Biomedical Signals

By
Satyanarayana Vankadari
Student No: 264819

Unit Name: Biomedical Engineering

Unit Code: ENG429
Submitted on: 15 – August – 2016
SEM 2, 2016

Unit Co-ordinator: Mirjam Jonkman

School of Engineering & Information Technology

Faculty of Engineering, Health, Science and the Environment
Charles Darwin University
DARWIN
 Sci-Fi Story: Unreal Human
Let us assume for a moment that we are living in 1980. If researchers and scientists told
people that soon or later computer will take over everything, everyone will be connected via
web [internet]. Also, shopping, banking and information will be available in different platform.
We might think it is bizarre and hard to believe. But, everything just happened, where mobiles
phones are working at speeds of computer and science fiction once upon a time became
everyday reality now without even realising the change happened in last 2 decades.

Currently most the people are thinking same way, when the discussion is related to
cancer cure, HIV cure, designer babies and immortal humans. Scientists have been engineering
life from long time. They have modified fruits and vegetables to make them consumable. Also,
they were able to modify dogs, cats and other animals by cross breeding. They could not figure
how all these works until they have discovered the complex life code or code of life DNA
[Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid]. The DNA consists of the information structured and encoded.
The information structured in DNA helps the early development of baby in mother’s womb to
develop with set of instructions. Change in code and instructions of DNA will result the
development changes of baby.

The optimism of eradicating most of the diseases comes from recent breakthrough
innovation in science field with the help of Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic
repeats CRISPR. The discovery of CRISPR was made by the help of bacteria and phage [virus].
Phage or bacteriophages try to kill bacteria in the sea up to 40% everyday by inserting their
own genetic code in to the bacteria. Most cases bacteria could not resist the virus DNA and die.
But there were some cases where bacteria survived. After the survival the virus DNA was saved
in the DNA achieve of bacteria called CRISPR. The saved virus DNA is further used by protein
CAS09 inside the bacteria during the repeated attacks by virus. This time the protein CAS09
inside the bacteria compares the saved DNA and DNA inserted by virus; upon finding the
100% match of virus DNA from the saved archive, the CAS09 cuts down the virus DNA and
makes useless. This enables bacteria to survive in the sea water. In 2015, scientists tried
CRISPR technology on rats with 100% HIV in its all blood cells. The CRISPR was able to cut
down the virus DNA by 60% inside the rats. This innovation might one day help us to eradicate
the HIV virus from humans. In two decades CRISPR would be able to eradicate most of the
diseases. CRISPR can be also used on the biggest enemy of human race i.e. cancer. Chinese
scientists have already declared that, they can cure lung cancer with CRISPR therapy.

There are other innovations in the science field that will completely change future with
in next two decades. The neurobiology will change the future of disabled people. Human body
is the complex structure made of bones, muscles, nerves, organs, tissues, blood, senses and
skin. The senses of an animal are highly essential to perceive the world around them. The
nerves acts as communication tool between senses and brain to pass the signals. There are
several nerve endings inside the skin, limbs and other organs in order to sense the signals from
very end of the body and to pass them on. There is a possibility of giving an artificial limb,
foot, hand or any other physical organ to a disabled person based on neurobiology. In future,
we will see people, with artificial physical organ performing just as efficient as normal people.
This would be possible, when the artificial physical organ can be connected with the nerve
endings precisely and able provide the senses to the artificial limbs. Providing senses to the
artificial organs is just as similar as constructing feedback loop and rectifying the errors, where
this technology is already available in engines with a device called ECU Electronic Control
Unit. This way we can engineer the organs of paralysed people and also provide new organs or
artificial organs to disabled people.
The secret of aging lies in the telomere of the cell nuclei inside humans. Telomeres are
very important in protecting genetic data and preventing the chromosome from fraying away.
After finite number of cell divisions, the length of telomeres reduces or shortens and thus stops
the process of cell divisions after reaching maximum limit. This explains the science of aging
inside the human beings. The theory of aging does not apply to lobster as the telomeres of
lobster work entirely different. Lobsters does not age because of their telomeres. One day this
will unlock the secret of anti-aging and incorporate those features in human beings.

The above three innovations in biology provides us and understanding of upcoming

future of human race. The future of medical field is not just bounded with the biological
sciences as there will be a great blend of different fields like engineering, robotics,
neurobiology, microbiology, nanotechnology and genetic engineering etc. The above three
innovations provide us an optimistic view in stellar exploration of human beings. The stellar
exploration requires modified human being because of environmental conditions in different
planets. There is a very interesting and inspiring future lying ahead or even we might be the
first generation to experience genetic engineering or modified version of human beings.