抄録
Implantable artificial lung has not been developed yet, because the alveolar structure in the human lung is too fine and too complicated to be artificially made and manipulated. I proposed an Origami model of the human alveolar structure which mimics the respiratory motion by changing the folding angles. I recently have simulated the gas-exchange in the human lung using an extended 4D alveolar model with the capillary space in the alveolar wall, and revealed that the huge surface area corresponding to a tennis court is unnecessary for human beings and that the fine alveolar structure is required not for gas-exchange but for the lung elastic recoil. Therefore, it is possible to make an implantable artificial lung by combing Origami Engineering and computational simulation study for the respiratory physiology.
