We're learning to speak the electrical language of the body – and using it to develop treatments for diseases from arthritis to diabetes
FOR Goran Ostovich*, just driving his delivery van was a daily agony. The painful swelling in his hands, wrists and elbows made it nearly impossible to grip and turn the wheel – never mind loading and unloading the produce his van carried. The drugs that he had taken for years to alleviate his rheumatoid arthritis didn't help much. He had reluctantly abandoned his favourite sport, ping pong. He stopped working. The final cruelty was when he could no longer lift his young children or play with them.
It was then that Ostovich volunteered for a last resort treatment: he had a small computer implanted in his neck that would instruct his immune cells to stand down.
Ostovich's implant is a harbinger of ...
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