--- title: Pacemakers Made From Cells Keep Pig Hearts Beating description: And the scientists say that the technique, which involves cutting edge reprogramming of cells, may be tested in people soon canonical: https://time.com/2989687/pigs-can-grow-their-own-pacemakers/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-16T18:00:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T08:57:50.173Z article:section: Health og:title: Hardware-free Pacemaker Proves Effective, Say Researchers og:description: And the scientists say that the technique, which involves cutting edge reprogramming of cells, may be tested in people soon og:url: https://time.com/2989687/pigs-can-grow-their-own-pacemakers/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt637b2ba79b0781dd/69869bfc810bbbaf66c929f2/pig.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5400 og:image:height: 3038 og:image:alt: Pig og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hardware-free Pacemaker Proves Effective, Say Researchers twitter:description: And the scientists say that the technique, which involves cutting edge reprogramming of cells, may be tested in people soon twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt637b2ba79b0781dd/69869bfc810bbbaf66c929f2/pig.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Pigs Can Grow Their Own Pacemakers > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=27232590-bf40-4d2e-8ab8-2fe59fbce616&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Pig Can Grow Their Own Pacemakers [Watch (HLS stream): Pig Can Grow Their Own Pacemakers](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tgcP03vL.m3u8) (1:19)  _Published 2014-07-16. A new study suggests that pigs can produce the cells to grow their own pacemakers._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jul 16, 2014 6:00 PM UTC  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jul 16, 2014 6:00 PM UTC Pacemakers are remarkable devices that save the lives of 300,000 people in the U.S. each year. They essentially take over for failing hearts, but since the devices require invasive surgery to implant in the heart, researchers have been looking for less invasive approaches to keeping the heart ticking. And n[ow, reporting in the journal](http://stm.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.3008681) _Science Translational Medicine_, Dr. Eduardo Marban, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, has a lead—thanks to pigs. “We were able for the first time to create a biological pacemaker using minimally invasive methods, and show that the new pacemaker cells suffice to support the demands of daily life,” he said. “When the pigs exercised, the hearts beat faster. When they were at rest, their hearts slowed down.” He and his colleagues say that a single gene can transform existing heart cells to take over the function of ailing pacemaker cells in the heart, The group tested their theory in mice, and were encouraged enough by the results to predict that human trials may be as close as three years away. **MORE:** [A ‘Vaccine’ for Heart Disease Could Mean No Pills, Lettuce or a Gym](http://time.com/2853809/a-vaccine-for-heart-disease-that-doesnt-involve-pills-lettuce-or-a-gym/) Marban has been working for more than a decade to find a better way to keep pacemaker patients’ hearts pumping at the right rate. In particular, he was focused on the 2% of them who need to go on antibiotics to treat an infection—because the devices are foreign objects implanted into the body, infections are possible—and in the interim have their pacemakers removed to be cleaned. During that time, these patients receive a temporary pacing device connected to a catheter, but the catheter itself may be an additional source of infection and make the antibiotic treatment less effective. **MORE:** [Single Gene Responsible for Group of Heart Disease Risk Factors](http://time.com/99683/single-gene-responsible-for-group-of-heart-disease-risk-factors/) In Marban’s experiment, he simply loaded deactivated cold viruses, which are able to easily infect cells, with a gene—called TBX18—that is active during fetal development but later shuts off. Earlier studies showed that simply bathing cells in TBX triggered normal heart cells to start morphing into the ones that keep hearts working. That’s exactly what happened in the seven pigs whose hearts were injected with the gene. A small proportion of their normal heart cells, the size of a peppercorn, were transformed into electrically pulsing cells and essentially took over the pacemaker function of the pigs’ hearts. Dr. Eugenio Cingolani, director of the cardiogenetics-familial arrhythmia clinic at Cedars Sinai and a co-author of the paper, said that while encouraging, more studies on the efficacy of the genetic reprogramming process, as well as a more in-depth analysis of the potential adverse effects are needed. But the findings represent a promising first step toward a potentially new technique for treating certain life-threatening conditions. “This development heralds a new era in gene therapy, where genes are used not only to correct deficiency disorders but to convert one cell to another to treat disease,” said Marban. “Now that we and others are hot on the trail of developing therapeutics based on this principle of cell reprogramming, I anticipate that the flood gates will open and people will look for genes of interest to do whatever they want in particular organs or tissues of interest.” At the very least, he believes that a hardware-free, biological pacemaker based on the technique could become reality. ## Transcript Pacemakers are electronic devices hooked up to the heart that monitor heartbeat rhythm. They send electrical pulses to the heart if it is beating too slowly, or if it misses a beat. There are some cases where people need a pacemaker, but can't get one. Like fetuses with congenital heart block. Or adults who develop life- threatening infections after implantations. And need to have their pacemaker temporarily removed. In pigs, researchers created a model of complete heart block, a common reason for needing a pacemaker. The researchers were able to convert a tiny area of the heart into a natural pacemaker using gene therapy. This part of the heart does not normally initiate heartbeats. They injected a gene called TBX18 into the animals hearts. TBX18 expresses a protein that makes the heart pulse at sixty to ninety beats per minute. Putting the gene into heart tissue changed the normal heart cells into special rhythm keeping cells. The procedure prevented pigs with heart block from developing abnormally slow heart rhythms. Without the need for an electronic pacemaker. If proven to work in humans and shown to be effective over the long term, the technique may be an alternative to regular pacemakers and you could eventually replace the electronic devices altogether. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2989687/pigs-can-grow-their-own-pacemakers/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2989687/pigs-can-grow-their-own-pacemakers/"},"headline":"Pigs Can Grow Their Own Pacemakers","datePublished":"2014-07-16T18:00:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-01T08:57:50.173Z","description":"And the scientists say that the technique, which involves cutting edge reprogramming of cells, may be tested in people soon","url":"https://time.com/2989687/pigs-can-grow-their-own-pacemakers/","keywords":["heart","Heart Disease"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt637b2ba79b0781dd/69869bfc810bbbaf66c929f2/pig.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt637b2ba79b0781dd/69869bfc810bbbaf66c929f2/pig.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Pig","caption":"Pig","creditText":"Arthur Baensch—Corbis","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/heart/","name":"heart"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2989687/pigs-can-grow-their-own-pacemakers/","name":"Pigs Can Grow Their Own Pacemakers"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Pig Can Grow Their Own Pacemakers","description":"A new study suggests that pigs can produce the cells to grow their own pacemakers.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tgcP03vL/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-07-16T18:56:25.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tgcP03vL.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/2989687/pigs-can-grow-their-own-pacemakers/","duration":"PT1M19S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/2989687/pigs-can-grow-their-own-pacemakers/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```