A similar crisis afflicts our senses of humanity and nature, with the
accelerating progress in bioengineering pitting the opportunity of treating
genetic disorders against the dangers of designing babies (and, incidentally,
zebra fish) to order.

Pushing the gas pedal of crisis are technologies such as a Nanolab chip that may do for the
proteome what the gene sequencer did for the genome, AI (artificial
intelligence) systems that sort through the
avalanche of data triggered by such as Nanolab, and a test bed to ensure the Internet’s
acceleration is not checked by crashes. Where is the acceleration taking us? —
To a wearable hospital, for
one; and to in-silico emulations of
biological organisms, for another. And whence will come the energy to power
the myriad lilliputian devices built into the wearable hospital? — From lilliputian gasoline engines, perhaps.

A technique employing nanoparticles to convert water polluted with certain
toxic industrial contaminants into harmless byproducts has been found effective
for removing solvents and cyanide in water, and may be adaptable for cleaning
contaminated soil and even nuclear waste. It is hinted that the new method could
be in use within a year or two. Nanoparticles are also being tested as a way to
remove pollutants from engine exhaust gas to detect trace amounts of toxins. The
keys to the success of these applications are the greater reactivity that
nanoparticles provide and the ability to design them to target specific
pollutants.

Some nanotechnologists aim to prevent rather than palliate, by replacing
dirty manufacturing processes with cleaner alternatives. One company is adding
carbon nanotubes to plastics, to give them metallic properties so they can be
painted without the use of toxic solvents necessary to bind paint to plastic.
This alone would lead to a significant reduction in environmental pollution.

Reference: Tristram, Claire (2003). “Nanotech
Cleans Up.” Technology Review, June 18.

Designer Life

It is not long since researchers genetically engineered a mouse with neon
green skin, and already a Taiwanese company is applying a similar technique
commercially to produce ornamental zebra fish that glow in the dark. If you ask
“How soon before we have designer humans?” you are behind the times. Last month,
a male human embryo was genetically selected as a near perfect match to his
elder (born) brother, who needed embryonic stem cells (that could be harvested
from his younger brother’s umbilical cord) to treat a life-threatening blood
disorder.

This was not the first, neither will it be the last nor the most
controversial application of bioengineering. It may soon be possible to produce
human eggs from an aborted fetus, resulting in essentially motherless children.
Researchers have so far succeeded in stimulating, in ovarian tissue taken from
aborted fetuses, the growth of follicles that contain the cells that grow into
eggs. Over the month in which the ovarian tissue was coaxed to stay alive, the
follicles matured about halfway to the point where they would be able to produce
fertile eggs.

References: Whitehouse, David (2003). “GM fish glows in
the bowl.” BBC News, June 27; Sample, Ian (2003). “Prospect
of babies from unborn mothers.” The Guardian, July 1.

Nanolab: HGP on Steroids

The Human Genome Project (HGP) has had (or appears to have had) little
immediate medical or commercial value. It gave us “a genetic parts list,” but it
has not explained how all the parts interact, says Dr. Leroy Hood, inventor of
the automated DNA sequencer that accelerated the HGP’s success. If we had that
explanation, then effective tests for — and pharmaceutical countermeasures
against — disease and disease predispositions would be much more feasible. But
given the combinatorially explosive product of 30,000 genes and 300,000
proteins, getting that explanation is “orders of magnitude more ambitious” than
the HGP.

There was skepticism about the HGP when it was first proposed, but
exponential acceleration in computing power and functionality led to Dr. Hood’s
gene sequencer that led to HGP’s completion ahead of schedule, and we are today
even further along the exponential curve of computing power. That being so, what
seems impossibly ambitious today could be accomplished in less than the ten
years it took to complete the no less audacious HGP. And no-one seems to
understand that better than Dr. Hood, whose latest project, the Nanolab,
is a sort of proteomic analog to his genetic sequencer, at least in terms of
potential impact on medicine.

Nanolab is a microchip that would be “the equivalent of 1,000
laboratories” able to “perform more experiments in an hour than a conventional
lab could in weeks or even years,” according to reporter Erick Schonfeld. It
would enable animated visualizations of gene and protein interactions and let
systems biologists manipulate genes and drugs to observe phenotypic outcomes in
whole cells. The benefits to pre-diagnosis, diagnosis, and treatment would
clearly be enormous. The completed Nanolab chip is about three years
away, but its components are already proven. Among them are the nanoscale wires
and tubes whose development Health Futures Digest routinely covers
precisely because they are a vital enabling technology for the medicine of our
exponentially shrinking future.

