Jun 6, 2020 05:44 AM
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambli...s-tougher/
EXCERPT: . . . The ADvanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER) project is described as a travel adapter for the human body. It will consist of devices implanted under the skin or ingested and held in the gut to protect warfighters from travel ailments. DARPA has issued a call for proposals from researchers for ‘bioelectronic carriers that maintain and release therapies that provide warfighters control over their own physiology.’
“You can imagine … you swallow a large electronic pill that opens up and hangs out in your stomach,” Dr. Paul Sheehan [...] “You can imagine a device like that that would also contain drugs or contain bacteria that could produce drugs, and so that whenever you were worried about unsafe food or water, you could signal the device to … produce the antibiotic.”
DARPA calls this type of device a therapeutic cellular factory, filled with bacteria specially engineered to produces the required drugs on demand. The work is may leverage DARPA’s previous work on synthetic biology and Living Foundries to create specific antibiotics or other agents. The device would be controlled externally so a soldier would press a button to engage their cyborg immune system. It would be like a version of our friendly gut bacteria which provide disease protection — but turbo-charged and under electronic control.
[...] On the sleep disruption side, the program will build on previous DARPA work looking at circadian rhythms. The body does not just have one clock but several. There is a ‘master clock’ located in the hypothalamus which controls the production of melatonin, but there are other clocks in the digestive system and elsewhere, which is why your stomach always knows when it is meal time. Rather than simply providing standard doses of melatonin (currently used to treat sleep disorders and jet lag), ADAPTER could release several different substances adjusted to the particular needs of an individual.
A key benefit of ADAPTER is that soldiers will not need to carry multiple types of medication around with them, remembering to take them on a specific timetable. The implant will do all that automatically. The goal is to reduce the time taken to change to a new local time or work pattern by half... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . The ADvanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER) project is described as a travel adapter for the human body. It will consist of devices implanted under the skin or ingested and held in the gut to protect warfighters from travel ailments. DARPA has issued a call for proposals from researchers for ‘bioelectronic carriers that maintain and release therapies that provide warfighters control over their own physiology.’
“You can imagine … you swallow a large electronic pill that opens up and hangs out in your stomach,” Dr. Paul Sheehan [...] “You can imagine a device like that that would also contain drugs or contain bacteria that could produce drugs, and so that whenever you were worried about unsafe food or water, you could signal the device to … produce the antibiotic.”
DARPA calls this type of device a therapeutic cellular factory, filled with bacteria specially engineered to produces the required drugs on demand. The work is may leverage DARPA’s previous work on synthetic biology and Living Foundries to create specific antibiotics or other agents. The device would be controlled externally so a soldier would press a button to engage their cyborg immune system. It would be like a version of our friendly gut bacteria which provide disease protection — but turbo-charged and under electronic control.
[...] On the sleep disruption side, the program will build on previous DARPA work looking at circadian rhythms. The body does not just have one clock but several. There is a ‘master clock’ located in the hypothalamus which controls the production of melatonin, but there are other clocks in the digestive system and elsewhere, which is why your stomach always knows when it is meal time. Rather than simply providing standard doses of melatonin (currently used to treat sleep disorders and jet lag), ADAPTER could release several different substances adjusted to the particular needs of an individual.
A key benefit of ADAPTER is that soldiers will not need to carry multiple types of medication around with them, remembering to take them on a specific timetable. The implant will do all that automatically. The goal is to reduce the time taken to change to a new local time or work pattern by half... (MORE - details)