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Originally published on 05/16/2002
The Nantucket Conference started May 2, the same day that news broke about the creation of the "ratbot," the remote-controlled rat experiment out of the State University of New York in Brooklyn. To remind you: the rat in the ratbot experiment is controlled, or rather persuaded, by a combination of signals sent to his whisker nerves and to his pleasure center. In other words: "Go this way... Good rat!"
Fast Facts:
MicroChips
www.mchips.com |
| President |
John T. Santini, Jr.
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| HQ |
Cambridge, MA
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| Employees |
20
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| Market |
Drug delivery
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| Funding |
Approx. $16M in two rounds; Polaris was seed investor
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| Profitable? |
Awaiting FDA approval and projecting 4 to 5 years to clinical adoption.
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With ratbot on my mind, I talked to John Santini, Jr., who was on the biotechnology panel at Nantucket. John is the founder and president of MicroChips, a startup that's developed an implantable computer-controlled device that can release drugs into the body as programmed.
MicroChips' implant has its own power, a computer, and a grid containing 400 pockets, each sealed with a gold-chloride film. The film dissolves when a voltage is applied to it, releasing a drug into the body. The cells can selectively open based on a program or wireless control.
Applications are clearly numerous, from hormone therapy to hepatitis treatment. One chip can hold a combination of drugs for complex treatments. Unfortunately, some drugs, including insulin, require too large a dose to fit in the small reservoirs of the MicroChips device.
John's ultimate goal is to have MicroChips' systems respond to sensors within the body, releasing drugs as needed, not based on a static program or external signal. Current pacemaker technology is already at this level.
There's something clearly creepy about the ratbot, while the applications for MicroChips' devices are just as clearly benign. Yet there is a commonality between the two stories. Both show that active computer technology continues to merge with anatomy. It raises the fascinating question: when will Moore's law start applying directly to what happens inside our skin?
- Rafe Needleman
email: rafe-needleman@catchoday.com
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