CHINA SPRING, TX — A China Spring Middle School student might just be the genius we need to change the future of medicine.
After being prompted by a teacher to create a science fair project, seventh-grader Timothy Reid birthed the idea of a pacemaker that does not require batteries.
He explained that even the most high tech pacemakers still require maintenance surgeries every several years to change the lithium batteries that power the device. With these additional surgeries often comes complications, as well as infections.
Reid found a way to use chemicals that naturally occur in the body to self power a pacemaker without the need for batteries.
"I want to find an alternative of energy resources to power medical devices, in this case a pacemaker," Reid said.
"Re-operating to just put another battery in and now they have an infection so then we have to take the pacemaker out, and they have to heal, then they have to put a new one in... It's very complicated and very hard on these patients and they can get very sick from that," said Nicole Reid, Reid's mother and general surgeon at Methodist Charlton in Dallas.
Reid's idea won first place in the Texas Science and Engineering Fair and Texas A&M University. With his first place project, he is now invited to Washington D.C. for an elite competition with 1,600 other students across the country.
