What if healing a heart didn’t leave a scar? No wires, no incisions, no machines taped to your chest. Just support when you need it, and nothing left behind when you don’t. That’s not a futuristic fantasy. It’s the reality behind a pacemaker smaller than a grain of rice, recently unveiled by scientists at Northwestern University.

Each year, millions rely on pacemakers to keep their hearts beating in rhythm. These devices have saved lives for decades, but they’ve also brought risk, trauma, and, often, a second round of surgery just to remove them. For fragile patients, especially newborns with heart defects, those risks can be overwhelming.

Now imagine a device so small it can be delivered with a syringe. It powers itself using your body’s own fluids. It listens to your heartbeat through a soft patch on your chest. And when its job is done? It simply dissolves. 

Why We Needed a Better Option

Pacemakers have long been the fallback when the heart can’t keep its own rhythm. For patients with slow or irregular heartbeats, these devices act as life-saving safety nets, delivering small electrical pulses that keep blood flowing. But the standard approach—implanting a permanent or temporary pacemaker with wires, hardware, and surgery—has serious drawbacks that medicine has had to accept for decades.

Traditional pacemakers are placed through an incision in the chest, with wires (called leads) anchored into the heart muscle. These wires connect to a pulse generator, usually implanted just under the skin. In temporary setups, the wires exit the body and connect to an external pacing box. The process is invasive and often introduces new risks at a time when the patient is already medically fragile.

Infections, internal bleeding, and damage to heart tissue are not rare complications—they’re regular concerns. Removing temporary pacemakers poses its own dangers. Scar tissue can form around the wires, and pulling them out can tear the heart muscle. In one high-profile case, astronaut Neil Armstrong died from complications following the removal of a temporary pacemaker after heart surgery. That kind of outcome isn’t just tragic—it highlights how much better we need to do.

Children born with congenital heart defects are particularly vulnerable. About 1% of newborns worldwide fall into this category. Many require short-term pacing support after surgery, but their hearts are small, their tissues delicate, and the risks of invasive procedures are magnified. The tools we’ve used for decades weren’t designed with their needs in mind.

Even adult patients recovering from procedures like bypasses or valve repairs face the burden of temporary pacemakers. External wires, risk of infection, discomfort, and the need for additional procedures to remove hardware all stand in the way of a smooth recovery. The irony is stark: to help the heart heal, we often introduce a new set of problems.

That gap—between what we have and what we need—has been clear to clinicians for a long time. We’ve needed a solution that works with the body, not against it. One that supports healing without forcing a second surgery or creating new risks. Now, we finally have a serious contender.

A Pacemaker That Needs No Surgery

The new pacemaker developed by researchers at Northwestern University is radically different from the devices we’ve come to expect. It doesn’t require chest incisions, threading wires into heart muscle, or connecting the patient to an external control box. It’s not even implanted with surgical tools. Instead, this rice-sized device is small enough to fit into the tip of a syringe and can be gently placed onto the surface of the heart during an existing procedure—no extra cuts, no added trauma.

Once in position, it doesn’t sit there passively. It powers itself using the body’s own fluids. Built with a galvanic cell—essentially a miniaturized, body-activated battery—it uses chemical reactions between biocompatible metals and the surrounding tissue fluids to generate the energy needed to pace the heart. There’s no need for bulky batteries or physical charging components.

Control comes from outside the body, but without physical contact. A soft, flexible patch worn on the chest sends pulses of near-infrared light through the skin and tissue to the pacemaker. These pulses trigger the device to deliver electrical stimulation in sync with the patient’s heart rhythm. The light travels deep enough to activate the device reliably, but without harming the tissue. There are no wires threading out of the body, no external boxes, and no limitations on mobility.

What makes this device even more remarkable is its temporary nature. It’s designed to help only as long as needed. Once the heart is stable—usually within days after surgery in pediatric cases, or a few weeks in adult recovery—it dissolves completely inside the body. There’s no need to retrieve it, no second procedure, no leftover hardware. The materials used, including magnesium and tungsten, are fully bioresorbable. They break down safely and are absorbed by the body without causing harm.

This new approach eliminates many of the risks that come with conventional temporary pacemakers. It offers not only technical advancement but also a major shift in the philosophy of cardiac care: healing should be supportive, not traumatic; effective, but minimally invasive. This tiny device delivers on that idea.

How It Actually Works

At first glance, the idea of a pacemaker that runs on body fluids and responds to light might sound like science fiction. But the engineering behind it is grounded, precise, and already tested in multiple preclinical models—including mice, pigs, dogs, and human heart tissue.

The core of the device is powered by a galvanic cell—a type of battery formed when two different metals (in this case, biocompatible ones like magnesium and tungsten) come into contact with the body’s natural fluids. Those fluids act as the electrolyte, triggering a chemical reaction that generates enough electrical current to pace the heart. There are no moving parts, no need for recharging, and no dependency on external machinery.

Control signals come from a wearable patch that sits on the skin over the chest. This patch is equipped with a small light-emitting diode (LED) that emits pulses of near-infrared light. That specific wavelength can penetrate through skin, muscle, and bone safely and deeply enough to reach the heart. When the patch detects an abnormal rhythm, like a heart rate that’s too slow, it automatically sends a flash of light. The pacemaker picks up that signal and responds instantly, delivering a gentle electrical pulse to restore the heart’s rhythm.

The light doesn’t “power” the pacemaker—it acts like a switch. On the back side of the device is a light-activated component that tells the galvanic battery when to start or stop sending pulses. This simple mechanism eliminates the need for wires, antennas, or complex electronics, making it possible to shrink the device to just 3.5 mm long, 1.8 mm wide, and 1 mm thick.

