October 2008 issue
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THE SUMMIT SERIES
Star Trek Medicine
The real world will wait in vain for much of the fictional technology bandied about by Captain Kirk, Spock and all the others. But don’t put the Tricorder in the won’t-ever-happen category
BY FRANCINE MAXWELL
The PEGG
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STAGE AND SCREEN |
Remember the handy gadget Dr. McCoy moved across a body to find out what, if anything, was medically wrong? Well, the Tricorder scanner or something a lot like it may soon leap into the real world.
It’s a case of life imitating art. Or perhaps it’s simply reality catching up with what was once merely fantasy. Either way, Chris Backhouse, P.Eng., and his research team of enthusiastic students are onto something really big. They’ve even dubbed their project the Tricorder Toolkit, or TTK for short, in honour of its fictional cousin.
“There are a lot of powerful technologies out there, but they tend to be slow and expensive, often giving answers days later at a cost of hundreds or thousands of dollars,” says Dr. Backhouse, a University of Alberta professor and the winner of APEGGA’s 2008 Project Achievement Summit Award. “What we need is to have the answers almost immediately, without having to worry about the cost — i.e., much as with a Star Trek Tricorder.”
Indeed, if this tool can be perfected and mass produced, a trip to the doctor might only involve leaving behind a drop or two of blood. This will tell you not only if anything is wrong but what kinds of sickness deserve extra focus on prevention.
“A simple genetic test can often tell whether you are predisposed to conditions such as developing an adverse drug reaction or some types of cancer,” explains Dr. Backhouse. “In many cases preventive action — for example, avoiding a certain type of drug — might radically alter your life expectancy, and your cost to the health-care system.”
Small Wonder
TTK is a marvel of nanotechnology. Smaller means less expensive to make and less expensive to use. And in medical equipment, advancements are all about expense. In order to keep health care as affordable as possible, the equipment needs to be small, portable and efficient.
“The TTK can be used to triage patients. It’s quick, inexpensive and hand-held. What we want to do is take diagnostics and make them fast and inexpensive so every doctor will be able to use them for every patient visit.”
Unlike its fantasy counterpart, the modern-day TTK provides more than an instant diagnosis. It’s also a tool in prevention. An inexpensive lab-on-a-chip system allows medical professionals to quickly ask and answer a wide range of genetic questions — from determining what type of flu patients have to whether they are predisposed to a given disease.
Not only does the TTK have the potential to increase the lifespan of an individual and prevent major medical conditions before they happen, it may also end up being a significant health-care cost saver. The latest desktop-sized instruments are about 1,000 times less expensive than their conventional counterparts for performing the same diagnostics. Even more important, the information provided may prevent costly medical interventions later on.
“A small drop of fluid is all we need. We essentially ask it a question and we get an answer. There are inexpensive ways to predetermine things we are at risk of, and if we can find them we can improve the quality and duration of lives. And while what we’re working on is medical, we use engineering to get the costs of this technology down,” says Dr. Backhouse.
Next Generations
So far, Dr. Backhouse has developed several generations of prototype. He continues to test and improve their capabilities in work with health-care experts. His lab-on-a-chip prototypes are capable of performing in minutes diagnostic procedures that once took hours.
These diagnostics include the labour-intensive steps of sample preparation, genetic amplifications and genetic analysis. In collaboration with Dr. Duncan Elliott, P.Eng., and Dr. James McMullin, P.Eng., the latest systems are already down to about the size and cost of a USB key.
This project packs a lot of potential. But Dr. Backhouse says it will be up to society to decide how TTK changes our approach to health care.
“We are in the process of integrating it to the point where any physician can use it. A lot of its acceptance, however, is societal. How will society react to this? Their reaction will dictate how fast this tool becomes common, and this, along with costs, will determine how fast it gets into your doctor’s office.”
Beam Him Home
This is the kind of project that can follow a person home. Indeed, outside of the lab and classroom, Dr. Backhouse is ever the engineer. He says that even his spare time is taken up with perfecting his skills.
“I always knew I’d do something like this. I enjoy understanding how things work and being able to do something about it. Engineering is as much a hobby as a career. I like learning how to push the limits of technologies and I’m always thinking about the hows and whys of things.”
That fascination and drive may very well change the face of health-care delivery forever, and for the better. Dr. Backhouse is hopeful that the descendants of the present TTK prototypes will be a reality in the offices of physicians in the next few years.
And that means we all might soon be patients of modern-day Dr. McCoys. No beaming up required.
The Project Achievement Award is presented to a project demonstrating engineering, geological or geophysical skills and representing a substantial contribution to technical progress and the betterment of society.
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