Most cardiac devices operate from within the essential organ, but a team of researchers spanning institutions across the world decided to think outside the (beating) box. Their recent paper documents a robotic device that uses actuators to squeeze the heart from outside the pericardium to support failing heart activity (1).

“We were investigating new methods in dynamic actuation, and the integration of pneumatic actuators into a soft robotics platform showed promise for achieving complex motions like that exhibited by the heart,” says Frank A. Pigula, co-corresponding author and cardiothoracic surgeon.