My close encounter with the bionic man

06 February 2013 - 02:19 By Paul Kendall
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The world's first complete bionic man is unveiled at the Science Museum in London yesterday. Constructed from state-of-the-art technology and valued at nearly $1-million, the two-metre tall artificial human is on show at the museum Picture: EPA
The world's first complete bionic man is unveiled at the Science Museum in London yesterday. Constructed from state-of-the-art technology and valued at nearly $1-million, the two-metre tall artificial human is on show at the museum Picture: EPA

In a room piled high with scaffolding and cardboard boxes, two members of staff at London's Science Museum are peering up a man's nose.

A few minutes later, they are squatting on the floor to examine his feet. Then, very carefully, one reaches a gloved hand into his thorax and prods his kidney.

The man does not flinch. But then it would have been very surprising if he had, because Rex is not a biological life form, but an artificial "bionic" man.

Created for a Channel 4 documentary to prove just how closely technology can emulate the human body, Rex - short for "robotic exoskeleton" - has been put together by the Shadow robotics company using artificial limbs and organs borrowed from the laboratories of leading scientists from as far afield as New Zealand and San Francisco.

As well as prosthetic arms and legs, he has a functioning heart, lung, kidney, pancreas and spleen, artificial arteries that carry man-made blood, and a microchip that interprets images and acts as a rudimentary eye.

The entire creation cost $1-million, which is why staff at the museum, where Rex is being displayed, are handling him so carefully.

"Before going on display, we have to check the condition of each part to make sure it leaves in the same state it arrived in," says Ling Lee, who is managing the project.

"We also have to work out the best way to rig it in its display case. The bionic man is worth about a quarter of the cost of rebuilding the entire gallery, so the last thing we want to do is drop it."

"The Who Am I?" gallery showcases the latest advances in neuroscience and genetics, and Rex will be displayed under the title: "How Much Of You Can Be Rebuilt?"

The facts are astonishing. While everyone is familiar with the ability of disabled athletes to run almost as fast as their able-bodied counterparts - especially after the excitements of last year's Paralympic Games - the prostheses that Rex has put those to shame.

His feet and ankles were developed by Prof Hugh Herr, an American biophysicist who lost both legs. They use a neural interface to communicate with nerves in a patient's stump and replicate the action of the amputee's Achilles tendon, ankle and calf muscle.

Whereas other prosthetic feet are passive, these are active, automatically adjusting to uneven ground, such as stairs or ramps. They work so well that Herr uses them when rock climbing.

On top of these, Rex has $80000 bionic legs and a fully mobile motorised knee joint. Called the Genium, it is so advanced that it is used by Matthew Newbury, the first British recipient of the leg, to ski, walk backwards and even climb ladders.

Rex's hands are also the most advanced on the market. Costing $50000, they have independently controlled fingers, which allow the wearer to grasp and twist objects and use them like a normal hand.

It is the bionic organs that represent the greatest possibilities. Rex has a "spleen-on-a-chip" developed by the Wyss Institute at Yale University, which uses nanotechnology to replicate the action of a human spleen; a prototype artificial kidney, developed by the University of California San Francisco, which packs the technology of a fridge-sized dialysis machine into a unit no bigger than a coffee cup; and an artificial pancreas, developed at De Montfort University, Leicester, which responds to the body's glucose levels to regulate insulin supply.

And while these are all still in development, Rex's windpipe and heart are versions of artificial organs that have already been implanted in patients, the windpipe for the first time in 2011 by surgeons in Sweden. The SynCardia Systems artificial heart, which is battery-powered and intended as a temporary solution until a donor organ can be found, has been given to more than 1000 patients, some of whom are still using it five years on.

Shadow managing director Rich Walkers says: "We were surprised how many of the parts of the body can be replaced. There are some vital organs missing, like the stomach, but 60% to 70% of a human has effectively been rebuilt."

But the project does not just show what can be done for those who lose limbs or suffer organ failure. It heralds a future in which the artificial replacements are better than those we are born with.

"What you think of as a natural human being is going to evolve," says Ling. "Your entire concept of what constitutes humanity is going to change." - The Sunday Telegraph

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