The course is aimed at providing the students the proper methodologies to design and evaluate life support systems and artificial internal organs, namely artificial lung/ventilation systems, artificial kidney/dialysis therapy, artificial pancreas, artificial heart/ventricular assist devices, being them either implantable, or para-, or extra-corporeal. The machine to patient interaction will be also focused and discussed. After an introduction of the basic physiology of the native internal organs, the design of life support systems will be focused based on the mechanical and physico-chemical phenomena taking place in them. Mass transfer, energy supply and converters, will be studied and optimized as a function of the specific application. Criteria on how to optimize and adjust the performance and efficiency of the systems will be given also paying attention to the specific life-style of the patient.

Moreover the course aims at giving the students hints about ethical approaches to the design of life saving devices and to bring students to make autonomous judgements about the possible solutions to be adopted.

Along the course clinical applications/implantation procedure and devices will be shown to the students either in the form of videos/slides or by showing real commercial devices.

At the end of the course the students are expected to possess both know-how and know-why about the artificial internal organs or life support systems devices working conditions, constraints and design methods.

Namely the students are expected:

- to know the main concepts about the design constraints and specifications of the artificial internal organs or life support systems focused during the course;

- to know and deal with the main physical, mechanical, and chemical phenomena taking place in the devices;

- to be able to perform calculations to design, quantify, and evaluate, the performances of the devices;

- to be able to develop and apply patient specific approaches to the design of artificial systems and know how to optimize the interaction with the living organism;

- to possess methods and skills to tackle and face innovation in this field of biomedical engineering.

The course is aimed at teaching design and evaluation criteria of artificial internal organs and life supprot systems devices.

More specifically, the main subjects are the following:

- Survey about functional anatomy and physiology of the internal organs possibly needing assistance or substiitution;

- Design criteria and optimisation of life support systems devices/artificial internal organs;

- Materials choice;

- Adjustment methods and criteria to optimise the machine to patient interface;

- Optimization criteria for device setting;

- Mass transfer in solutions and through artificial membranes;

- Design and optimisation of dialysis filters and oxygenators;

- Design and optimization of blood pumps;

- Energy sources and converters;

- Efficiency evaluation and optimisation criteria of the systems;

International standards prescription related to the testing and the production of life support systems will also be presented.

Practical class activities will deal with the solution of problems related to the design and evaluation of the studied life support system/arytificial organs.

Attendance of the courses Biomeccanica, Fenomeni di Trasporto nei Sistemi Biologici and Biomachines (with Laboratory) is strongly advised. However, the main concepts from these courses will be recalled at the beginning of the course and anytime these concepts should be essential to ease and deepen students' knowledge. 

The final exam will consist in either an oral or a written test (which in specific cases can be followed by an oral exam) based on the number of students attending the course.

The students will be informed about the exam modalities at the very beginning of the course.

The students will be evaluated based on their capacity to answer teoretical questions about the subjects taught during the course and to frame them in a wider scenario. More specifically skills about knowledge and understanding and communications, will be evaluated.

Moreover the students will be evaluated based on his/her capacity to establish connections among the different subjects dwealt with during the course and among the course and the other attended courses. More specifically, students' skills in applying knowledge and understanding to problem solution, in making judgements about the possible technical choices, and in communication modalities to explain and assess the validity of the chosen methods, will be evaluated. 

The notes are available in pdf format on the Beep page of the course.