Magnetic switch for drug delivery implants
Researchers have developed an "on/off" switch for implantable drug delivery systems that uses an external magnet to trigger the internal release of the medicine. The half-inch implant stores the drug inside a nanoengineered membrane containing magnetitie. An external magnetic field causes the membrane's pores to open up. Children's Hospital Boston physician Daniel Kohane and his colleagues published their experiments in the scientific journal Nano Letters. From Children's Hospital Boston:
Using magnetism to turn drugs on and off"A device of this kind would allow patients or their physicians to determine exactly when drugs are delivered, and in what quantities," says Kohane, who directs the Laboratory for Biomaterials and Drug Delivery in the Department of Anesthesiology at Children's.
In animal experiments, the membranes remained functional over multiple cycles. The size of the dose was controllable by the duration of the "on" pulse, and the rate of release remained steady, even 45 days after implantation.
Testing indicated that drug delivery could be turned on with only a 1 to 2 minute time lag before drug release, and turned off with a 5 to 10 minute time lag.
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Great, now patients will overdose simply by walking next to a sufficiently powerful electric motor, speaker, microwave, etc. Brilliant!
I wonder if this could make hormone replacement therapy safer?
You can wear an armband made of u-metal to shield you from magnetic rays (well, fields, but rays sounds cooler)
#1 All auto trigger systems like these have fail safes that prevent an unrecommended dose from being released.
It's not such a new concept, there's this thing for example:
http://www.vnstherapy.com/epilepsy/patient/About_Procedure.asp
Aside from the designated use it also creates a euphoric effect when used, so in essence it's a "happy button".
Congratulations men, on a job well done!
(pushes button)
I was just thinking about something like this yesterday: what if you wanted to shoot blanks, or go in fully loaded? Would a doorway like this be useful as an alternative to vasectomies?
Finally, magnets which actually DO improve your health!
Just to clarify, the device is not activated by a magnet. It is activated by heat. In one example, they use magnetite, but other methods would work that have no magnetic properties.
Magnetite particles don't generate heat with a static magnetic field (despite what the article implies). It needs a changing magnetic field. Either a constantly moving magnet or an electromagnetic field (i.e. radio waves).
It would probably be possible to activate the devices using ultrasound, microwaves, or maybe even a heating pad.