Since the decade of the 1960s when President Lyndon Johnson approved funding for development of an implantable artificial heart, physicians and their engineering and basic science colleagues have worked together to develop circulatory assist devices to support Americans suffering from refractory heart failure. These efforts have been punctuated by remarkable developments in technology and the implementation of clinical trials both in the U.S. and abroad. Now some 20 years after Dr. Barney Clark became the first patient to be implanted with the Jarvik artificial heart, thousands of patients worldwide have received circulatory assist devices, primarily as a bridge-to-cardiac transplantation. This Gordon Conference will focus on the science and clinical indications for circulatory assist and replacement. Biologic and mechanical systems will be considered with adjuvant therapy including cell, gene and protein therapies. Speakers will review the history of assisted circulation; evaluate the strengths and limitations of current pulsatile flow devices; critique the potential of rotary-based blood pumps as an alternative-to-cardiac transplantation and for destination therapy; critically evaluate the potential of biological-based cardiac assistance; and discuss the role of assisted circulation in an era of exploding knowledge regarding the molecular basis of heart failure.

The GRC Program presented below will both summarize current technologies and strategies for treating heart failure while also focusing on the many new exciting therapies (both mechanical and cellular based) which are now becoming available in the U.S. (and which will continue to be introduced for the foreseeable future). Two poster sessions will be organized by the conference chair and co-chair, and will be an integral part of the meeting.