Vietnamese scientist researches to create 'soft robot heart'

This morning, December 2, in Hanoi, VinFuture Foundation organized an inspirational presentation with the theme "Breakthrough Technology of the Future", the opening event for VinFuture Science and Technology Week 2025.

During the presentation, a Vietnamese scientist, Associate Professor Do Thanh Nho, currently working at the University of New South Wales (Australia), introduced his important research, the "soft robot heart". This is a tool that helps doctors "rehearse" before performing surgery on complex cases.

Vietnamese scientist researches to create 'soft robot heart' - Photo 1.

Associate Professor Do Thanh Nho with the "soft robot heart" model at the opening speech of VinFuture Week 2025

PHOTO: THANH LAM

According to Associate Professor Do Thanh Nho, the "soft robot heart" is an artificial, soft, beating heart, designed specifically for each patient, that can accurately reproduce the movement, pressure and blood flow of a real heart.

This heart will help doctors rehearse complex surgeries and identify risks before entering the operating room, thereby significantly improving safety and success rates in disease treatment.

His work was initiated by the question: "Is it possible to create a heart outside a living body when the human heart is diseased?"

Associate Professor Do Thanh Nho said that currently, complex surgical interventions using cardiovascular devices play a central role in the treatment of these diseases. However, the choice of treatment for patients is often based on static images, medical history or simulation.

These methods lack dynamic feedback and tactile sensation, leading to inaccurate assessment, suboptimal treatment planning, and risk of postoperative complications.

Each human heart is unique, with variations in shape, movement, and mechanical properties of the heart tissue that are not fully replicated by existing models. This forces doctors to make life-or-death decisions with many variables that are difficult to determine.

The "soft robot heart" that Associate Professor Do Thanh Nho and his colleagues created is capable of simulating movement, blood pressure and flow like a real heart. This heart collects data from each individual patient, helping doctors test the devices on the robot heart before putting it into the patient, so complications can be detected promptly.

This research direction even opens up the opportunity to create artificial hearts to temporarily replace the real hearts of patients needing heart transplants while waiting for a donor heart. The challenge of this dream is to find soft materials similar to the human heart. With the development of the world 's current material science industry, this dream is not unrealistic.

Talking to the press on the sidelines of the lecture, Associate Professor Do Thanh Nho said that his work was not only researched and tested in Australia. Recently, he worked with the 108 Military Central Hospital, where doctors were very interested in his research on the "soft robot heart" and wanted to soon apply this work at the 108 Military Central Hospital.

"If the soft robot heart is commercialized, Vietnam is one of the first places I want to work," Associate Professor Do Thanh Nho expressed.

Associate Professor Do Thanh Nho, 40 years old, was born into a farming family in Tay Ninh province. He is a former student of the talented engineering class, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology.

In 2011, he received a full scholarship for his PhD program in surgical robotics at the School of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He did his postdoctoral research at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA.

He joined UNSW in 2018 as part of a programme to attract and support outstanding research leaders and mentors. He has received numerous prestigious awards and is an inventor with 12 international patents, several of which have been licensed or commercialised.

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