October 2006 Mechanical Engineering: Editorial

editorial

sci-fi meets reality

By
John G. Falcioni,
Editor-in-Chief

I can't help but mention an indelible childhood memory that surfaced while reading Paolo Decuzzi and Mauro Ferrari's article, "Fantastic Voyages," in this issue.

It was 40 years ago, in 1966, and I was glued to my seat watching Raquel Welch and Stephen Boyd star in an alarmingly forward-thinking and stunning film called Fantastic Voyage. The screen filled with colors and shapes depicting the inner workings of the human body.

In the film, a diplomat is nearly assassinated. To save him, a submarine is reduced to microscopic size and injected into his bloodstream with a small crew to help repair the damage.

Any conversation on bioengineering, the focus of this issue, must take into account the impact of nanotechnology. The authors, both renowned professors—one of mechanical and biomedical engineering in Italy, the other of experimental therapeutics and biomedical engineering in Texas—tell us about their work to develop silicon-based nanoporous particles that can be similarly injected directly into the bloodstream and possibly fulfill nanotechnology's ultimate promise: to identify trace markers of disease in the human body.

Traditional bioengineering is showcased by associate editor Alan Brown's article, "Hip New World," which discusses advances in hip replacements and encompasses, literally, nuts-and-bolts mechanical engineering.

Brown tells us that, contrary to popular belief, patients aged 40 to 59 are now recipients of as many hip implants as those over 60. The number of younger patients is growing because they want to resume active lifestyles without the restrictions placed on them by a bad hip.

Engineering and medicine have been linked in the area of prosthesis for years. And much as in the movie Fantastic Voyage, Hollywood has played a major role in testing the limits of reality in this area. But reality is catching up to science fiction.

Eight years after the release of Fantastic Voyage, actor Lee Majors became popularly recognized worldwide as The Six Million Dollar Man. In the television program, the protagonist was outfitted with cybernetic limbs, giving him extraordinary strength and abilities, after losing his legs, right arm, and left eye in a plane crash. Two years later, The Bionic Woman was introduced as a spinoff. Actress Lindsay Wagner portrayed a victim of a tragic skydiving accident who received bionic replacements.

Last month, the first real-life bionic woman was introduced in Washington, D.C. She's a 26-year-old former Marine named Claudia Mitchell who lost one of her arms in a motorcycle accident. Now she possesses an artificial arm that she can control with her thoughts. She joins 59-year-old Jesse Sullivan in the distinction of possessing thought-controlled artificial arms.

The developer of the arm is Todd Kuiken, director of neuroengineering at the Center for Artificial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. He is one of 35 partners in a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort to develop a state-of-the-art arm through a process called "muscle reinnervation."

The procedure involves grafting shoulder nerves, which went to the original arm, to direct them to the pectoral muscles. The grafts receive thought-generated impulses. Electrodes relay the signals to the arm's computers, which cause motors to move the elbow and hand, mimicking a normal arm.

Though the patients' new arms don't possess the type of super powers that can turn them into Hollywood superheroes, Kuiken and his partners are the real heroes, working to make life better for those suffering personal tragedies.