Five Rice University engineering laboratories are part of a $33 million national effort to develop a wireless, fully implantable device that can control the body’s circadian clock, halving the time it takes to recover from jet lag and similar disruptions to the body’s sleep/wake cycles.
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 body’s physiology, the external hub detects the user’s circadian rhythm and triggers the implant to produce precisely-dosed peptide therapies. (Image courtesy of Northwestern University)
Led by Northwestern University and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project will blend bioelectronics, synthetic biology and traditional electronics to create a “living pharmacy” that produces the same peptide molecules the body naturally makes to regulate…