Media
Meet Javier Navarro Rueda
How 3D tech is shaping surgical planning and medical education
By Aithanh Nguyen | November 1, 2025
In April this year, Dr. Javier Navarro Rueda joined the University of Minnesota as an Assistant Professor for the Visible Heart® Laboratories (VHL).
"Collections from the Visible Heart Laboratories now in circulation"
By Erinn Aspinall | July 1, 2025
John Brigham, VHL Heart Library Curator, fosters collaboration with UMN Health Sciences Library, which recently added the Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy to it's A-Z database. Next up, HSL is exploring ways make the VHL's collection of 3D printer files readily accessible.
"Looking back towards the future"
By Brian Bossetta | April 17, 2025
A closer look at Medtronic's 75 years of shaping the medtech industry, including insights from Dr. Paul Iaizzo of the collaboration with the Visible Heart® Laboratories.
"Learning medicine through modern technologies"
By Aithanh Nguyen | March 1, 2025
How medical device innovation, VR, and 3D tech are redefining medical education.
"Visible Heart Laboratories — home of the U’s beating heart"
by Rachel Hoppe | February 17, 2025
The lab reanimates mammalian hearts and develops human physiology education tools.
"Looking at the spine outside the body"
By Aithanh Nguyen | February 1, 2025
Rachel Larson, VHL, collaborates on 3D prints
"Inside the lab that’s the beating heart of Medtronic’s product pipeline"
By Victor Stefanescu | February 1, 2025
At the UMN, researchers keep hearts alive outside the body for hours. Medtronic uses them to develop blockbuster devices.
2018 - 2024
Note: Content on this page is kept only for reference, research, and/or recordkeeping purposes and has not been changed since it was archived.
December 9, 2024
VR technology helps doctors see, plan removal of infant's 'once-in-a-lifetime' heart tumor
By Kent Erdahl
Dr. Shanti Narashimhan, Director of Pediatric Cardiology with M Health Fairview and the UMN Medical School, uses a VR program in use at the VHL to aid in surgical planning.
November 4, 2024
The chaotic beginnings of the tool that made heart surgery possible
By Michael Merschel
Dr. Richard DeWall in November 1956 with the heart-lung machine called a "bubble oxygenator," which he developed. (photo courtesy of UMN Archives).
Fall 2024
University experts are standouts in the race to regenerate tissues for damaged heart and other organs
By Pauline Oo
UMN CSE Inventing Tomorrow magazine features VHL's collaboration with Dr. Brenda Olga.
November 1, 2024
The Heart of Minnesota Med Tech Innovation
By Aithanh Nguyen
VHL hosts a table at IEM Innovation Zone.
September 1, 2024
Visible Heart® Laboratories joins the Institute for Engineering in Medicine
By Aithanh Nguyen
The shared synergy between IEM and VHL roots back to the Institute’s beginning.
March 30, 2023
Who Would Dare to Visit a Bear?
By Lake Country Journal
Learn more about Dr. Paul Iaizzo's bear research and if the complex biological changes in a bear's body during hibernation can teach us something about reducing damage to a human patient's heart
June 22, 2022
25 Years of Visible Heart® Laboratories Research & Training at the UMN
Principal Investigator, Paul Iaizzo, PhD, was awarded a Bronzed Human Heart Model by Medtronic in late June during the 25th-anniversary celebration of the Visible Heart® Laboratories within the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
February 15, 2022
Stratasys donates 3D printers to UMN’s Visible Heart Lab
Located at the University of Minnesota Medical School, the Visible Heart® Laboratories helps medical students, medical device creators, and many others utilize the benefits of 3D printing technology and anatomic models.
December 29, 2021
Wildlife's Winter Survival Guide
Imagine temperatures below zero for sustained periods, snow several feet deep - all causing a lack of food and housing. It is a reality for many animals.
March 8, 2020
Participating in Minnesota bear study an opportunity of a lifetime
An avid outdoorsman from Plummer in Red Lake County, Hemly has spent the past decade assisting bear researchers from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources with a study to learn more about bears in the northwest part of the state.
March 5, 2020
Human hearts capture her heart
When she was just 14, Dannyelle Donahue decided to pursue a career as a medical device inventor.
February 11, 2020
Visible Heart Laboratories Reaches International Territories with Education
The Visible Heart® Laboratories at the University of Minnesota Medical School, is bridging the international gap; every year, over half a million people utilize their website.
December 15, 2019
Researchers study the hibernation habits of Minnesota's black bears to benefit their kind—and maybe ours.