A revolutionary Penn State-designed heart pump is beating in an American patient for the first time.

Doctors performed the groundbreaking surgery yesterday at the university's Hershey Medical Center. The patient was in critical condition and recovering as expected, according to the hospital.

The hospital would release no more information about the patient yesterday but scheduled a press conference for this morning in Hershey.

Researchers designed the heart pump — called the Arrow LionHeart — to help people with end-state heart failure who are unable to get a heart transplant because of some other condition.

The LionHeart rests in the chest just below the heart and helps the left ventricle move blood.

It is the first heart assist device of its kind that doesn't require wires or hoses to pass through the skin. Instead, it uses coils of wire to pass electrical current to the device from a battery pack on the outside of the skin.

The pump can run for about 20 minutes if the battery pack becomes detached.

The LionHeart was developed by Penn State at the Hershey Medical Center in cooperation with Arrow International, Inc., a biotech company in Reading.

Doctors have already tested the device on several patients in Europe. The first patient, who received the LionHeart 16 months ago, is still alive.

In February, The Food and Drug Administration approved the LionHeart for testing in the United States.

The LionHeart is one of the fruits of more than 30 years of research by the Penn State Artificial Organs program.

Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory has helped the program by developing sturdy materials for the pump.

Researchers in the program are also working on implantable devices that replace the entire heart. Those devices have already been tested in animals.

Penn State's "total heart" project is part of a partnership with another biotechnology company, ABIOMED Inc., of Danvers, Mass.