MIT’s Technology Review reports on the development of a technique designed to prevent the damage caused by the metals in current neural interfaces, where ‘insertion of the rigid metal electrode into soft tissue triggers a cascade of inflammatory signals, damaging or killing neurons and triggering a scar to form around the metal’ [Technology Review].
“We hope to come up with a way to communicate across the scar layer and send information to and from the device in a way that is as friendly as possible,” says David Martin, a materials scientists at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, who is leading the research into the polymer coatings.
Martin and his collaborators coat the electrodes with an electrically conductive polymer originally developed for electronic devices, such as organic LEDs and photovoltaics for solar cells. The polymer coating increases the surface area of the metal-biological interface, which in turn boosts performance of the electrode.
Along with former lab members, Martin founded a company, Massachusetts-based Biotectix, to commercialize the materials developed in his lab. He says that he is already in talks with a cochlear-implant technology company about using his lab’s materials in their devices. [Technology Review]
[Technology Review via Technovelgy]
The BBC have reported that the director of rehabilitation engineering services at NHS Lothian, David Gow , has developed a new prosthetic hand. The design and construction of the artificial hand was undertaken by Touch Bionics, Livingston. The hand has fully articulated finger joints and motors for each digit, allowing it to adapt to the shape of objects. The hands are intended to be available on the National Health Service in two to five years.
The hand is controlled my myoelectric sensors attached to the skin above nearby muscle tissue. There are some useful introductions to myoelectric control at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, New Brunswick, here.
A BBC news video is available here. The BBC news story is here.
Systems biologists at the University of California (San Diego) have made the first complete model of the human metabolism available on the internet. Technology Review is reporting that:
The new model includes every known gene and every metabolic reaction Palsson’s group uncovered in an extensive search of the scientific literature.
The BiGG Database contains ‘biochemically, genetically and genomically structured genome-scale metabolic network reconstructions’ and ‘integrates several published genome-scale metabolic networks into one location and uses standard nomenclature, which allows individual components to be compared across different species’ [BiGG Database].
Duarte, N.D., Becker, S. A., Jamshidi, N., Thiele, I., Mo, M. L., Vo, T. D., Srivas, R., Palsson, B. O., “Global reconstruction of the human metabolic network based on genomic and bibliomic data“, Proc. Nat’l Acad. Sci. 104(6):1777-82 (2007).
[via Technology Review]
Science Daily report that a technique has been developed allowing viruses to be indentified in seconds. The method involves measuring the shift in the frequency of light as it is scattered off DNA or RNA molecules - the Raman shift. The effect has been too weak to be of practical use until an interdisciplinary team deployed nanotechnology to take greater control of the light scattering event. The innovation involves laying nanorods at an angle of 86 degrees over the sample in order to amplify the measurable Rama shift.
“It saves days to weeks,” said lead author Ralph Tripp, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Vaccine Development at the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine. “You could actually apply it to a person walking off a plane and know if they’re infected.” [Source]
Bib Ref:
Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Respiratory Virus Molecular Signatures Using a Silver Nanorod Array SERS Substrate
Shanmukh, S., Jones, L., Driskell, J., Zhao, Y., Dluhy, R., and Tripp, R.A.
Nano Lett., 6, 11, 2630 - 2636, 2006, 10.1021/nl061666f
Wired reports that LifeCell are planning to open a publicly accessible bank of stem cells collected from umbilical cords in India. Since donors would be paid for their contributions there are fears that a “cord-farm” culture could emerge amongst the poor. Wired also reports that:
For the past two years, LifeCell has run a private cord-blood bank, which caters to 4,000 paying donors who can afford their own personal biological insurance policy. Its customers bank their own blood in case they need a stem-cell treatment one day and can’t find a viable donor. In a collaboration with Florida-based CryoCell, LifeCell has aggressively expanded to 19 locations throughout India. It plans to have 31 centers up and running by 2007.[Source]
Since people are already storing eggs and sperm in case of medical problems late in life the wealthy will soon need managers to administer their growing portfolio of externalised biotech self-maintenence strategies. At least two groups of philosophers should be paying attention of these developments:
- Philosophers of mind working with the ‘extended cognition/mind’ thesis.
- Systems theorists working with the theory of autopoeisis.
To what extent are these developments extensions of the self-maintenance systems that articulate agents? Are these instances of somatic self-maintenance tasks migrating from lower level systems into cognitive strategies?
I am reminded by the Memory and Database blog to keep up with some old references. Theodore Berger of the USC Department of Biomedical Engineering was much mentioned in 2003 when he announced plans for a research programme studying technological memory augmentations. New Scientist article, World’s first brain prosthesis revealed from 2003 here.
Bergman, with Dennis L. Glanzman, has edited a collection of papers entitled, Towards Replacement Parts for the Brain. Implantable Biomimetic Electronics as Neural Prostheses (2005: MIT Press ). See the MIT Press website for the contents and sample chapters. Only available as hardback I’m afraid. For everyone considering a career change one interesting discussion addresses the the contents of syllabi for courses on neural engineering.
Keep up with developments in commercial neurotech at Neurotech Reports.
Reference:
Bergman, T., Glanzman, D. L. (eds.) (2005) Towards Replacement Parts for the Brain. Implantable Biomimetic Electronics as Neural Prostheses. Cam. Mas.: MIT Press
Graham-Rowe, Duncan (2003) “World’s first brain prosthesis revealed”. New Scientist. Available at: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3488 (Accessed: 13 Nov 2006)
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