Once again Mechanical wins hearts of millions

"Researchers envision switching a heart beat on and off with light."

Relatively new field of optogenetics may offer solutions for cardiac arrhythmia.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to shine a light on someone's chest and defibrillate them painlessly? With a few flicks of a light switch--on-off-on-off-- Stanford University's Oscar Abilez is one step closer to changing the lives of millions. Why? Because as a focused speck of light turns on and off in Abilez's lab, a cluster of heart cells begins to expand and contract. He demonstrates that he can control the rhythm of a heart using just light.

Currently, 4 million Americans suffer from some degree of cardiac arrhythmia, wherein a person's heart beats too slowly, too quickly or at irregular intervals. Such heart rhythm problems can cause a shortness of breath, fainting and, in worst-case scenarios, death.

The good news is devices like pacemakers and defibrillators allow doctors to introduce electrical signals to set patients' hearts at regularly timed beats. But these small mechanical devices come with risks.

"It's like using a cannon to kill an ant," says Leon Esterowitz, director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Engineering's Biophotonics program, which funds this research through the Living Matter Lab at Stanford, under the direction of Ellen Kuhl, a professor of engineering at Stanford.
Patients must undergo invasive surgical procedures to permanently implant the devices, which can cause cardiac tissue damage. There are other challenges too, such as lifestyle limitations and the occasional battery malfunction.

Dr. Light to the rescue:

That's where Abilez, a cardiovascular physician with a doctorate in bioengineering, comes in. He's working with a team of Stanford scientists to develop a novel biological pacemaker- one that controls the human heart with light.