Mind Controlled Drug Delivery

During 2016, we initiated a joint project with Ido Bachelet (then, at BIU), Doron Froedman (from IDC), and a group of students (Shachar Arnon, Nir Dahan, Amir Koren, Oz Radiano, Matan Ronen, Tal Yannay, Jonathan Giron, Lee Ben-Ami, Yaniv Amir). The goal of this project was to present a proof-of-concept where a brain-machine interface enables a human operator to control nanometer-size robots inside a living animal by brain activity. Recorded EEG patterns are recognized online by an algorithm, which in turn controls the state of an electromagnetic field. The field induces the local heating of billions of mechanically-actuating DNA origami robots tethered to metal nanoparticles, leading to their reversible activation and subsequent exposure of a bioactive payload. As a proof of principle we demonstrate activation of DNA robots to cause a cellular effect inside the insect Blaberus discoidalis, by a cognitively straining task. This technology enables the online switching of a bioactive molecule on and off in response to a subject’s cognitive state, with potential implications to therapeutic control in disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, and attention deficits, which are among the most challenging conditions to diagnose and treat. This works ( published in PLOS ONE ) was widely covered in the popular scientific journals over the world:


ChemDiv


Popular Science


TechXplore


Yahoo News


Yahoo News


The Times of Israel


Futurism


NewScientist


WIRED


SingularityHub