Each year we hold our annual pacemaker clinic patient education conference. This year the theme was biological pacing, an area of intense interest with our patient families. It seems that we are in the midst of a medical evolution with emerging developments in molecular and genetics research leading to a potential future of “personalized medicine”. Is the timing ripe to let our patients learn about this? Are we possibly opening up false hopes or unrealistic expectations?

Attempts and interest in biologic pacing began in the 1960s as researchers attempted sinus node transplants, followed by discovery of the pacemaker current (known as "If" or "funny current") in the 1980s, to the use of human mesenchymal cells to transfer pacemaker genes to the heart cells in early 2000. Dr. Michael Rosen served as the keynote speaker on "Biological Pacing: Dream or Reality" at our patient conference. As Dr. Michael Rosen puts it, "We’ll get there if we keep at it!"