Swiss pacemakers run like clockwork

Swiss engineers, famous for making the world’s finest watches, are turning their hands to cardiology with a prototype battery-less pacemaker based on a self-winding wristwatch.

Current pacemakers, which help the heart beat more regularly, offer a lifeline for many patients with cardiac problems but the need for battery power is a limiting factor, since replacing them requires a surgical intervention.

Adrian Zurbuchen of the University of Bern’s cardiovascular engineering group aims to get around the problem with his device, using automatic clockwork first developed for pocket watches by Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Perrelet in 1777.

In much the same way that an automatic watch winds itself when it moves on the wrist, the clockwork pacemaker generates electrical current using the movement of heart muscle.

So far, the experimental system has only been tested on pigs, Zurbuchen told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona on Sunday.

The animals hearts were successfully regulated to a steady 130 beats per minute.