The body shop

SCIENTISTS ARE WELL ON THEIR WAV TO REPLACING EUERV PART OF A HUMAN WITH BIONIC OR LAB-GROWN ORGANS. BUT THEY CAN'T HAUE VOUR SOUL

EYE Scientists at USC are testing a bionic eye that may be able to restore rudimentary sight to people with severe retinal damage. The Argus II consists of an eyeglass-mounted minicam that wirelessly sends images to a microprocessor worn on a belt; the processor then pushes the data to the back of the eye. This allows patients to distinguish between objects such as a cup and a plate, as well as recognize light and dark and movement. Meanwhile, a Stanford scientist has developed gog­gles with a camera that converts images into infrared, which is projected to an implant that transforms the light to current. With luck, the system would give a blind person 20/80 vision. Although strictly cosmetic, an artificial eye developed at the University of Alberta mimics the movement of the functioning eye, using a motor attached to glas

The war in Iraq has prompted a boom in prosthetic technology, funded largely with $55 million in grants from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Using DARPA money, researchers at Vanderbilt have designed an arm and hand with 21 joints; it can curl 25 pounds. (A clinical trial is expected next year, after the nerve implants that control the arm are finished.) Other arms are in development at the Reha­bilitation Institute of Chicago—its version moves according to the flexing of chest muscles—and by Segway inventor Dean Kamen. Most promising of all is BrainGate technology, con­ceived by neuroscientist John Donoghue, which permits quad­riplegics to control prosthetic hands with their thoughts.

STOMACH In the first step toward what could one day lead t< the bionic stomach, scientists at the Institute of Food Researcl in Norwich, U.K. have constructed a simulator with the sanu enzymes and acids found in the human organ. The team plan! to feed the machine to better understand how the body break! down substances like glucose. The plastic-and-metal device which is half the size of a human stomach, contracts --""""¦ digesting and vomits if it can't digest.

LIVER Using stem cells, scientists at Newcastle University in the U.K. have grown a miniature human liver, a success that within 15 years could lead to the repair or replacement of livers damaged by alcohol, drug abuse, injury or disease. About the size of a penny, the liver was formed by taking stem cells from umbilical cords just a few minutes after birth and mixing them with a cock­tail of hormones and other chemicals. The livers will initially be used to test new medicines without putting volunteers at risk.

ANUS The Acticon Neosphincter, designed to treat seve incontinence, consists of a pressure balloon positioned nt to the bladder, a pump implanted in the scrotum and anal cuff the patient can open and close.

HAIR Founded by a retired Houston neurosur-geon, Restoration Robotics has raised more than $25 million to develop a robot that reduces bald­ing by transplanting hair follicles, a meticulous process currently done by hand. A French com­pany, Medicamat, is working on a similar instru­ment, the Punch Hair

NOSE British researchers have been pursuing an electronic sniffer since the early 1980s. Bionic noses are useful in commercial applications, but with only 50 receptors, they have nowhere near the ability of the human nose, which has 100 mil­lion. However, last year a University of Warwick team had a breakthrough: Adding a thin layer of artificial snot to the artificial nose's sensors greatly improves its performance.

TONGUE Scientists at the University of Texas at Aus­tin have developed a chip that simulates taste buds, while the Taste Sensing System SA402B, available in Japan, can evaluate flavors using the tongue's traditional scale of sweet, bitter, salty, sour, umami (savory) and astringent (pungent). These mecha­nisms are expected to someday replace the human taste testers employed by food and drug compa­nies. Also, researchers in Tokyo said last fall they had produced a robot with a silicon tongue capable of speaking Japanese vowels. The team is trying to build lips so the robot can master consonants.

HEART The first person to have his heart replaced with a machine, in 1982, lived 112 days. Then as now, the contraptions are used only when death is imminent. In 2006 the FDA approved the AbioCor Implantable Replacement Heart for people who are not eligible for a transplant and have 30 days or less to live. The patient's chest must also be large enough to hold the two-pound gadget, which is powered by a rechargeable battery implanted in the abdomen. Another mechanical heart, designed by a Houston surgeon, pumps blood continuously rather than on a beat, allowing it to be smaller.

