We Can Rebuild Him. We Have the Technology.

Oscar Goldman's intro voiced over Steve Austin's transformative surgery thirty years ago is now a part of the American psyche. The idea of bionics and cyborgs, once solely the domain of science fiction, is becoming undeniable fact. Advanced prosthetics are now being integrated directly into the minds and bodies of those without arms or legs. We are no longer talking hooks and claws and pink plastic over hollow inert limbs. This is real cybernetics, electronics wired right into your nerves, a technological extension for an injured or incomplete human form.

We may not have quite reached the stage of "better, stronger, faster". But we do now have the technology to restore real quality of life and natural capabilities to those without limbs. there are an estimated 1.8 million people in the US alone that have lost limbs. And this a country that isn't currently war torn, one without land mines scattered across the landscape, where most of our crippling diseases are under control. Looking to the third world, you'll see even more people that could benefit from limb replacement technology. Up until recently, science's reach has exceeded it's grasp in creating an effective artificial limb. Although they have been slow to develop, newly effective bionic prosthesis are nothing short of miraculous.

The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago has been quietly implementing it's Bionic Arm technology for the last few years. Created by Todd Kuiken, M.D., Ph.D. director of RIC’s Neural Engineering Center for Bionic Medicine, This new limb is head and shoulders above the rest. The myoelectric arm works by receiving the electrical signals sent by the brain and then activating small motors at the joints of the arm. Doctors at the RIC have rewired nerves meant for a flesh and blood arm to muscles in the chest. Surface electrodes are then placed against the pectoral muscle to intercept signals sent by the brain. The amputee thinks about moving the original missing limb. Muscles in the chest respond accordingly, and wires there convey the signal to the artificial arm.

Using this technique, patients are able to move and manipulate their mechanical arms and hands just like anyone else. They think about it, and it happens. The first man to get the Bionic Arm was a double amputee that barely survived a horrific electrocution. But now, with the Bionic Arm in place, and it's three motors whirring away, Jesse Sullivan has regained a great deal of both form and function. Have a look of this video of Jesse showing off his fantastic thought controlled prosthesis. Built into the arm is a 64 bit computer that translates the nerve impulses into literal motor control. It takes about six months to retrain an amputee to use the Bionic Arm as if it were their own. But as you can see the results are remarkable.

But Jesse's amazing limb is already last years model. Dr. Kuiken and his team have improved upon the original design and amputee Claudia Mitchell has been selected to test drive it. A former military service woman who lost her arm in a motorcycle accident, Claudia was seen as an ideal candidate for the newest limb. The new Bionic Arm has six motors instead of three. Twice as much articulation and the ability to do such things as lifting the arm over her head make Claudia's prosthesis peerless. And there is more to the story than just a design overhaul and some supped up servos. The nature of Claudia Mitchell's operation and augmentation are on a different order than Jesse's all together.

First off, Claudia's nerves were rewired successfully without any loss of tissue. Normaly, an operation like this would require a disfiguring removal of surface tissue to provide better reception to the electrodes. But most interesting is exactly how Claudia has been rewired. Using a new technique, the Bionic Arm is no longer just a one way interface. Doctors have rewired a softball sized patch of skin on her chest to send signals to the brain as if it were coming from a living arm. And then they wired the myoelectric arm to send feedback signals to that patch of skin. Now, Claudia can tell if she is holding something hot or cold in her completely mechanical hand. This is a first in prosthetics of any kind. Soon doctors plan to wire pressure sensors in the arm to Claudia's rewired sensory skin patch. Restoring, for the first time in history, an amputees sense of touch.

Keep in mind that the 3 million dollar Bionic Arm program is still in the experimental phase. "This is very much a prototype device. We have a lot of smoke in this lab. We fry a lot of transistors." says Dr. Kuiken. But with the success he has seen thus far, and more than 400 amputees coming back from the middle east war zone alone, it wont be long before an incarnation of the Bionic Arm becomes an every day cure to a world wide problem. Desinged for healing and not augmentation, we wont see any iron bar bending or Robocop hand shakes any time soon. But I cant help to think, with their beaming smiles and computer controlled myoelectric feedback sensing bionic limbs, that Jesse and Claudia are waving at us from the future. [via Digg]


Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling - William Butler Yeats

"Guilt Free" Embryonic Stem Cells

Last week, biotech company Advanced Cell Technology announced a break through in the field of embryonic stem cell research. One that at first glance stands to put the "ethical" debate about embryonic stem cells behind us for good. But as the days wear on, controversy and fallout continue to plague this remarkable discovery. It began with a press release for an article to be published in Nature magazine. Advanced Cell Technology declared that they had developed a technique to derive stem cell lines from embryos without causing the embryos any ill effects. And they did it using a method which has been around in IVF circles for years.

