On July 8, 2026, the results of the 2025 National Science and Technology Awards were announced. The project titled Establishment and Promotion of a Precision Surgical Treatment System for Severe Heart Failure, led by Academician Hu Shengshou of Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, received the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. After nearly two decades of systematic research, the project overcame multiple critical technological bottlenecks, established a comprehensive surgical diagnosis and treatment system for severe heart failure with distinct Chinese characteristics, and advanced China’s capacity for treating severe heart failure into the front ranks internationally.

Severe heart failure is a life-threatening end-stage cardiovascular condition with an acute-phase mortality rate as high as 70 percent, a five-year survival rate of only 20 percent, and an extremely poor prognosis. Heart transplantation and implantation of ventricular assist devices are internationally recognized as the ultimate treatment options. For many years, however, China faced major constraints in this field, including foreign dominance in high-end artificial heart technologies, the lack of core surgical techniques, and an underdeveloped perioperative management system, all of which limited the country’s ability to treat advanced heart failure. In response to these major clinical challenges, Academician Hu’s team, supported by multiple national-level science and technology programs, pioneered a collaborative innovation model integrating medical institutions and industry, and worked with leading domestic high-end medical device companies to achieve a series of original and pioneering technological breakthroughs.

In the field of artificial heart development, the team and its partners successfully developed two third-generation fully implantable, fully magnetically levitated artificial hearts with completely independent intellectual property rights: the CH-VAD (Suzhou Tongxin) and Corheart 6 (Shenzhen Core Medical). Their overall performance and clinical outcomes surpass those of leading international products, breaking long-standing foreign technological monopolies, driving the global upgrading of artificial heart technology, and establishing a Chinese industrial chain solution for high-end medical equipment manufacturing. Both devices have now been approved for marketing in China and have obtained U.S. FDA and EU CE clinical trial approvals, successfully entering high-end medical markets in Europe and the United States.

In terms of clinical application, the team has completed the country’s largest single-center series of fully implantable artificial heart implantations, totaling 172 cases. The perioperative survival rate reached 97.7 percent, while the three-year postoperative survival rate reached 89.1 percent, significantly outperforming the international average of 63.1 percent. The team also established China’s first standardized full-cycle management system for artificial heart therapy, marking a new stage of standardized and large-scale clinical application of artificial hearts in the country.

In the field of heart transplantation, the team pioneered the “Fuwai Protocol,” a heart transplantation approach tailored to Chinese patients, with multiple techniques representing international firsts. The project introduced stage-based myocardial protection technology, an improved and standardized vena cava anastomosis technique, and a stepwise critical care treatment system integrating IABP, ECMO, and VAD. It also optimized perioperative immune regulation strategies, effectively reducing the risk of transplant rejection. The team has completed a total of 1,473 heart transplants, the largest volume for a single center in China. Patients achieved five-year and ten-year survival rates of 88 percent and 78 percent, respectively, significantly exceeding the global averages of 72 percent and 57 percent published by the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation, thereby establishing a new international benchmark for heart transplantation outcomes.

In addition, the project built a full-chain scientific innovation system spanning clinical research, basic research, and translational medicine. It established China’s first human cardiovascular cell bank, produced the world’s first single-cell sequencing atlas of the adult heart, developed precise classification standards for arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, clarified key mechanisms underlying reverse remodeling after myocardial unloading, identified core molecular biomarkers, and pioneered a new model for original cardiovascular drug development. These advances have laid a solid technological foundation for precision diagnosis and treatment of heart failure as well as for the development of new drugs.

At present, this independently developed diagnosis and treatment system has been widely promoted across China, comprehensively enhancing the country’s standardized and homogeneous treatment capacity for advanced heart failure. The related technologies have also gained recognition in multiple countries in Europe and North America, supported overseas visits and professional training programs, and enabled the reverse export of China’s high-end cardiovascular technologies. This award fully demonstrates China’s robust indigenous innovation capabilities in the surgical treatment of severe heart failure and marks the country’s formal entry into the ranks of world leaders in the diagnosis and treatment of end-stage cardiovascular disease.