An injected medicine that only activates when you want it to

Oct 25, 2014 08:29 GMT  ·  By

Injections are one of the most common, if hated, types of medicine in the world, but they have their limitations, not the least of which is that the drugs go into effect immediately. Normally, this is a good thing, but if you need doses of a serum to be applied periodically, it can get tedious and progressively more painful.

To mitigate this problem, there are certain implants available, as well as inventions like dialysis devices, that have a permanent bore implanted in the patient's body.

Then there are external urine collector devices and various other things that allow people to extend their lives in case some illness or injury takes them by surprise.

In the end, though, drugs are still necessary for most treatments, and with injections being the most fast-acting ones, people have had to mostly live with the thought of repeated impalement.

This won't last for much longer though, if Houston Methodist Research Institute scientists have their way. And considering their $1.25 / €9.8 million grant from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), they will definitely have their way.

Remote-controlled implants that dispense medicine

It's not that easy to give an astronaut periodic medical checkups when said astronauts are in space. Unless you have a medic that also happens to be an astronaut, which doesn't happen often.

Because of this, CASIS at Florida's Kennedy Space Center has been trying to find an alternative, a way to make sure the people in orbit stay in good health.

The result was a technology that could very well be used by the rest of the world as well: a system that could implant people with a device which would afterwards be controllable remotely via radio.

And since the things are supposed to work from Orbit, we guess that 3G, 4G and successor technologies will be the key for signal delivery.

The device from NanoMedical Systems Inc. isn't ready yet, but in its complete form, it will measure 18 mm in width (less than an inch) and will contain a reservoir for drugs, as well as a silicon membrane housing with 615,342 channels of around 2.5 nm. The channels will control drug release through nanotechnology techniques.

The signal to release the drugs will be received by the electronics below the reservoir, which are powered by a small battery.

The time before this all enters use

It shouldn't take overly long. Maybe a year or two before the people on the International Space Station can start animal trials. Human trials will take longer though. Until then, you'll all have to do with wearable external pumps, implantable multi-layered polymers (which release drugs as they erode), and implantable metal-gated devices.