The Pacemaker Patch

A pacemaker is implanted to send signals that regulate a patient’s heartbeat, and to do that, you need power. That means they require battery changes, and when the device in question happens to be inside your chest, that means surgery. Sometimes as often as every five years.

[Alex Music] writing in Spectrum notes that researchers have a new paper discussing a possible alternative: a tiny patch stuck to the outside of the chest that uses ultrasound to pace the heart rhythm. Rats, pigs, and human heart cell samples have all responded to the system. You might wonder how ultrasound could make your heart beat, but the new pacemaker relies on gene therapy to sensitize your heart cells to the high-frequency waves.

The therapy is delivered by a simple injection. In addition to the chest patch, the patient would need a data and power module that they could keep in their pocket. The gene therapy doesn’t alter your DNA but introduces RNA to make heart cells produce a sound-sensitive protein in the cell’s ion channels.

When stimulated, the ion channels admit calcium, which causes the heart to beat. Pacemakers are nothing less than a modern technological marvel. Maybe if this catches on, cheap junked pacemakers will show up on the surplus market.

They could be useful.