What if pacemakers could last a lifetime, work together, and sit right in the heart? That’s the vision behind a million-dollar research grant.
Being an engineer, Associate Professor David Budgett says he often finds himself pondering smarter ways to do things.
For the Auckland Bioengineering Institute researcher and entrepreneur, that means devising better methods of powering medical devices that provide life-changing benefits to the people they’re implanted into.
Now, Budgett and fellow Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland bioengineering researcher Dr Dan McCormick are preparing for one of their most exciting challenges yet: delivering a tiny, site-specific cardiac pacemaker that can communicate with other tiny pacemakers, be charged externally, and potentially stay running over the course of someone’s lifetime.
If they succeed, their project – which just received a one-million-dollar grant through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Smart Ideas fund – could have major implications for a range of other implantable devices.
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