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14:42:05 02/11/19101:
DARPA's Disruptive Technologies
By David Talbot09/21/01
http://www.infowar.com .../mil_c4i_092101a_j.htm
http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/oct01/talbot.asp
Bio:Info:Micro In DARPA's view, the next challenge will be linking biology and computing to the science of the very small, through devices that can detect, influence, interpret and communicate what's happening in living cells. And so DARPA this year kicked off an ambitious $35 million, four-year effort called Bio:Info:Micro. As Alexander told a group of researchers last fall, there's a growing sense that merging biology with computing and microsystems "is something really new and revolutionary. In a lot of cases, we can't quite put our finger on it, but all of us, as technologists, think that this is a very promising area." Two basic programs aim to fire early salvos in this predicted revolution. The first attempts to advance brain-machine interfaces-technologies that tap brain signals to control a variety of mechanical and electrical devices and can also send signals into the brain to stimulate neurons. This program has a solid starting point: already, DARPA-funded groups from Duke University, Caltech and elsewhere have built devices (tested only on animals so far) that can be surgically implanted in the brain to detect neural signals and send those impulses via wires to computers. The computers decode the signals, then transmit control instructions to devices like robotic arms (see "Brain-Machine Interface," TR January/February 2001). http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/jan01/tr10_nicolelis.asp Linking brains to robotic arms is an awe-inspiring feat. But every component and process in these early systems needs loads of work. And that's where DARPA comes in. "We in the field have demonstrated the feasibility of direct communication with the brain," says Daryl Kipke, an associate professor of bioengineering at the University of Michigan who is leading one of three DARPA-funded university teams working on brain-machine interfaces. Now, he says, the challenge is to vastly improve this communication with help from the thrust's three basic disciplines. Kipke's team will work to improve existing MEMS implants, adding a microfluidic device to deliver drugs to the implant site. Biologists will seek to identify which molecules should be used to make neurons grow, stay healthy and not form scar tissue. And finally, computer scientists are improving brain-data processing. If such systems ever get perfected, they could enable direct nervous-system control of prosthetic limbs, and even the realization of visions like mind-controlled mechanical "exoskeletons" that enable troops to exceed the limits of their normal strength and endurance, says Alan Rudolph, manager of DARPA programs developing robots based on biological designs. "The ability to have direct brain-to-machine links," he notes, "could in fact augment the ability of a human to deal with [all manner of] complex systems." The second part of DARPA's Bio:Info:Micro program funds fundamental research aimed at advancing the understanding and control of one of life's most elemental components-the communication network within a cell. A collaboration at MIT, one of three universities where DARPA is funding such studies, includes an engineer aiming to perfect microfluidic devices that can quickly measure thousands of protein interactions, a biologist extracting the cellular proteins needed to detect these interactions-and computer scientists developing algorithms to make sense of the torrent of data that should result. While DARPA isn't the only group supporting these kinds of initiatives, "I'm not aware of other funding agencies...trying to advance all three of them simultaneously," says Douglas A. Lauffenburger, codirector of MIT's Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Health and leader of DARPA's Bio:Info:Micro team at MIT. The work could point the way toward extremely sensitive sensors for detecting disease in the body or chemicals in the environment. It could also lead to new approaches to building complex systems- from robots to software-modeled after the extraordinary adaptability and ruggedness of ordinary cells. "Cells are designed to carry out very robust, reliable, simple sets of behaviors under highly variable, unpredictable conditions," says Lauffenburger. But the research is so fundamental, he adds, it's hard to predict what the first payoff might be.
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