Reference: Schonfeld, Erick, (2003). “Beyond the
Genome.” Business2.0, July.

Handling the Info Glut

A system of semi-autonomous, adaptive software agents predicts what
information a team of humans — say, soldiers or emergency workers — needs in a
given crisis, then delivers the information on a need-to-know basis to team
members. CAST (Collaborative Agents for Simulating Teamwork)is pre-programmed
with the team’s knowledge, goals, constraints, and other factors. It can sort
through voluminous information more quickly than humans can, and identify
connected bits of information.

CAST has received funding from the Department of Defense, the National
Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, and the Army Research Lab.

(For a somewhat related story of software agents being used to help parents
of very sick children handle their particular crises, see “Bot Therapy” in the
Therapeutics section of this issue of Health Futures Digest.)

Reference: Delio, Michelle (2003). “Enough Already:
Curbing Info Glut.” Wired News, June 10.

Faster Global Research Network

An international consortium of major academic and industrial organizations is
building a small-scale copy of the Internet to facilitate experimentation,
development, and testing of computing and communication applications and
protocols that could then be applied to the real Internet. PlanetNet, as
it is called, currently consists of 160 Linux-based computers in 65 sites in 16
countries, with 300 computers expected to be connected by the end of this year
and 1,000 in a few years. Ninety-five active research projects are already using
PlanetNet, including projects for early detection of bugs, viruses, and
denial-of-service attacks. The Internet is unstable and vulnerable and growing
more so, yet it is increasingly vital to communication and computing (especially
grid
computing) in our interconnected, interdependent global society. PlanetNet
is therefore a significant and important accelerant.

Reference: Kanellos, Michael (2003). “Intel, universities create
world network.” CNET News.com, June 23.

Wearable Hospitals

Haute couture for the soldiery of 2011 will be an integrated, wired
uniform that monitors vital signs and jacks into the guerre du jour
through the Pentagon’s $15 billion Future Combat System — a network of
satellites, unmanned planes, and robotic land vehicles. The “Scorpion ensemble”
will have everything needed for battle yet weigh less than 50 pounds, compared
to the 120 pounds of gear today’s grunt must heft.

The planned ensemble sports sensors to continually monitor heart rate, body
temperature, and respiration; built-in tourniquets that could be applied
remotely; an armored “load carriage” holding water, ammunition, wireless
transceiver, and batteries; a helmet incorporating miniature cameras and a
semi-transparent screen to display their low-light, thermal, and other images ,
as well as maps, global-positioning coordinates, images transmitted wirelessly
from drones, robotic vehicles, or fellow soldiers; and a “laser-engagement
system” to identify, and be identified to, friendly forces. The entire system
may be controlled by voice or via a control panel built into a sleeve.

But wait; believe it or not, there’s more. MIT’s government-funded Institute
for Soldier Nanotechnologies is working on external skeletons carrying
artificial muscles that would make soldiers faster and stronger, lightweight
uniforms that close pores between fibers to block out chemical weapons, and
fibers that stiffen to form a cast or splint on a broken bone, thin films that
would monitor a soldier’s breath for exposure to toxins then signal the system
to release the appropriate medicine, sensors to show exact wound locations, and
a hologram of the soldier’s body.

Reference: Associated Press (2003). “Coming Soon:
Smarter Soldiers.” Wired News, June 2.

Artificial Life

To study how an organism evolves over generations, and how its genotype is
expressed in its phenotype (how the parts relate to the whole), researchers
observe organisms such as peas, fruit flies, and viruses. Short as their life
spans are, these organisms cannot match computerized “virtual” organisms created
by genetic algorithms (GAs). But until now, virtual organisms have lacked the
complexity and subtlety of the real thing. New research based on information
theory will help design GAs that produce more valid organisms, and thus
accelerate our understanding of evolutionary processes at the genetic level.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Artificial Beings
Evolve Realistically.” Technology Research News, June 3.

Power to Go

Engineers have made a gasoline engine small enough to replace the smallest
conventional batteries, yet producing 700 times more energy. They may not be on
sale for a while, but meanwhile NEC will be ready next year to market a methanol
fuel cell-powered laptop computer.

References: ANI (2003). “World’s Tiniest Petrol
Engine, Just Fill it, Forget it.” Yahoo! News India, June 19; Unknown
(2003). “NEC
Shows Laptop with Fuel Cell.” LA Times, July 1, p. C-3.