart patients 
lead a more nearly normal life, it also serves as "bridge" to 
transplant, or as a device that could help a patient toward recovery 
by helping rest a damaged heart.



The result of the efforts of Saucier, his NASA colleagues, the DeBakey 
team and MicroMed, is a remarkable battery-operated pump -- 2 inches 
long, 1 inch in diameter and weighing less than four ounces -- that 
seems to be an answer to the decades-long quest to develop an 
implantable ventricular-assist pump. It is small enough to fit into a 
child's chest.



The tiny device has functioned normally and to specification, said 
Dallas Anderson, president and CEO of MicroMed Technology Inc. of 
Houston, TX, the company to which NASA granted exclusive rights for 
the patented pump technology.



After intense competition, MicroMed was granted exclusive rights to it 
in 1996, the year Saucier died.

	
-end-