Future MedTech

2.25.22

By Rich Nell

Colored me triggered. This paragraph from “The 5 Technologies That Will Change The Future Of The Human Race”  Forbes Magazine, Feb. 7, 2022.:

Much of the work being done with gene editing is in the field of healthcare. Among the most exciting current projects is the correction of DNA mutations which can lead to serious illnesses such as cancer or heart disease. But, perhaps more than with any other technology, there are a huge number of ethical and legal concerns as well as “what if” questions when it comes to genetic manipulation and editing. Genome editing in humans is currently banned in many countries, including much of Europe, as its long-term results are not understood.

I’m not sure if reporters who write nonsense like the bolded line above are naïve or simply forbidden from writing about what they must know is well underway. Any fool knows gene editing, specifically using CRISPR, is already being used in human beings. All it takes is a simple literature search to debunk this silly statement about the illegality of using CRISP to tailor-order certain physical and cognitive human features, especially for soldiers.

2.12.20

By Rich Nell

Came across this Wait but Why infographic on Elon Musk’s much hyped Neuralink the other day and wanted to talk a bit about it.

First, this infographic is more an info-skyscraper. It’s enormous, but it’s really well done and a great education, even five years after it was first published.

Musk is quoted throughout so it appears that he participated in this ambitious Wait but Why project, which makes the final document even more impressive because it’s very honest with readers, sometimes brutally honest:

Musk wants to connect every neuron in the human brain to an electrode, not the sticky electrodes used in electrocardiography. They’re way too big. There are about 20 billion neurons in the cortex, or the outer layer of the human brain that makes us human and looks like a head of cauliflower. Imagine 20 billion sticky electrodes attached to your head and face.

Nor will this tiny silicon microarray of 100 electrodes work—still way too big.

According to the infographic authors, increasing the capacity of these silicon multielectrode arrays by 500 every 18 months, we wouldn’t reach a million total electrodes until the year 5017, a year that even Ray Kurzweil will never see.

But when has production capacity ever remained at a constant rate? It always eventually goes exponential. If we doubled the number of electrodes in these silicon arrays every 18 months—basically Moore’s transistor law but for electrodes—we’ll hit a million in 12 years.

How long would it take to hit 20 billion? Do the math and let me know.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t solve the size problem. These tiny arrays are still way too large to be practical. Also keep in mind Musk’s ultimate goal: a whole-brain interface, or what Musk calls “a wizard hat for the brain.”

The entire brain, including the outer cauliflower dome plus the lower “animal brain,” including the cerebellum and cortex—where involuntary functions and automatic survival instincts reside—contain another 80 billion neurons, for a grand total of 100 billion neurons.

That’s the same number of stars in the Milky Way!

And it gets worse.

Research shows that there’s a limit to the number of neurons we can simultaneously record and this limit is rising at a predictable rate:

“Sometimes called Stevenson’s Law, this research suggests that the number of neurons we can simultaneously record seems to consistently double every 7.4 years. If that rate continues, it’ll take us till the end of this century to reach a million, and until 2225 to record every neuron in the brain and get our totally complete wizard hat.”

On the plus side, the infographic helps you to appreciate the incredible endowment every human on earth is given for free at birth: A brain. It’s the most miraculous machine ever made. (Although, I’m still partial to God’s machine shop: the ribosome.)

Of course, we don’t need the complete wizard hat to make significant quality of life improvements for those with paralysis, memory loss and  perhaps even mental illnesses. In fact, many companies without the same brand power of Mr. Musk have already made great strides in Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI), which is what Neuralink is: a BMI with a great publicist.

9.6.19

Rich Nell

Researchers at the University of Arizona (UA) have developed a cellphone-based tool for detecting norovirus in drinking water with what they claim is a highly sensitive and affordable way to detect even extremely low concentrations of the virus.

According to the CDC, norovirus is the most common cause of foodborne illness in the U.S, causing extreme stomach pain, agitation, vomiting and diarrhea. It usually passes in 2-3 days but can lead to dehydration. While causing severe discomfort in developed nations, norovirus leads to death in many underdeveloped parts of the world. Some 200,000 die annually from the infection.

According to this University of Arizona technology review:

A little bit of norovirus – the highly infectious microbe that causes about 20 million cases of food poisoning in the United States each year – goes a long way. Just 10 particles of the virus can cause illness in humans. A team of University of Arizona researchers has created a simple, portable and inexpensive method for detecting extremely low levels of norovirus.

The UA team from the departments of Biomedical Engineering, Biosystems Engineering and Community, Environment and Policy developed a microfluidic chip made from paper with an embedded fluorescent immunoassay consisting of fluorescent polystyrene beads attached to antibodies that bind norovirus. Several beads attached to each viral particle, creating clumps of beads that are luminous enough to be seen with a smartphone microscope.

Pocket-sized cellphone microscopes cost around $200 and clip onto most cellphones. However, the UA team made a customized version including filters to help visualize the clumps of glowing beads. They also created an app to convert illuminated pixels into an estimate of norovirus particles in the sample.

“Paper substrate is very cheap and easy to store, and we can fabricate these chips easily,” said researcher Soo Chung, a UA biosystems engineering doctoral student “The fibrous structure of paper also allows liquid to flow spontaneously without using the pumping systems other chips, such as silicon chips, usually require.”

The microbiology lab equipment typically required to detect norovirus includes microscopes, lasers and spectrometers, which total thousands of dollars to purchase. The UA team wanted a pocket-sized tool that could detect the virus on cruise ships or in a village well. The team plans to develop versions of its microfluidic paper chip for the detection of other disease-causing microbes as well as carcinogens.