Investor's Business Daily, September 28th, 2007
Professor Kevin Warwick likes billing himself as the world's first human cyborg, short for cyber-organism. That stems from a 1998 experiment, when doctors lodged a radio frequency identification chip into his left biceps. Many scientists call it the first case of a human embedding an RFID chip internally.
The chip transmitted signals to open lab doors when Warwick approached and to turn on lights when he entered rooms at the University of Reading, England, where he's a professor of cybernetics.
Warwick is among those at the forefront of this emerging field, which studies the connections between humans and technology. He hopes to help, among others, the deaf and disabled, and those afflicted with Parkinson's disease and other nervous system disorders.
Warwick has conducted other experiments using himself as a human guinea pig to explore new systems for human sensory inputs and machine communications.
"This is about linking people to technology in order to give humans extra abilities," he said.
In one test, Warwick developed an ultrasonic sensing system to navigate through a crowded room while blindfolded.
In 2002, when Warwick implanted 100 electrode pins into the median nerve fibers of his left arm. Using a controller device strapped to his left wrist, he was able to harness his neural signals to drive an electric wheelchair. He also used the system to move a robotic arm that was miles away -- via the Web.
In another experiment, Warwick designed electrical links that allowed basic "communications" with his wife, Irena, via their central nervous systems.
The work is cutting edge, so much so that many dismiss it as science fiction. Warwick has heard from the doubters, but he persists.
Warwick foresees a future in which people will almost surely blend machines with biology to augment their natural sensory abilities. It is, he concedes, "a bit strange and weird" to contemplate.
"The idea is to try something technically, even if I'm not sure where it will lead," he said. "I see humans as very limited, and my duty as a researcher is to enhance our ability and improve people."
Warwick has partnered this year with Tipu Aziz, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Oxford. They're developing a kind of pacemaker device to control the tremors and pain caused by Parkinson's disease. The two already have devised a system to deliver constant electrical pulses to block such pain. Now they want to be able to selectively do this in advance of tremors.
Some have criticized Aziz for conducting experiments on monkeys to understand certain movement disorders. He defends such research as a pathway to new surgeries for people who suffer from phantom limb pain and such ailments.
As a surgeon at Oxford's Radcliffe Hospital, Aziz implants deep brain electrodes to alleviate intractable pain in humans. He has amassed many recordings of electrical signals taken from his patients.
Warwick's team at Reading studies how those neural signals correlate to brain functions. In this way, the scientists hope to zero in on what exactly triggers the tremors. The team believes integrated circuits can be developed to thwart such symptoms.
"We want to recognize signals in the brain when a patient may experience a shaking arm or pain, and stimulate the brain to block those sensations before they arise," Aziz explained.
Such research is still preliminary. Prototypes remain years off, though Aziz sees real potential.
"What Kevin is doing is in accord with my own philosophy, which is that human therapy can't stand still," Aziz said. "This is important work which could help many people. I believe it is a very promising and useful collaboration."
Innovators are needed to push the boundaries of medical research, says Philip Kennedy, founder of Neural Signals. The privately held Atlanta firm receives grant funding from the National Institutes of Health. Kennedy started the affiliated nonprofit Neural Interfacing Research Institute last year.
Kennedy's own vanguard research focuses on new methods to restore or supplement speech in paralyzed patients. He concedes that some people say Warwick is on the far edge of science, but he says that's healthy.
"Somebody has to be on the edge or we'll never make any progress," Kennedy said. "Kevin is doing some really good stuff in the sense that he's pushing the envelope."
