Instant Genius - Is an implantable electronic device the future of medicine? – Gordon Wallace

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

Materials scientist Gordon Wallace is the director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. He is developing the ‘sutrode’, a medical device made from graphene that combines the electrical properties of an electrode with the mechanical properties of a suture. The device is wrapped around damaged or malfunctioning nerve bundles and used to stimulate them and return their regular function. Though still in its early stages, the technology may one day be used to treat epilepsy, schizophrenia, and in the production of next generation prosthetics. He speaks to BBC Science Focus commissioning editor Jason Goodyer in this episode of the Science Focus Podcast. We now have more than 75 episodes of the Science Focus Podcast, each of which is still well worth a listen. Here are a few that you might find interesting: Is the cure for cancer hiding in human breast milk? – Professor Catharina Svanborg Is gene editing inspiring or terrifying? – Nessa Carey Can we slow down the ageing process? – Sue Armstrong What is your brain doing while you sleep? – Dr Guy Leschziner What does a world with an ageing population look like? – Sarah Harper Is racism creeping into science? – Angela Saini Follow Science Focus on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Flipboard Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water.

The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Study And play.

Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium

and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th, terms at AKA.m.S. College PC. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building.

Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. Streaming has made music more accessible than ever, but true listening is about more than ease. It's about quality. British audio experts name audio, alongside French acoustic specialist focal, Combine handcrafted tradition with cutting-edge innovation and high-end materials, delivering digital precision with analogue warmth. So you can experience exceptional sound at home.

Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. You know, when a student came to tell me about this, he was incredibly excited that he could tie this new fibre we'd produced in a knot and not change any of its electrical characterisation. So, of course, I got as equally excited as he was. But when he left the office, I had to really think about what we were going to do with something like this. You're listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Science Focus magazine team.

With the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world. Find out more at ScienceFocus.com or look out for us in your app store. Hello and welcome to the Science Focus podcast. I'm Alexander McNamara. online editor at BBC Science Focus magazine. Material scientist Gordon Wallace is the director of ARC Centre of Excellence for ElectroMaterial Science at the University of Longong, New South Wales, Australia. He is developing the Sutrode, a medical device made from graphene that combines the electrical

properties of an electrode with the mechanical properties of a sutra. The device is wrapped around damaged or malfunctioning nerve bundles and used to stimulate them and return their regular function. Though still in its early stages, the technology may one day be used to treat epilepsy, schizophrenia, and in the production of next generation prosthetics. He speaks to BBC Science Focus commissioning editor Jason Goodyear. But remember, if you like what you hear, then please rate and review the episode wherever you listen to your podcasts. The more we get, the easier it will be for others to find our podcast. You researched something called electro-suticals, and I guess this is something that a lot of people won't have heard of before.

Can you just give me a brief overview of what exactly this is? Yeah, so obviously the name's derived as an alternative to pharmaceuticals. So electrocetals is the use of electrical stimulation to treat disease. And it will be used by targeting particular nerves going into particular organs to treat specific diseases. the challenge to date has been to be able to actually get communication tools with enough resolution or fidelity to target those specific nerves. Okay, so what actually goes on within this, so it's implanted into the body, I assume? Yeah, look, at the moment, all we've done so far is demonstrate with our collaborator at University of Texas, Dallas, that he can actually tie these electrodes around these very small nerve bundles going into organs

and into the spleen in his case. And that's why we call it the sutrode, because it has these properties that basically the mechanical properties of a suture and yet all of the properties of an electrode. And importantly, an electrode that's compatible, you know, with a living, pulsating system. Okay, so what's exactly going on in this nerve bundle when it gets stimulated by the suit road? Yeah, so we're really just learning about that at the moment. What we've been able to show is that we can record with incredible sensitivity, the electrical impulses that are actually generated by this nerve bundle. And so we're figuring out what those

different electrical impulses do to the organ and what biological responses can be regulated by those impulses and then by superimposing on top of that external electrical impulses that could regulate that behaviour. So what would the, what would the this kind of advantages of this sort of treatment be over regular medicines, say injections or tablets and pills? I think the ability to target the disease more specifically, the ability to deliver the stimulation, you know, when it's needed to treat those diseases. And in some cases, potentially a much more effective way of actually treating particular diseases. You know, diseases like epilepsy or schizophrenia are not very well. well treated by normal pharmaceutical approaches. It often ends up being a cocktail of drugs that

are personalized for that individual, basically through a trial and error process. And so I think it's that targeted treatment of diseases, which will lead in many cases to a much more effective treatment of the disease. Okay, so you mentioned earlier the work in Dallas. involving the spleen. Could you, could you talk me a little bit more about that, please? Yeah, so our colleague in Dallas is a neuroscientist, and we have both been interested in this field of electrocedicals for some time. And what Mario has been interested in is whether electrical stimulation of the nerves going under the spleen can regulate the immune response.

