DITM Creator Dr. Palter Nominated to Lifeboat Advisory Boards

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

I am honored to have been selected to be on the scientific advisory board for the Lifeboat foundation. I will serve on the biotech/medical, ethics, Human Trajectories, Robotics (as it related to medical robotics) futurists, and nanotech boards.

I am excited about the boards and honored to be included among other members including The world’s greatest inventor and leading visionsary Ray Kurzweil, Professor Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian writer who is Africa’s most distinguished playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Professor Sir Clive WJ Granjer winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics , Larry Sanger, cofounder of Wikipedia and founder of the Citizendium project, Ben Bova, author of more than 100 futuristic novels and nonfiction books, Rudolph E. Tanzi, who isolated the first familial Alzheimer’s disease (FAD) gene, and dozens of other amazing thought-leaders.

Lifeboat’s Work is Reflected in their mission Statement

The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.

Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, including new methods to combat viruses (such as RNA interference and new vaccine methods), effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.

We have some of the best minds on the planet working on programs to enable our survival.

The rationale for their work:

Why should we worry about the fate of the human race?As technology continues to advance, it will vastly increase the power of leading nations, leading corporations, and leading individuals. Soon, a set of emerging technologies — Genetics, Robotics, and Nanotechnology — will make more power available than has ever been known in human history. This power may be used by leaders for our benefit but the same technologies that could raise standards of living and increase healthspans also could enable a small group, or even a single individual, to dominate the world — or destroy it.

You can read more about Lifeboat here. Kudos goes to its President and Founder Eric Klien

Another Biological-based Surgical Microrobot

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

I have written before about the “fantastic voyage” surgical idea. In this 1966 movie, a submarine and its scientis/doctor team are shrunk down and inected into the body to diagnose and treat a blood clot (they use a laser of course. You can see past posts about rmars rover technology in medicine here, an implantable cardiac robot here and a self-propelled swimming robot here. My podcast that reviews the coming surgical revolution including self-contained miniature robots here.

As reported by technovelgy Scientists at Monash University in Australia (a pioneering center for IVF as well) are devloping a micromotor robot that swims with a flagellum like a bacteria. As reported by technovelgy

Dr. James Friend’s goal is to build a device no wider than 250 microns – that’s the width of two human hairs – that would be capable of swimming through the human body. He and his team have already built a linear motor the size of a salt crystal. With a $300,000 grant from the Australian Research Council, Dr. Friend believes that his team will be able to reduce the motor to the necessary size within three years.

According to Dr. Friend, the main difference between the microrobot motor and a conventional electromagnetic type is that the latter spins much faster but has much less torque. “The swimming robot idea in and of itself has indeed been around a long time—since at least the 1950′s anyway, and our motor is of a scale and has the performance characteristics needed to actually make this sort of thing possible.

Regarding performance, as electromagnetic (EM) motors are reduced in size, they tend to have far higher rotation speeds: a typical 3 mm diameter EM motor will spin at over 20,000 rpm. Worse, the torque of such motors could be measured in micronewton-mm, only useful if one also employs a gearbox. We’re using ultrasonic motor technology here, which offer higher torques at lower speeds. Traditionally that has always been the limitation of any of this technology: the motor. If you pick up a typical electronic parts catalogue, you’ll find all sorts of sensors and electrical components, but very few of them actually produce physical motion. Those that do are certainly not solid state, and this is a need we’re hoping to address.”

It’s amazing how many separate centers are now developing this concept of implantable self-guiding robots. If you remember what was involved in getting the mars rovers to the red plaet successfully getting into the body seems simple by comparison.

Grand Rounds, Vol. 3 No. 12 is Up

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

Grand Rounds, Vol. 3 No. 12 – (and another great well rounded one) is up at Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments a really fascinating mental health site. Once again the editor had to pick the best of the medical bloggers and was not able to include all posts. They are well organized into very diverse categories. I am happy we were picked again–

Many people are content to have a working grasp of today’s medical technologies, but the docinthemachine has his eye to the future. In this excellent post he discusses how cuts in military research will impact new medical technologies currently in development.

This has been a big docinthemachine link week since we got linked to by slashdot (1500 visitor in a day) instapundit, engadget, grandrounds, medgadget, and emergiblog – not to mention all the amazing new blogs I discovered when the came a-linking. All my biggies at once! Boy it was fun to watch the hits roll in! Thanks to all our new visitors and I hope to see you back.

Weblog awards voting still up- docinthemachine in the running: Docinthemachine has been nominated for best medical blog in the 2006 weblogawards. If you enjoyed this site please vote here or by clicking the icon and then choosing docinthemachine and vote:

Cell Phone Charger Could Transform OR Tools!

