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Nanobatteries Power Artificial Eyes
Roland Piquepaille writes "A new U.S. research center, the National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors, has been opened to promote new ideas in the field of nanomedicine. For example, a team of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is developing a nano-size battery to be implanted in the eye to power artificial retina. But this center will also design and build 'nanomedical devices based on natural and synthetic ion transporters -- proteins that control ion motion across the membranes of every living cell.'"
I wonder if this kind of technology will make it possible for people who have working nerves and brain center for sight, but whose eyes have been destroyed by illness or damage to the retina? Would macular degeneration, which according to http://www.macular.org/disease.html affects over 10 million Americans alone, be one of the blindnesses treatable by nanobatteries?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Yep, keep developing that high technology for my disabled countrymen, because sooner or later the technology will become common place and I'll finally be able to go get my retinas replaced. Why would I want to replace my healthy retinas with electronic ones? Well, for a start, I'm red/green color blind, and I don't think gene therapy is going to be available sooner than this stuff. Irrespective of that, when this technology is capable of delivering sharper images to my brain than the retinas I was born with what have I got to lose? Then there's the added benefit of interfacing my shiny new retinas with computer systems.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Why not implant something like they use in self-winding watches?
If they're going to use nano-batteries, then we're talking mili-volts or less.
The mechanisms that power self-winding watches don't actually require that much movement to recharge themselves.
Just walking around a bit should give enough power to keep things running all day. And it doesn't need replacing.
Just my 2 pence. Feel free to tell me why it's a bad idea
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Careful, they might give you one with banner ads over the top, bottom and sides of your vision. That and any empty space on the wall or whiteboard will occasionally light up with one too.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
If we could ignore for a moment the trolls and knuckle draggers who must comment on Susan Rempe's appearance, this advance will be important to those of us who are losing eyesight to RP or AMD.
Most of the current clinical trials for artificial retinas (http://www.optobionics.com/ excluded) rely on some sort of external component partially due to the lack of a sufficiently small, dense, permanent, biocompatible power source. This then requires some sort of link to the retinal surface, either via micro-lasers or implanted ultra-thin wires. As much as enjoy watching ST:TNG, I for one would happily trade the Geordi LaForge look for a strictly internal prosthetic.
To err is human. To arr is pirate.
The general press and general public really do not bother to focus on concerns such as the ones you bring up. I'm glad you have the ability to think critically, but do not judge everything about this research from this press release. There are thousands of primary articles from scientists dedicated to understanding how to better implant medical devices. Look for articles in http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ under pubmed -- search for terms like "implant", "rejection", "immune response", and other such keywords if you want to actually know what more about how science is dealing with this very issue. Such research has already made possible the ability to implant pacemakers, stints, artifical joints, steel plates. It is only a matter of time -- in my professional opinion, about 3-6 years until phase I clinical tests on fabricated retinas begins. Phase I/II are specifically designed to test the safety of medical drugs and devices to address the concerns you bring up about rejection. I think it could be up to 10 years until phase III -- the actual efficacy trial. Then we'll know how people whose vision has degenerated can benefit from this treatment. But we will certainly know before then whether or not animal models will respond to this treatment.
You seem not to have read my message in context. You saw the phrase "trickle down" and went off on some tangent about trickle-down economics.
... that actually rich people's spending on health tends to drive investment in medical research that advances the treatment of the medical problems of the rich, rather than the treatment of the medical problems of the poor, which are often very different medically.
This has absolutely nothing to do with whether rich people spend their money or hoard it, or whether they buy things from poor people or only from other rich people. It is all to do with determining what the money is spent on, and what sort of advances in medical science flow from that investment.
I was replying to the views of a right-winger who asserted that in some countries rich people are forbidden to invest in their own health, and that if these rich people were allowed to invest in their own health (for purely selfish reasons), it would, as a side-effect, advance medical science in ways that would ultimately benefit the poor. I pointed out that this wasn't automatically true
This is why the treatment of malaria and TB are so chronically underfunded.
Actually, to benefit the health of the poor, we should invest money directly in the health of the poor. Kudos to Bill Gates for spending some of his ill-gotten gains on the treatment of malaria etc. Truly, my hat goes off to him. But this philanthropic investment is not at all the "trickle-down" phenomenon described by the person I was replying to.