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July 6, 2021
By Deborah Borfitz
July 6, 2021 | A trio of universities are putting their heads together to engineer a wirelessly controlled bioelectronic implant intended to help soldiers adapt to new time zones or drastic changes in their work schedules by releasing peptide-based therapies to harmonize their central and peripheral circadian clocks. The solicitation came from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the timeline is ambitious, with a first-in-human safety study expected to begin by 2025, according to Jonathan Rivnay, principal investigator of the project and assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern University.
The project aims to create a Normalizing Timing of Rhythms Across Internal Networks of Circadian Clocks (aka NTRAIN) device, otherwise known as a “living pharmacy” that involves the engineering of cells that will secrete biologics based on an optoelectronic trigger and a communication signal from an exter
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Home > Press > Implantable living pharmacy could control body s sleep/wake cycles: Project receives DARPA contract worth up to $33 million over 4 1/2 years
In this artistic illustration, a user with an NTRAIN implant and its accompanying external hub works in the field. The user inputs a desired time shift (due to shift work or travel across time zones). Based on cues from the bodys physiology, the external hub detects the users circadian rhythm, and triggers the implant to produce precisely-dosed peptide therapies.
Abstract:
Device will harness the same peptides the body makes to regulate sleep cycles
Blackrock Microsystems, a privately held company that provides enabling tools for neuroscience, neural engineering and neuroprosthetics research worldwide partnered with a team of interdisciplinary researchers at Northwestern University, who signed a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a wireless, fully implantable device that can shift the body s circadian clock, halving the time it takes to recover from disrupted sleep/wake cycles. The device powers what will be considered a living pharmacy, a personalized implant that gives the body exactly what it needs at a precise time.
Called NTRAIN (Normalizing Timing of Rhythms Across Internal Networks of Circadian Clocks), the project is a part the