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AAWSAP DIRD, Biosensors and BioMEMS: A Survey of the Present Field, March 2010

U.S. Department of War · 2010-03-31 · 45 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 31 March 2010 and numbered DIA-08-1003-020, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It surveys biosensors and biomedical microelectromechanical systems, covering brain-implanted micromachine neuroelectrodes, drug-delivery pumps, glucose sensors, neural interfaces, retinal prostheses, microfluidic lab chips, NASA cell-culture systems and microcantilever sensors. It concludes that the field is expanding rapidly, with nanomechanical systems expected to follow.

From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/31/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys biosensors and BioMEMS, a broad class of miniature biomedical devices that combine microscale engineering with sensing, fluid handling, stimulation, or drug-delivery functions. The report reviews major application areas including implantable blood-chemistry sensors, neural interfaces, neurostimulation, drug-delivery pumps, microfluidic systems, and emerging nanoscale extensions of the field, while emphasizing that miniaturization can improve sensitivity and enable functions that are difficult or impossible at larger scales. However, it also makes clear that practical development is constrained by biocompatibility, long-term stability, sensor drift, device degradation inside the body, and the high regulatory burden associated with implantable medical systems. The document presents BioMEMS as a rapidly growing and productive field whose future advances are likely to come through continued improvements in fabrication, materials, and reliability.

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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-handl ing 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 includ ing 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.
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Official release, from the pursue 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.