News & Events

Javier Navarro Rueda holding 3D heart model

November 2025

Meet Javier Navarro Rueda

In April this year, Dr. Javier Navarro Rueda joined the University of Minnesota as an Assistant Professor for the VHL. 

The only lab in the world reanimating heart written above a heart.

Sept. 2025

Go inside the one-of-a-kind Visible Heart® Lab

At the University of Minnesota’s Visible Heart® Laboratories, Medtronic scientists and engineers are partnering with researchers to test heart devices and prototypes inside beating human hearts.

LinkedIn Post | Instagram Post

James Villar-Mead

Sept. 2025

Congratulations to James Villar-Mead on passing his BME PhD oral prelims! His research focuses on "Targeted Pulsed Field Ablation of Typical Atrial Flutter and Ventricular Tachyarrhythmais: Anatomical Insights, Hemolytic Evalutation, and Reversible/Irreversible Waveform Optimization."

A beating pig heart glows at the University of Minnesota's Visible Heart Lab in Minneapolis. (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

February 1, 2025

"Inside the lab that’s the beating heart of Medtronic’s product pipeline" At the UMN, researchers keep hearts alive outside the body for hours. Medtronic uses them to develop blockbuster devices.

Bakken Symposium Lecture Series

Five historical pictures highlighting Earl E. Bakken.

Next Course Offering
Friday, November 14, 2025
8:00 am - 5:00 pm
The Great Hall, Coffman Memorial Union

18th Annual Earl E. Bakken Symposium: Thoracic Organ Transplantation and Preservation Technologies

Large group celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the VHL

June 2022

Did you know that Medtronic's longest standing academic collaboration is with VHL? It was great to celebrate 25 years of innovation stemming from this collaboration!