KIDNEY Dialysis machines cleanse the blood of less than 20 percent of the waste a kidney can. By etch­ing patterns on silicon wafers, scientists are creat­ing more-efficient filters that may lead to wearable kidneys. A portable man-made organ under devel­opment at UCLA filters the blood and deposits waste into a disposable bladder. Operating 12 hours a day at a slow and steady pace, it would eliminate the need for thrice-weekly dialysis.

TESTICLES Biologists at Newcastle University last year announced they had created human sperm from bone marrow. The sperm did not sur­vive to maturity, but the experiment was seen as a first step in battling male infertility.

HIP Replacements become loose over time, but an ultrasound technique pioneered by British engineers at the University of Bath makes it eas­ier to detect unstable joints. Inserted into the hip, the implant picks up irregular sound waves that indicate the cement fixing the joint to the bone has disintegrat "

FEET The latest in prosthetic feet is imbedded with digital technology that gives users a more natural walk and allows them to navigate stairs. The "intelligent foot module" manufactured by the Icelandic company Ossur calibrates a person's gait after the first 15 steps.

BRAIN At USC's Center for Neural Engineering a team led by Theodore Berger has demonstrated that silicon chips ("hardware") can be used to com­municate with cells ("wetware"). Now the race is on to manufacture implants that can pick up the slack for damaged neurons and relieve the symptoms of stroke, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The challenge is getting the chips to both send and receive signals. Meanwhile, researchers from Georgia Tech and Emory are experimenting with a method to stimulate nerve regrowth by implanting the brain with a neurotransmitter encased in polymers.

TEETH An Israeli dentist has invented a bionic tooth that regulates the release of prescription drugs into the porous lining of the cheek and mouth from a reservoir in the device. IntelliDrug allows for pre­cise dosages and delivery times that could benefit patients such as diabetics who take insulin.

EAR A cochlear implant, placed under the skin behind the ear, amplifies sound for the deaf by stimulating nerves in the inner ear; however, the signals must pass through fluid and bone. Last year researchers at the Kresge Hearing Research Institute at the University of Michigan implanted an ultrathin electrode into the auditory nerves of deaf cats. If this works in humans, the electrode could allow for a wider range of hearing.

PENIS We know you skipped right to this entry, but the closest scientists have come to a bionic penis are pumps designed to treat impotence. Two cylinders are placed inside the shaft; a pump is placed in the scrotum and a chamber of saline in the abdomen. When the patient wants to become erect, he squeezes the pump to fill his penis with water, making it hard.

VOCAL CORDS Researchers at MIT and Harvard are trying to repair damaged vocal cords with a num­ber of methods, from injecting soft plastics to improve elasticity to growing replacement cords in a lab. MIT's Robert Langer is a pioneer in this field; his "biorubber" has the elasticity of rubber while being compatible with human tissue, possibly mak­ing it useful as "scaffolding" to grow replacement parts such as heart valves. Medical researchers are confident doctors will someday be able to insert a pathway from the brain to a synthesizer that would allow severely paralyzed patients to speak.

LEGS In 2007 the Japanese firm Matsushita intro­duced the Power Pedal. After a disabled person is placed aboard the life-size robotic skeletal sys­tem, he or she is lifted off the ground and from this perch can navigate the robot's feet and legs over uneven terrain. The Berkeley Lower Extrem­ity Exoskeleton (Bleex) is a frame that attaches to the legs and lower back, allowing a person to Minds without

SKIN In a study last year of ICX-SKN, an artificial skin made from a protein found in wounds as they heal and in skin cells that produce collagen, small ovals that had been cut into the skin of volun­teers' arms healed in less than 28 days, with little scarring. It's hoped the technology can replace grafting, in which skin is taken from another part of a patient's body, resulting in a new wound. In Tokyo researchers say they have contrived a thin plastic skin that can be placed over a robot's fin­gers to sense temperature (via semiconductors) and pressure (via electronic circuits). Future ver­sions could be more versatile than human skin, sensing light, humidity and sound.