Documents / Report
This Defense Intelligence Agency reference document, dated 31 March 2010 (DIA-08-1003-020), was one of a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2009 under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) program. It surveys biosensors and BioMEMS, covering brain-implanted neuroelectrodes, drug-delivery pumps, implantable glucose sensors, brain-machine interfaces, retinal prostheses, microfluidic lab chips, NASA cell culture systems, and microcantilever sensors. It concludes that the field is expanding rapidly toward nanomechanical systems.
UNCLASSIFIED/ /F&R: &FFHiIAL Wili &HLY chemical processes such as separations, reactions, and analysis to be conducted with very small amounts of sample. According to a forecast by the Nexus Task Force, the market for BioMEMS is expected to reach $18 Billion in 2005. The commercial success of these devices and the technical potential of other BioMEMS has driven research in a number of areas. As a result, over the past few years, fluidic BioMEMS devices have become the largest and most diverse applications of MEMS devices. Fluidic BioMEMS now include: • Drug-delivering neuroprobes . • Biosensors (general) . • Bioreactors . • Cell-handling devices . • Drug-delivery devices . • Micro-chromatography systems . • Microfluidics . • Molecular detection/handling . • Neural interface devices . • Optical/retinal sensing . • Surgical devices . • Tissue-handling devices . There are obviously application overlaps within these devices and some are integrated with others to create system-level or multi-sensing devices. Applications run the gamut of the imagination including identification of bacterial or viral agents, drug testing, home testing, environmental safety and security, and drug-delivery technologies. DRUG-DELIVERY PUMPS Drug delivery to the human body for medical therapeutic purposes has long been by swallowing substances or by injection. However this approach creates rapid rises and falls in drug concentration in the blood stream because the dose is typically introduced all at one time. The blood titer of a drug may thus peak at undesirably high levels in an effort to sustain the drug action over a longer period of time. Treatment of many medical conditions, such as cancer by chemotherapeutic drugs would best be accomplished by a steady and long sustained infusion of the drug into the blood. This would keep the tumor-fighting drug at some optimal concentration and so make it maximally effective. High levels of chemotherapeutic drug levels in the blood are toxic and levels that are below some threshold are ineffective. 7 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'f81il 8ffl@IIIIL ~:!I! 8HLY
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 45 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.