Darpa wants to patch up soldiers with nanobots in the future

The American defense organization Darpa wants to use nanobots in the long term to help soldiers heal faster and better. Various American media write this on Friday based on information from Darpa.

This information shows that the defense organization is working on alternative medicine with the so-called ElectRx program, which President Barack Obama supports. The cure should allow doctors to treat wounded and sick soldiers with more precision.

According to Darpa, the future treatment consists of small, implantable devices that can lead to better neural stimulation. This concerns advanced biosensors and optical, acoustic and electromagnetic devices. With these ‘smart’ devices, nanobots, Darpa targets individual or small bundles of nerve fibers in order to regulate specific processes in organs.

The treatment that Darpa mentions does not yet exist. There are already implantable devices that can perform certain tasks in the body, for example in the event of a chronic illness, such as a pacemaker, but these have yet to be inserted surgically. The American researchers, on the other hand, are aiming for devices that are so small that they can be injected into the bloodstream.

“The technology Darpa plans to develop with the ElectRx program could fundamentally change the way doctors diagnose, monitor, and treat injuries and illnesses. Rather than relying on medication, we envision a system that basically works like a small , intelligent pacemaker. It would continuously assess conditions and provide stimulation to maintain healthy functioning of an organ,” said Doug Weber of Darpa.

According to Darpa, the nanobots are useful for the treatment of rheumatism, for example, but also for psychological disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the priority will initially be to treat those diseases, Darpa also hopes to contribute to scientific knowledge about neural circuits in the human body with ElectRx.