Esther Sans Takeuchi

Dr. Esther Sans Takeuchi was born into a family that fled the Russian invasion of Latvia and lived in a camp for displaced persons for 6 years. While working at Greatbatch, Inc. she led the team inventing a battery that is highly energetic, can deliver pulses of high current, and is safe for implanting in the human body. The battery provides power to most of the implantable cardiac defibrillators in the world and has saved millions of lives by preventing heart attacks caused by ventricular arrhythmias. Subsequently, Dr. Takeuchi joined Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory where she is working on the question of how to make big batteries. Battery types are described in the chapter.