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

Engadget is reporting on a new electromagnetical induction device to charge your cell phone and pocket gadgets. What’s the medical tie-in DITM?

First here’s their report:

Charge-by-contact pads have a real shot at practicality. We haven’t seen too much action on the wire-free charging front in quite some time. Thankfully, WildCharge is apparently stepping to the plate, and hopes to show off its WildCharger pad at CES; the device requires a single AC power cord, and then can reportedly recharge any device you lay atop its surface, be it cellphones, PDAs, or awkwardly-shaped headphones. We presume a special module will need to be installed on each battery that hopes to receive its share of electromagnetic induction.

It is the same technology that is used in newer electric toothbrushes that charge in a litte holde without any real metal contact.

How this could change OR tools:

In endoscopic surgery we use telescopes to look inside the body. These are attached to video cameras to display the images and in many specialties powered tools are used in the operation. Today, these are all limited by being tethered to power and video and light. Technology like this can allow us to cut the cords. I presented at the AAGL Global Conference of Gyn Laparoscopy last year research on a next generation endoscope. Instead of glass lenses, a CCD chip camera, and halogen bulb illumination it used a tiny distal CMOS chip and integral LED illumination. This allows elimination of some of the external connections of the tool. It could be further refined to eliminate any connections of the tool externally by using wireless video transmission or batteries. Power however would be limited.

The new cell-phone charger technology sets the stage fora whole new generation of tools that could be wirelessly charged or powered. There could even be powered or recharged while inside the body. I know that several medical device companies have been looking into this concept. There is a real cord-tangle problem in endoscopic surgery and anything that elminates them is welcome in the OR.

If you want to imagine someof the future applications this could enable listen about future surgery including implanted remote diagnostic devices on my podcast from the aagl at obgyn.net.

Geckos Grabing Gizmos in the OR

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

Living gecko foot photo I took while working on med uses for their sticky pads! Click to see larger

CNN reported today about the invention of synthetic-gecko. DITM- is this just a rubber lizard or an imitation car insurance company? No! You may not be aware, the gecko has a bit of nanotechnology in its tiny little feet.

Geckos are so strange as animals you would think they must come from Australia where all the freaky animals are. For starters, they have no eyelids and lick their eyes clean. Some species are even parthenogenic, the females capable of reproducing without copulating with a male.

Why make a synthetic gecko?: The toes of the gecko are little amazing creations that I have been researching. (this is one of my wonderful invention ideas that someone completed before I got really going with it). You see, their little feet can stick to just about anything – even glass.

How do their foot stickers work?: Each gecko foot has millions of microscopic hairs (called setae) each with a microscopic mushroom shaped cap on the end, less than one-thousandth of a millimeter across called a spatula . This ensures that the gecko’s foot is in very close contact with the surface beneath. The cumulative attractive force, called van der Waals force between hair, mushroom, and surface sticks the little guy down. There are almost 500,000 Setae on each foot, and each of these tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae. If a gecko stuck every single little sticker to a surface at one time it could hold up a 250 lb man.

A at BAE Systems Advanced Technology Center in the UK has finally made a synthetic gecko sticker pad.

Their “Synthetic Gecko” material mimics the microscopic hairs on a gecko’s foot. Its potential as a reusable super-strong adhesive material could be applied across a number of areas. ”As well as the engineering potential of our product we realize there is a huge scope for its commercial and even medical application,” Dr. Jeffery Sargent said.

It’s not the first time that material has been produced that has tried to copy geckos’ climbing feats. Scientists at the University of California discovered the secrets of the lizard’s seemingly gravity-defying ability in 2000 which they syntesized in tiny amounts in 2002.

How it can be used: The first use are superstrong patches. It would be like a velcro patch that could stick to anything with the strength of cement but by pulling ayt an angle could peel off! It would be strong enough to patch a vehicle fusilage (or a heating heart, or the spinal dura, or a vessel, or …..)

“Materials that can change their properties electrically are being developed, that will be used to in the medical world to create things such as synthetic muscles,” Ian Pearson, resident futurist for BT, told CNN. “Creating smart membranes that could regulate the flow of drugs to a patient is another application,” said Pearson. “Synthetic Gecko” could have medical applications as well, for use in skin graft operations, for example.

Not to mention the scores of devices I am thinking of…

More on “Alternate Visualization”

Posted on December 10, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

Medgadget posted on yet another IR based visualization gadget – this time for derm use. I have been writing on my view of the upcoming radical transformation of medicine by future technology. The first major step is the development of “Alternate visualization”- where doctors gain abilities their native bodies (or eyes) lack.

