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?

Re:Waste

[Hebbinator]

Double Shenanigans. You clearly haven't heard of/ been taught the...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_pass_effect

Things from your gut flow first to the liver before entering general circulation. This helps eliminate a lot of the crap you eat/drink on a regular basis.

The hepatic portal system == blood, but != general circulation (which is where your brain would be connected.. and where alcohol would be dangerous)

so it works like this:

alcohol in your face-> small intestine -> hepatic portal system -> liver metabolism-> general circulation -> brain -> posting stupid shit on slashdot -> sense of superiority

It just so happens that much of the alcohol you drink does make it to general circulation, as the livers ability to process alcohol tops out at around 14-15g/hour.. so a lot of the alcohol you consume does make it to general circulation. If you think an implantable object (under, say, 10cm) full of yeast could make 15g of alcohol in an hour, you are being silly. Also, with time, your body would compensate and ramp up its enzymes and eliminate the alcohol faster, i.e. functioning alcoholics who can drink a fifth a night and not wobble.

TLDR: first guy is wrong because the levels of alcohol produced by a couple yeast would not make you wasted all the time, second guy is wrong because your liver gets first pick at all the poisonous crap you eat before it reaches the parts of your bloodstream where your brain is.

Re:Hey now.

[shadowbearer]

Read the FA, especially linked journal summary, published back in December.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/wrapper.jsp?arnumber=4671110

  This isn't an April Fools joke.

  This is brilliant. There's been a lot of scifi stories that hypothesized implants that run off of neural impulses; this isn't limited by the extremely small amounts of electricity that the nervous system generates.

  Waste is definitely going to be a problem, but one that's likely solvable by engineering yeast that produce waste that can be metabolized and flushed out by the liver or kidneys.

  This may also be an answer to the problem of powering nanomachines that repair the human body. I'm hardly an expert in the field, anyone who is (and is still here today) care to comment?

SB

Re:Awesome idea, but..

[Cube Steak]

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or brewer's yeast, which is what they are using doesn't cause yeast infections. You are thinking of the pathogenic strain Candida albicans.

Re:Diabetes Management

[ArcherB]

If this were used to power a glucose meter and microprocessor, and throttled appropriately, could it be used to manage blood sugar for diabetics?

Until the yeast gets smart enough to figure out that it can fudge the results to feed itself.

Anyone having a Strange Brew flashback?

[Phizzle]

Sorry, but when I saw the summation about Canadian scientists and beer yeast on April 1st, my mind immediately went to some kind of mutated Bob & Doug McKenzie flashback.

Doug McKenzie: I am your father, Luke. Give in to the dark side of the force, you knob.
Bob McKenzie: He saw Jedi 17 times, eh.
Doug McKenzie: Hey I just thought of something, what if we could harness the power of the force from the beer yeast that would feed on human blood? Somekinda Vampire beer power, eh?
Bob McKenzie: Take off, eh!