Bioresorbable Pacemakers

I'm excited to share some amazing research that's coming out of John Rogers' lab at Northwestern University (my alma mater). Rogers' research focuses on bringing together soft materials, like biological tissues, with hard materials, like electronics. The results can be inventions that sound more like science fiction than reality.

For example, his research group collaborated on a pacemaker that can be implanted without leads or batteries that can - wait for it - break down and be completely reabsorbed into the body. This can be important for cardiac surgery where the patient needs a pacemaker temporarily, which is common. Right when the patient is starting to recover to the point where their heart no longer needs a pacemaker, previous technologies required another invasive surgery to remove the device. But with a pacemaker than can dissolve into the patient's body, that second surgery is no longer needed. This is a major clinical advance. This research was described in a 2021 Nature Biotechnology paper. The figure below is modified from Figure 1 of that 2021 paper. You can see how small this device is. I really encourage you to read the paper and think about the features of this invention. The electrodes are so small that they look more like chemistry to me than engineering, with thicknesses in nanometers and chemical formulae rather than cutsheets.

A more recent invention that builds along this same research path is even smaller - about the size of a sesame seed! Rogers is listed as one of the inventors on an application filed in May of 2025 and assigned to Northwestern University, Millimeter-scale bioresorbable pacemaker with optoelectronic system and powering system and applications thereof. This application is still pending, and it was published on November 13th, 2025. Here, not only is the pacemaker much smaller, but it's also controlled optically by a wearable device.

The patent application is written with 55 claims: 1 independent and 54 dependent claims, but no multiply dependent claims.

And before I dig into these claims a bit, please note that I am not a lawyer. Nothing in this blog post should be taken as legal advice. I am a patent agent, so I can help with writing, submitting, and prosecuting a patent. If you'd like to work with me, please don't hesitate to reach out. Just know that the only way to become my client is to sign an engagement letter with me - reading my blog posts about cool new pacemakers does not make you my client.

Claim one is simply for a pacemaker with a phototransistor and two electrodes. Several of the other claims serve as key branching points in the claims tree. These especially include claims 19, 34, and 49. Claim 19 introduces a minimally invasive implantation technique, namely, percutaneous injection. Claim 34 introduces a narrow band optical filter to be installed over the phototransistor. And Claim 49 combines many of the inventors' ideas for a pacemaker system with a transcatheter aortic valve replacement. Of course no one can be certain at this stage which claims will be allowed. Still, the claim structure lays out a clear strategy for defending many of the essential ideas behind this amazing invention. Like the pacemaker from 2021, this pacemaker reduces many of the challenges associated with cardiac surgery and rehab. I'm looking forward to seeing where these inventions can go next. And of course, there is so much more research coming out of the Rogers lab, I will keep digging through their papers and patents to see what other amazing things I can share.

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