Heart Foundation-funded researchers help pioneer a world-first pacemaker

Published: 28 September 2025

A revolutionary pacemaker, developed at the University of Auckland, is giving new hope to the 80,000 people living with heart failure in New Zealand, thanks to funding from several organisations, including the Heart Foundation.

Now being trialled in patients in New Zealand and across the UK and Australia, the world-first device mimics the natural rhythm of a healthy heart, restoring energy and transforming lives for those living with one of the most debilitating heart conditions.

“For people with heart failure, who often face severe fatigue and struggle with everyday tasks, the ability to regain energy and exercise more, without undergoing intensive physical training, could be transformative,” says Heart Foundation research recipient Dr Julia Shanks, who was awarded a three-year grant to work on the pacemaker project in 2022.

Julia is part of the University of Auckland team led by Professor Julian Paton and Associate Professor Rohit Ramchandra. Together, they’ve spent years developing the smarter pacemaker that could one day help reverse the heart’s decline.

“Our research has already shown this approach dramatically improves heart function in people with heart failure,” she says. “We’re now exploring how it works alongside heart failure medication and whether it also affects kidney function.”

“For New Zealanders living with heart failure, this is a game-changer. We’re talking about a grandmother being able to carry her grandkids again and adding years to her life.”

Julia says usual pacemakers support a regular even beat in the patient’s heart, but our hearts naturally beat irregularly depending on our breathing. The new pacemaker can listen to breathing and varies the heartbeat accordingly. 

“Early results are really encouraging. Patients might gain improved exercise performance simply from the pacemaker’s natural pacing, not through physical training.”

Heart failure has a high mortality rate. It’s a chronic condition which occurs when the heart can’t pump enough blood around the body. Around half of the deaths caused by the condition occur within four years of diagnosis.

State-of-the-art microscope

In 2021, Heart Foundation-funded University of Auckland researcher Dr David Crossman joined the pacemaker project to trial a new state-of-the-art microscope, investigating the cells responsible for the heart’s pumping power at close range.

“The heart is the fuel pump of the body, and I wanted to get as close as I could to see what’s going on in the mitochondria of people with heart failure.”

David used a $1.2 million super-resolution microscope, known as a STED microscope, that sits in his laboratory at the Biomedical Imaging Research Unit, University of Auckland. 

It gives a 10-fold increase in resolution, compared to a normal microscope. 

He says the microscope is so powerful that “it’s like going from being legally blind to suddenly driving a car. That’s the level of resolution we’re working with.”

Funding from the Heart Foundation allowed him to investigate parts of the cell which play an important role in triggering the beating of the heart and may be damaged in heart failure.

“My own father had a pacemaker for nearly thirty years, and it definitely extended his life. If we can actually improve the heart’s pumping ability, we’re going to make a massive impact in terms of quality of life.”

Kiwi lab to global clinical trials

The first patient received the device at Waikato Hospital in December 2024 and around a dozen New Zealanders have now trialled a temporary version of the pacemaker as part of safety and feasibility testing.

With strong early results, researchers are hopeful that it’s just the beginning of technology that will be available to thousands of people in the future, potentially in the form of a wireless, fully implantable pacemaker.

“It’s incredibly exciting to see this Kiwi innovation already changing lives,” says Dr Shanks. “We’re proud to be leading a global move in how heart failure is treated, right here from Aotearoa.”

Heart Foundation Medical Director Dr Gerry Devlin says heart research is entering a thrilling new era. 

“Artificial intelligence can pinpoint problems faster, cutting-edge techniques can repair hearts more precisely, and advanced technology is reshaping how we treat, diagnose and even prevent heart disease."

He says working with other New Zealand institutions and investing in collaborative research projects like this, allows us to make a significant impact, collectively.

The pacemaker project, which began 16 years ago, has received funding globally from multiple organisations and includes a multi-disciplinary team including cardiologists, engineers, physicists and researchers.