Yeast-Powered Fuel Cell Feeds On Human Blood

holy_calamity writes "Canadian researchers have taken a sensible, if slightly creepy, step towards solving the problem of medical implant batteries running down. They've built a fuel cell powered by yeast that feed on the glucose in human blood. If this makes it into people, keeping your implants going will be as simple as eating a donut."

Comments

Waste

[AKAImBatman]

This is the ideal solution. Running a device off of the human metabolism is an excellent way to ensure that it functions for the life of the patient. Which is extremely important as implants are often put into older patients who may not be healthy enough for future operations. (I imagine this was the thinking behind the nuclear-battery pacemakers powered by SR-90.)

What's funny is that my first reaction as I read the article was, "doesn't yeast produce wastes that are foreign and toxic to the human body?" And wouldn't you know it, the next section was entitled, "Waste problem". Guess they're reading my mind. :-P

For instance, to keep the yeast cells healthy, their waste products will need to be removed without allowing any harmful substances to leach out into the blood stream. "I think people will figure this out. This is a first step," he says.

I'm a bit concerned about this problem. Would this necessitate the installation of a shunt or some other extraction point for the waste? Seems like a fairly significant barrier to me. If you have to perform regular extractions (or worse, operations) is it really better than the current alternatives?