Another significant innovation: the device can be distributed. Because each pacemaker is so small, multiple units can be placed around the heart if needed, each one triggered independently using different light wavelengths. This opens up the possibility of pacing different regions of the heart separately—something not achievable with a single traditional lead.

And when the heart no longer needs help, the device steps aside—literally disappearing. Its materials naturally dissolve into the body over a pre-engineered timeline, leaving no residue, no scar tissue, and no need for surgical removal.

It’s a system that doesn’t just keep the heart beating—it listens, responds, and leaves quietly when the job is done.

Game-Changer for Pediatric and Post-Surgical Care

Temporary pacing is often essential—but especially for two high-risk groups: newborns with congenital heart defects and adults recovering from cardiac surgeries. Until now, these patients have had to endure hardware that’s oversized, invasive, and often as burdensome as the problem it aims to solve. This dissolvable pacemaker shifts that reality in a way no previous device has.

For pediatric patients, size is everything. Roughly 1% of all babies are born with structural heart defects. Many require short-term pacing support immediately after surgery. But standard pacemakers, with their wires, batteries, and need for removal, were never designed with infant anatomy in mind. Threading leads through a newborn’s chest and sewing them into a heart no larger than a walnut is risky, both during placement and during removal. The new device solves this with a design that’s not just smaller—it’s purpose-built for this exact use case. It can be placed gently during surgery, doesn’t tether the child to external equipment, and simply dissolves once the heart stabilizes, usually within about a week.

For adult patients recovering from procedures like coronary bypasses or valve replacements, the need for temporary pacing is also common. Traditionally, that means waking up with wires exiting the chest and connecting to a box outside the body—a constant reminder of fragility and a source of potential infection. Worse, even after the heart recovers, the removal of those wires comes with real risk. Scar tissue can make the extraction difficult or dangerous, sometimes resulting in bleeding or even cardiac damage.

With the dissolvable pacemaker, those risks fall away. There are no wires to pull out. Nothing protrudes from the body. Once the heart no longer needs pacing support, the device fades away on its own. Recovery becomes less about managing hardware and more about actual healing.

Emotionally, this also changes the recovery experience. Patients—especially young ones—don’t leave the hospital with scars, devices still implanted, or the anxiety of follow-up procedures. Instead, they move forward with fewer reminders of what they’ve been through. In many ways, this tiny device removes more than just surgical risk—it removes the lingering weight that medical interventions often leave behind.

For both groups, the benefits are clear: fewer complications, lower risk of infection, no second surgery, and a recovery that honors both the body’s capacity to heal and the human need to do so without added trauma.

My Personal RX on Supporting Your Cardiovascular System

Heart health isn’t just about genetics or aging—it’s about daily choices. Your cardiovascular system is influenced by what you eat, how you move, how well you sleep, and even how you manage stress. The heart and blood vessels work hard every moment of your life, so supporting them proactively is one of the most important investments you can make. The good news? You don’t need drastic changes—just consistent, heart-smart habits that reduce inflammation, improve circulation, and nourish the systems that keep your heart pumping strong. Prevention really is the best medicine when it comes to cardiovascular health.

1. Strengthen the Gut-Heart Connection: Inflammation and poor gut health can negatively impact heart function. MindBiotic supports gut balance and stress regulation with probiotics, prebiotics, and Ashwagandha—helping reduce the inflammation that burdens the cardiovascular system.
   
2. Fuel Your Heart with Anti-Inflammatory Meals: The Mindful Meals cookbook includes 100+ recipes rich in heart-friendly ingredients like leafy greens, berries, whole grains, and healthy fats—all designed to support vascular health and reduce plaque buildup.
   
3. Move for 30 Minutes Most Days: Regular physical activity improves circulation, lowers blood pressure, and strengthens the heart muscle. Aim for a mix of walking, strength training, and stretching.
   
4. Prioritize Omega-3 Fats: Fatty fish like salmon, flaxseeds, and walnuts contain omega-3s, which help reduce triglycerides, prevent clotting, and support healthy arteries.
   
5. Keep Salt in Check: Excess sodium contributes to high blood pressure. Choose whole, unprocessed foods and flavor meals with herbs, citrus, and spices instead of salt-heavy seasonings.
   
6. Get Quality, Consistent Sleep: Poor sleep is a hidden stressor on the heart. Aim for 7–9 hours per night, and reduce blue light exposure before bed to help your cardiovascular system recover overnight.
   
7. Manage Stress Proactively: Chronic stress elevates cortisol and blood pressure. Daily relaxation practices like deep breathing, meditation, or time in nature help reduce the burden on your heart.
   
8. Stay Hydrated for Healthy Circulation: Water keeps blood viscosity in check and supports kidney function, which in turn helps regulate blood pressure.
   
9. Watch Blood Sugar and Insulin Levels: Even without diabetes, high blood sugar can damage blood vessels. Eating balanced meals with fiber, protein, and healthy fats helps prevent sharp glucose spikes.
   
10. Know Your Numbers and Act Early: Regularly monitor your blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides. Even small improvements in these areas can significantly reduce your long-term cardiovascular risk

Sources:

1. Zhang, Y., Rytkin, E., Zeng, L., Kim, J. U., Tang, L., Zhang, H., Mikhailov, A., Zhao, K., Wang, Y., Ding, L., Lu, X., Lantsova, A., Aprea, E., Jiang, G., Li, S., Seo, S. G., Wang, T., Wang, J., Liu, J., . . . Rogers, J. A. (2025). Millimetre-scale bioresorbable optoelectronic systems for electrotherapy. PubMed, 640(8057), 77–86. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08726-4 
2. World’s smallest pacemaker is activated by light. (n.d.). Northwestern Now. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2025/03/worlds-smallest-pacemaker-is-activated-by-light/ 

Featured image: Northwestern University