European Technology Innovation of the Year award for SIAscope. Spectrophotometric intra-cutaneous analysis lets doctors see the constituents of skin without cutting it open.

Astron Clinica’s SIAscopy utilises both visible and infrared (IR) light to examine skin components such as blood, melanin, dermal melanin and collagen to a depth of 2 mm below the skin’s surface, and provides gross living pathological data on skin lesions,” notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Sangeetha Prabakar.

“This eliminates the need for other more laborious clinical examination and laboratory analysis procedures.” Using sophisticated mathematical models and software programmes, SIAscopy generates images called SIAscans, which can then either be displayed on PCs, viewed separately or overlaid, to demonstrate how skin features relate to one another. This allows physicians to know the exact size of a lesion and make more precise incisions.

Read more about medical IR and Near IR vision here and here.

Awesome Army Videos-Terminator 2025 Battlefield Surgery Built NOW!

Posted on December 9, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

If you thought my post on military technology in the operating room was cool you will not believe the next generation videos here. James Bond may have Q but the US military has DARPA. On of their future battlefield medical projects is TraumaPod. These videos from my friend Richard Satava, MD (Professor of Surgery and Program Manager of Advanced Biomedical Technology at the DARPA show the creation of terminator-style future battlefield surgery made real today. Part 1 shows the concept video of how the system will work. Part 2 shows engineering protoype video used to build the system. Part 3 shows the real-live thing working today.

What is Trauma Pod? As Rick wrote of its Heinlein Science Fiction Origins:

Like many revolutionary ideas, science fiction imagines what might be possible and it takes decades for hard science to catch up. Such is the case for Trauma Pod, a new capability and a new challenging research project for pre-hospital or far forward battlefield casualty care. Concepts of Trauma Pod can be traced back to the 1957 science fiction book “Starship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein, in which a self contained casualty “cocoon” was sent automatically from the spaceship directly to the wounded soldier on the battlefield. The casualty was placed inside this cocoon or pod, which was imagined to be a combination intensive care unit (ICU) and operating room (OR), capable of completely rescuing and, if necessary, operating upon a wounded soldier while being returned safely to the spaceship. As fantastic as that might have seemed, we are well over half way there, with systems that are currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan (and in clinical trials in select U.S. civilian trauma centers) and future systems to ultimately realize the full potential as so clearly articulated by Heinlein

Part 1 shows the concept video of how the system will work

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Part 2 shows engineering protoype video used to build the system

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Part 3 shows the real-live thing working today

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If you want to read all the details of the Land Warrior System and its potential medical uses read here

Army Axing High-Tech Soldier of Tomorrow- MedTech Losses Predicted

Posted on December 8, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

DefenceTech reports today that the US Army has decided to axe it’s $500 Million (so far) Land Warrior Soldier of the Future program. If this goes through the fallout loss of future medical technology under development will be enormous. many do not realize the enormous amount of medical technology that trickles down from the military (such as the swallowable gut-cams in a pill) and the first functional robot surgical system.

Here’s the report and the facts:

According to Inside Defense, service financiers have decided to kill off Land Warrior in its 2008 budget. It’s one of a number of high-tech programs slated for big cuts by the Army.

The service got $17 billion less than what it wanted for its 2008 budget from the Pentagon and the White House. “Earlier in October… Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker said if the service got less than what it needed in FY-08 it would be forced to slow the modernization of the force,” Inside Defense’s Dan Dupont notes. “In submitting its budget plan to Pentagon leaders last week, the Army contended that budget constraints have forced the service to take what it believes are imprudent risks in the readiness of today’s forces, as well as in its future plans.”

What is the Land Warrior Program? A nice review of the components of Land Warrior can be found here.

Land Warrior integrates small arms with high-tech equipment enabling ground forces to deploy, fight and win on the battlefields of the 21st century. Land Warrior came about in 1991 when an Army study group recommended the service look at the soldier as a complete weapon system. The first priority in Land Warrior is lethality. The second is survivability and the third, command and control. The program will cost $2 billion when 45,000 sets of the equipment are fielded between 2001-2014. The Marine Corps, Air Force and many foreign countries are interested in the system.

Based on recent advances in communications, sensors, and materials, the Land Warrior System integrates commercial, off-the-shelf technologies into a complete soldier system. For the first time, the soldier’s equipment is being designed as if he is an individual, complete weapons platform. Each subsystem and component is designed to and for the soldier. The result: the first integrated soldier fighting system for the dismounted infantryman.

The Components of Land Warrior & The Medical Uses of Each: Land Warrior has several subsystems: the weapon, integrated helmet assembly, protective clothing and individual equipment, computer/radio, and software. Each has enormous medical potentials.