And now with these new tools, he's shown that we can definitely record from those nerves going into the spleen and showing that there's different levels of communication through each of those different nerves. And now the studies are looking at whether you really can regulate the immune response through electrical stimulation of those different nerve types. Before this, you would have to track back to bigger nerve bundles to use conventional electrodes and so you didn't have that specificity of communication, whether that be for recording or stimulation that we do have now. Okay, so how do these new sutroids compare to, like you just

mentioned, conventional electrodes? Well, you can't do these recordings with conventional electrodes. You know, you can't interface with those smaller nerve bundles without damaging them using metal or metal oxide electrodes. But the flexibility, of the suit trod in terms of its mechanical properties, allow us to get very effective communication with those nerves. In applications where you could, for example, we've done experiments where we've inserted the sutrode into the brain where you can insert conventional metal or metal oxide electrodes.

And even there, there's advantages because the signal, the noise ratio, the sensitivity of the sutrode material is much greater than metal or metal oxide electrodes. So what are your sutroids made of then? They're made of graphene. So, you know, there's wonder material that keeps turning up in all sorts of areas. So graphene is just a single sheet of carbon, which was discovered not many years ago and for which the Nobel Prize was attributed not many years ago. but there's just been an explosion of interest in graphene and the tuning of very simple chemistries

which enable us to take a lump of graphite literally from a mine. Graphite you should find in the lead in your pencil. And using simple but elegant chemistries, we're able to exfoliate or explode that lump of graphite and get these single sheets of graphene. And we do that in such a way that we can condesion. control the size of the sheets, and also control the amount of oxygen that's on the sheets. And that gives us this combination of electrical properties and processability, the ability to make the fibers.

So a combination of clever chemistries that delivers both of those has enabled this as a particular advance. So what kind of size is the finished suit trade? So the finest diameter fibers we could get down to at the moment are about 30 micron. More typically we'd be looking at 50 micron. That's the typical diameter of a human hair. And so they're fine electrodes, but it's the mechanical property combination, the ability to stretch them and tie them around very soft and often pulsating structures without damaging the structure, which delivers this.

superior performance. So say everything goes well in the trials and start rolling them out to living humans. I mean, is there any possibility of the body rejecting these things like they would in organ transplants, for example? Look, everything that goes in the body can be potentially rejected, of course, and so those longer term studies will need to be done. In terms of the initial studies, they will be shorter term in terms of recording and stimulating. But all indications are that these carbon-based materials are highly compatible with living systems. But for each individual nerve and each individual organ, and depending on the way that it's applied or implanted, all of those longer-term studies will need to be done to ensure, you know, the efficiency

of performance over time. So how are they, where do they get their power from? Yeah, so at the moment, these are basically hardwired to the outside world to do the electrical communication. But in parallel, we're developing wireless transmission systems, which are very small, totally implantable, and that can be communicated with through RFID, for example. and obviously for the clinical applications, wireless systems will be essential, but they are being developed in parallel. In fact, there's a lot of activity on many different types of wireless electrical stimulation

that can be induced using implantable systems. Okay, so is it, so when they are eventually used, is it a case that they'll be put into the affected area and then left or is it, are they more short-term use? Look, in terms of electro-suticals, the real answer to that is we don't know. Can you actually reverse the disease by electrical stimulation for a certain period and then not need to stimulate any further? These are all studies that need to be done. In terms of other applications of these sutroids, for example, in nerve repair,

nerve regeneration or muscle regeneration. Because of the nature of the fine nature and mechanical properties of the fibre, we envisage it will be fine just to leave those fibres in there to do the repair and then to leave them as part of the naturally restored system. The basic idea is that it works by doing what a healthy functioning nervous system would be doing? Is that right? Yes. Yes, so in terms of the electrocuiticals, it's trying to restore, you know, the natural behavior of the neural system in controlling organs.

