The younger neurosurgeon in coaching couldn’t shake the sense of devastation. A child died in his arms as he tried to resuscitate her.
Her grandmother had tripped within the kitchen with a pot of boiling water, inflicting extreme burns because the 11-month-old child crawled throughout the ground. Dr. Kevin J. Tracey was the surgical resident on responsibility when she was dropped at the hospital. He tended to child Janice for a month, believing her therapy had put her on a path to restoration.
Then, with out warning, her well being deteriorated. Nothing in medical faculty ready Tracey for that second: holding a fragile, stunning child as she took her final breath.
“The fact she died was tragic and haunting and the source of many nightmares,” mentioned Tracey, now the president and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health, one of many largest hospital methods within the United States. “It was also the source of extraordinary frustration because there was no way then for us to understand or explain to her mother and her grandmother why she died.”
The trajectory of Tracey’s profession modified with that death in 1985. He emerged extra motivated than ever to assist these like Janice.
Tracey devoted his life to learning the function of inflammation within the physique — and the way greatest to deal with it. He has since change into one of many world’s preeminent neurosurgeons pioneering a wholly new class of care: bioelectronic medication, revolutionizing take care of sufferers all over the world.
“My personal philosophy is to ask questions that can be studied scientifically in order to forge a path to inventing new therapies,” he mentioned. “That’s what I’ve focused on doing for 40 years.”
40 years on — and simply getting began
Tracey’s enthusiasm is infectious. When he speaks about how sufferers profit from scientific breakthroughs, he lights up. His voice picks up a notch or two. Other instances, he turns into emotional, the uncommon physician keen to share his vulnerabilities.
“Some people think science is about honor societies and prizes; some people think it’s about money,” he mentioned. “I think it’s about patients. When you meet people who are benefitting from the work that your lab does, there is no better feeling in the world.”
Tracey reached the top of his profession final 12 months when he and his staff turned many years of laboratory science into a system permitted by the US Food and Drug Administration that makes use of electrical alerts to close down dangerous inflammation in sufferers with rheumatoid arthritis. Earlier this 12 months, TIME named him to its record of prime 100 innovators in well being.
In Tracey’s view, he’s simply getting began. If the system works to tame inflammation in rheumatoid sufferers, he ponders, why received’t it work for sufferers affected by different inflammatory illnesses?
“Imagine if we can stop inflammation in its tracks or stop inflammation from ever contributing to the onset of cancer or heart disease,” he mentioned. “What would that do to the health span of (people on) the planet Earth?”
The system shares a story unto itself — born out of an unintended discovery in his lab and a hand-drawn sketch on a serviette. It would take relentless dedication, rigorous analysis, and many years of endurance to see it by means of.
“I never imagined in 1998 that it would take until 2025 for it to be FDA-approved,” Tracey instructed NCS.
About 1.5 million grownup Americans stay with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a persistent illness that causes the immune system to mistakenly assault the liner of joints, resulting in painful swelling, stiffness and persistent fatigue. Another 18 million are estimated to stay with the situation worldwide, according to a 2019 report by the World Health Organization.
It can have an effect on individuals of any age, however sometimes it strikes these of their 50s. Women are about three times extra prone to develop RA than males. RA can unfold inflammation past joints to the center, lungs, pores and skin, eyes and blood vessels. There is not any remedy.
It could be tough to get a correct prognosis. Symptoms come and go, flaring up, inflicting excessive ache. Anti-inflammatory medicines like ibuprofen can present reduction, however over time the inflammation can change into overwhelming.
Patients taking corticosteroids or extra superior biologics complain of mind fog and dizziness. Those meds can also weaken the immune system, making sufferers weak to an infection, too.
What Tracey and his staff created is named the SetPoint System, a system about the scale of a multivitamin that’s implanted within the neck on the vagus nerve, the principle conduit for the physique’s inflammatory immune response to illness, micro organism and viruses.
The system helps management the immune system in a extra constant means than medicines. The FDA approved the device in July 2025 after a 242-patient randomized, double-blind trial demonstrated the SetPoint System was secure and efficient — and offered reduction to RA sufferers who have been basically out of conventional therapy choices.
It delivers a every day, one-minute stimulation to the vagus nerve with the goal of taming inflammation in sufferers.
‘A brand new person’
Jessica Hancock suffered from debilitating rheumatoid arthritis for greater than a dozen years, starting in her mid-30s. Pain shot by means of her physique for easy duties, like getting off the bed within the morning. “It’s frustrating when you’re so young and you’re like, ‘Why do I feel like I’m 90 years old?’”
She’d tried an array of medicines, together with three biologics and chemotherapy. The reduction was momentary. The ache at all times roared again.
When a staffer at Northwell knowledgeable her about the FDA-approved system, Hancock lower her off: “Before she was even done, I was like: ‘Sign me up!’”
She didn’t have any points with insurance coverage protection, she mentioned, as a result of her husband works at Northwell. Her system was implanted in October. By January, she now not wanted any medicines. Her ache was gone. “I was feeling fantastic with the stimulation. I had more energy. I didn’t hurt. I wasn’t cracking. I wasn’t swollen,” mentioned Hancock, now 49.
She added: “I feel like a brand-new person. I have not felt this good in 20 years.”
About 30,000 sufferers tried to join the system’s trial, Tracey mentioned, displaying how determined sufferers are for reduction when medicines fail.
But with FDA approval, Tracey mentioned, an sudden drawback emerged. He mentioned he’s listening to from medical doctors and hospitals throughout the nation of persistent denials of protection by medical health insurance corporations.
Tracey has a stern warning for them: Get on board. “You have 30,000 people who wanted this thing when there were 250 spots when it was still an experiment,” he mentioned. “And you have the insurance company saying, ‘No, we’re not paying because it’s too new.’”
He’s decided to ensure sufferers get lined by advocating for them and doing no matter he can to place stress on insurers.
The idea of the brand new FDA system, he mentioned, first got here about within the Nineteen Nineties by “accident” within the lab. Researchers have been learning the brains of mice with a stroke. When a lab tech injected an anti-inflammatory drug into the mind of a mouse, Tracey mentioned, it “turned off the inflammation in the body of the mouse.”
“This was a true WTF moment,” mentioned Tracey. “I had no intention in that experiment of looking at inflammation of the body of the mouse.”
It was his “aha” second — when he realized the vagus nerve was a key to controlling inflammation. At a dinner, he drew a sketch on a serviette for his then-board chairman, explaining his perception. “That means that the nerve,” Tracey instructed him, “is acting like an anti-inflammatory signal.”
He penned a ebook in 2025, “The Great Nerve,” additional detailing why he believes the vagus nerve is vital to well being and vitality.
For inventors, for scientists, for sufferers, Tracey’s message is one in all optimism. “We’re on the cusp of launching an era where the science will become very, very useful,” he mentioned. “And that means people are going to feel better — and that makes me very happy.”