Weapons Subsystem is built around an M-16 but includes electronic opticals (video camera, and the laser rangefinder/digital compass, GPS, nightvision). Medical use: Alternative visualization (the use of non-white light) is a huge area in medical endoscopic surgery development. Read here about the concept of future surgical vision and here and here about using this same exact infrared vision in surgery. The technology to integrate tiny sensors for infrared (ie night vision) into the rifle is the same to integrate it into a surgical telescope. Direct immediate medical application.

Integrated Helmet uses advanced lightweight protection with future materials but also couples the soldier to the digital battlefield. There is an advanced next-generation helmet mounted display (HMD) providing views of computer-generated graphical data, digital maps, intelligence information, troop locations, and the ability to view and control weapons around a corner. By looking with a thermal sight, the soldier will be able to see an area’s characteristics and can see through obscurants. The thermal images will appear on the HMD as can night vision images integrated with the soldier’s sight. Medical Applications: The concept of future vision in surgery and augmented visual system is discussed the paragraph above. An equally important off-shoot of the helmet is a next generation HMD display. HMD’s put tiny screens in your line of sight and add augmented information (beyond what the eye can see) or accessory info. These are being used today in surgery for endoscopy. The system I have used is a direct off-shoot of military HMD’s – except it’s military technology from the 80′s and 90′s. The state of the art surgical system is made by Viking Systems and uses the Kaiser Electro-Optical Military HMD. Today’s sytems suffer from lower resolution, no active head tracking, and weight. The Land Warrior addresses all of these and could go directly into the OR. The ability to overlay additional information such as CT scans,tumor image guidance, vital signs, etc directly uses the same military technology – and several surgical companies I know of are already trying to make this work. Direct immediate medical application.

Protective Clothing – a revolutionary backpack design based on state-of-the-art automotive racing technology which bends with the soldier’s natural body movements. Integrates with new smart body armor. Medical Uses: Again huge potential. Intellegent garments can be used to monitor health conditions (heart patient wears a shirt with built in telemetry) of many body systems. Light weight armor can be used as bmaterials for strong small surgical robots and for next generation prosthetics. All of these are in development today. Direct immediate medical application.

Computer/Radio Control is over a portable radio with miniature flat screen. Allows soldiers to exchange information and videos in real time. Menus are controlled with a remote input device attached to the soldier and activated with a finger touch. Medical Applications: information exchange for alternate visualization and new surgical gesture controls.

Is it a bluff? Haninah commented at defense tech on the Washington Monument Drill

there’s at least a chance that this is what some folks call a Washington Monument Drill. Say the National Parks Service is told they need to cut their budget. They huddle, and come out and announce with a straight face that in light of the cuts, they’ll have to shut down the Washington Monument. The Hill panics, and restores full funding. That’s what the Pentagon did all of a year ago, when they announced that any budget cuts would have to come out of National Guard budget, and sure ’nuff, Congress backed right down. Now, it could be that Land Warrior is the Army’s Washington Monument. Any time there’s an announcement that budget cuts are going to be absorbed by the part of the budget that makes the least sense to cut

On the Flip Side- Does Anyone Know How Much This Thing Costs?: Unfortunately, land Warrior is part of the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS) Initiative. This is the roadmap for an unprecedented hi-tech modernization of the Army. What’s new? How about an air force of completely unmanned remote controlled fighters– it’s in the budget! Unfortunately, the entire project is so far over budget it becomes a target for cuts. Originally at $60 billion, then $127B, recent estimates have balooned to $300 billion total cost (yes that’s billion with a b) and some are calling it the biggest military boondoggle ever. Here is a link to the Army’s PR rich review of what the billions will get us complete with photos and videos of what it will look like in action.

Video Update: Here is a link to one of the medtechs coming from FCS- “traumapod”

Update 2: Many comments saying military funding is just wrong or wasteful for medical development. Read here about why the military does what the medical industry won’t

DITM Finalist for Weblog Award 2006!- Best Medical Blog

Posted on December 5, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

DITM Fever Spreads! What a wonderful day for DITM. The 2006 Weblog Award Finalists List was just posted– there it is in black and white to my delight: docinthemachine – finalist for best medical blog! We have been chosen in the top 10 which means we are in the running! As they say vote early and vote often! Please come show your support for my vision of future technolgy’s impact on medicine. The voting links do not seem to be up yet but will supposedly be up for 10 days with a one vote per person per day rule. They say there were 4500 nominations so this is a proud day for this blog!

UPDATE: voting links now up to vote click here – each person is allowed 1 vote per day