And in terms of nerve or muscle regeneration, it's facilitating the natural regeneration process by basically providing a conduit which lays down tram tracks, you know, for the restoration or regrowth of nerves to reconnect or the, the alignment and regrowth of muscles to restore muscle fiber. Okay, so what sort of conditions or diseases are you really looking at this as great potential for? At the moment, our studies are focused on the use for nerve and muscle regeneration in the regeneration studies. And in the electrocedical area, the focus with Mario is on further studies into how we can regulate the behaviour of the spleen through electrical stimulation.

And as to say, that regulates the immune response. But we envisage that as others become aware of what the sutras can do, that we'll establish or try to establish collaborations with partners around the world to target other specific diseases, you know, using their biological or medical insights into those diseases and our ability to produce the materials and devices and structures. So in terms of cost, like how do these compare to traditional medicines? Yeah, that's, I mean, the cost of the actual materials is incredibly low.

I mean, we're talking about carbon, we're talking about graphite out of a mine, very simple chemistries and fabrication methods to make them. So that's not, there's no huge. cost involved in that. And in terms of the hardware to drive them, the cost is low as well. So materials and fabrication costs are quite low compared to if you were developing a whole manufacturing process for a new pharmaceutical, for example. So could I just ask you a little bit about your background? How did you get into this specific topic? How long have you been working on it?

So we got into this particular area because of our, we do have an interest in general and have had for the last 30 years or so using advances in materials in medical technologies. The Sutrode story is an interesting one, but probably a typical course that's charted in many of these areas. And that is that we discovered through the fundamental chemistries that we could make these fibers with that combination. of mechanical and electrical properties. And, you know, when a student came to tell me about this, he was incredibly excited that he could tie this new fiber we'd produced in a knot and not change any of its electrical characterization. So, of course, I got as equally excited as he was.

But when he left the office, I had to really think about what we were going to do with something like this. And it was only through a discussion with one of our collaboration, is Maria that we came up with the idea of tying it around nerves because of this exceptional combination of properties. Great, yeah. So just sort of following on from that, what's in the future for this research now? What do you have planned or ideally what would you like to happen? Yeah, look, for us, as I say, the focus will be in the near future will be on the nerve and muscle regeneration. We will, of course, pursue different areas of electrocutals. We'll,

with collaborators as we establish them. The other area that we will use these materials in, given their effective ability to communicate with nerves and muscles, is to use these materials as a basically as an interface to neurally driven, as an interface for neurally driven prosthetics, like a prosthetic hand, for example, that can be neurally driven. and that's another project that's ongoing within our Centre of Excellence.

How do you mean by neurology driven? So basically the nerve system will communicate directly and send electronic signals to this prosthetic hand to drive it and by incorporating sensing technologies into the hand provide sensation back to the user. So essentially I'll be at say if I need a prosthetic hand. hand or something, I'd be able to control that or learn how to control that just with, in the same way that I control my own hand that I was born with. Yes, yes, exactly. Now, that requires a high

fidelity neural interface to the prosthetic, and we believe in the form of the sutro that that's exactly what we've got, and that's something we'll be pursuing. Besides the exciting technical breakthrough or a combination of breakthroughs, I think as I've emphasized hopefully that all of this happens through, you know, fairly extensive and well-established collaborative networks that we have in place that really encompass things like the right from the sourcing of the graphite from the mine through to the applications with clinical collaborators in a number of areas and all of that science in between. So it's quite an extensive pipeline that's required to take fundamental discoveries in that material science, like what we

discovered about the graphene, through to an application like this in short periods of time, and then in the next short period of time to establish those global networks who can really make the most of that discovery. That was Gordon Wallace talking about the design, development and potential future applications of the Sutrode. If you're looking to implant a little more science in your life, the later. issue of BBC Science Focus is packed full of features, news and interviews to help you make sense of the world around you. In the August 2019 issue, we look at the possibility of stopping mass

extinction, investigate what alien life could look like, and discover how cutting carbs could be good for your brain. Thank you for listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Science Focus magazine team. With the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world. Find out more at sciencefocus.com or look out for us in your app store. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analog warmth.

Alongside French acoustic specialist Focal, Name creates high-end audio systems, combining innovation with craftsmanship, so you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com.