The technique is called PGD or preimplantation genetic diagnosis. It was originally developed in the field of invitro fertilization. When the embryo is at a very early stage of development, often even before the blastocyst stage, a tiny amount of genetic material is taken. A microscopic breach of the cell wall would be made chemically, mechanically, or using a laser. And the embryo would regrow the lost material without any ill effect. Initially, that extracted cell has been used by concerned families to scan their perspective child for any number of genetic maladies. Robert Lanza and his research group at Advanced Cell Technology have succeeding in giving another purpose to that little snippet of biopsied genes... Using them to create new stem cell lines. The technique hasn't been perfected yet. After 91 PGD biopsies, only two new stem cell lines were created. But Lanza and his team have shown that the procedure is viable.

So that's it then. A new procedure that will allow us to create stem cell lines from embryos without effecting the embryos developmental potential. Does this mark the end of the stem cell debate? Are we to expect wide smiles and thunderous applause from both side of the isle? Hardly. If anything this new procedure has further stoked the fires of debate.

First of all we have the nature of the study Professor Lanza conducted created stem cell lines from PGD material. The team at Advanced Cell Technology used only 16 embryos for their study. To minimize the number of embryos to be manipulated, rather than performing 91 separate PGD on 91 separate embryos, they used only 16. Which means that multiple PDGs were performed on individual embryos, eventually harvesting all of their genetic material and destroying the embryos outright. This has raised the ire of the religious and "bio ethicists" created an uproar and cause outlets such as the New York Times, Nature, and The Scientist to carefully reword their coverage of this breakthrough. Noting that the embryos used were in fact destroyed, and it doesn't end there.

Those on the right are appreciative that scientists are looking for a way to avoid "killing" embryos, but they are also extremely critical of any embryonic research, believing that destruction of genetic material is tantamount to the destruction of the embryo. And they fear a trade or market will develop for embryos if there is ANY successful way to derive stem cells from them, whether it is harmful or not. But you expect flak from the bio-conservatives when it comes to embryo research of any kind. It's Bush's witless veto all over again. What is surprising is the response coming from those in favor of embryonic stem cell research.

Embryonic stem cell researchers are leery of any sort of practice that kowtows to the embryo hugging right wingers. Reaserching ways to avoid "killing" embryos just validates the side of the argument that embryos can be "killed" in the first place. Also some scientists feel that the limited genetic demographics of those that use IVF clinics would limit the usefulness of any stem cell lines derived from them. And others like Arthur Caplan see the catch 22 inherent in the system...

"if you are going to use blastomeres from embryos where would you get them. from human embryos! so either you make them just to get blastomeres which means destroying embryos and makes no sense or you get them at fertility clinics. but the only people who will let you pull a blastomere off of one of their embryos are people who dont plan to use them anyway! So they are going to destroy their embryos, making it senseless to use a blastomere."

There is validity to the points made by concerned stem cell researchers that have to fight tooth and nail for every bit of funding and political support they get. But the real matter of substance here is getting more stem cell lines. Perhaps techniques like this will lend a bit of credence to the superstitious right. Perhaps all the stem cell lines derived from WASP dominant IVF clinics wont be the most useful for curing diseases that target minorities. Maybe there is some faulty circular logic to the whole affair. But in the end, if the result of this breakthrough is more stem cell lines, access to government funding, and another tool in our stem cell harvesting arsenal, then I say have at it!

Now there are three legitimate criticisms coming from some research circles that raise some indisputable points. One is that this particular success has yet to be repeated outside of ACT's laboratory. We will definitely need positive verification before this discovery can move any further ahead. Another concern is whether stem cells created using this method will have the same miraculous properties of lines created using entire embryos. This I think is the most over riding concern, and will require further and very deep investigation. And lastly, "moral" concerns aside, will even a procedure that leaves an embryo unharmed satisfy our administration's draconian laws on stem cell funding? Or is this end run pointless to begin with?

Only time will tell whether this breakthrough will usher in a new era of stem cell research, or just be one more foot note in the history books when we look back at the early years of embryonic stem cells. It does seem to me that we are in a very dangerous place now, where scientific decisions are made not by scientists at all, but by lobbyists and politicians. I'll be keeping that in mind when the mid term elections roll around in November. And I'll be voting pro stem cell all the way. At this point I would even settle for one of those little check boxes on my tax form. "Do you want 35 dollars of your Federal Tax to go toward embryonic stem cell research? This will not effect your return." But of course that check box is needed to collect presidential election funds. Next time, maybe we should elect a scientist. [inspired by Wired's Bodyhack Blog]


"I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to." - Willard Gaylin