Jorge Reynolds Pombo is an

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and bio-

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

born in Bogotá, Colombia on June 22, 1936. He is known for contributing to the invention of the pacemaker, being one of the first doctors in Latin America to make a significant contribution to the medical field. In 1957,

Earl Bakken Earl Elmer Bakken (January 10, 1924 – October 21, 2018) was an American engineer, businessman and philanthropist of Dutch and Norwegian American ancestry. He founded Medtronic, where he developed the first external, battery-operated, trans ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

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, produced the first wearable external pacemaker for a pediatric patient of C. Walton Lillehei. The Swede Rune Elmqvist (1906-1996) developed the first internally implanted pacemaker in 1958. During this time, Reynolds Pombo had designed and built an external pacemaker powered by a 12-volt battery. It was connected to a patient in December 1958.

Studies and research

During his school years, he studied in Bogotá, Colombia. He attended

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

at Cambridge, England. Reynolds obtained an undergraduate degree in electronic engineering. Since 1991 there have been six underwater acoustic research cruises to study the heart of whales, using submarines provided by the Navy of Colombia as a platform for acoustic studies of whales, with the support of some Navy ships to facilitate investigative work. In his research he has found that the heart of cetaceans and humans are similar and so for more than thirty years he has been studying these animals and then applying the results to humans. In August 2011, he announced the launch of a pacemaker as small as one-third of a grain of rice, which does not need a battery. Such pacemakers may be seen by cardiologists "from anywhere in the world", he said in the IV Inventors and High Technology Hall in Medellín.

Awards and achievements

Reynolds has received three honorary doctorates in medicine, for his contributions to research and development of technologies for cardiology. Also, add more than 70 productions including documentaries, short, and full-length films made with the help of important scientific channels like National Geographic, and Discovery Channel, among others. He is a member of at least 34 scientific societies in Colombia and abroad, some of them as an honorary member.Levitt, James N. ''Conservation in the Internet Age: Threats And Opportunities''. 1st edition. Washington DC: Island Press, 2002. 212. Print. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences in New York since 1989, the Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences since 1989, and also an Associate Member of the National Academy of Medicine since 2004. He is also a founding member of several scientific societies.

Books

* ''Voyage to the Heart of Whales'' (1998)

References

External links

TEDxCeiba talk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds Pombo, Jorge 1936 births Living people Colombian inventors Colombian people of English descent Colombian electrical engineers Colombian environmental engineers