Monday, February 10, 2014

NASA is working on Star Trek healing devices—'it's not sci-fi anymore'

NASA and Houston-based company GRoK Technologies will work on the development of new "breakthrough products," noninvasive medical technologies designed to "regenerate bone and muscle tissues." It really sounds like something out of Star Trek, but "it's not just sci-fi anymore."
That's exactly what GRoK's founder and CEO Moshe Kushman says:
It's not just science fiction anymore. All indications are that 21st century life sciences will change dramatically during the next several decades, and GRoK is working to define the forefront of a new scientific wave.
According to the press release, NASA is "interested in the potential these technologies present for regenerating bone and muscle." It wants this tissue regeneration technology to help astronauts during long interplanetary travel, when they "are susceptible to developing osteopenia, which is a condition arising from the loss of bone and muscle mass and bone density."
The products that GRoK wants to build sound even crazier: The first is called BioReplicates—the name alone gives me shivers—a technology that will create "3-D human tissue models that can be used to test cosmetics, drugs and other products for safety, efficacy and toxicity." Not only this will save animals' lives, claims NASA, but it will serve to test substances on human tissue "with greater accuracy, reliability and cost-efficiency."
The second one is called Scionic, a technology that GRoK claims could result in the "development of medical devices designed to target musculoskeletal pain and inflammation in humans and animals noninvasively and without the use of pharmaceuticals." I really need one of these Scionics right now.
While obviously there aren't actual devices right now, these new technologies will be based on four patents already invented by the two organizations. Who knows when we are going to see the final results, but it's good to see that we are at least going in this direction.
Source: NASA

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