Building the Bionic Man

Amputees will tell you it’s the simple things you miss most when you lose a limb – the ability to hold a Styrofoam cup without crushing it, the dexterity to pick up a piece of paper off a flat surface.

Adrian Ware, a 32-year-old electrical worker from Wollongong, lost his right arm below the elbow after a horrific high-voltage electric shock nine years ago. He was fitted with a prosthetic limb, but for years relied mainly on his left hand. Then, late last year, Adrian became the first patient in Australia to be fitted with a bionic hand that enables him to use all five digits independently, grasp, rotate the limb, and grip with finger and thumb. “It’s given me so much more confidence. Now I don’t have to worry about dropping things,” he says of the device imported from the UK.

It may have cost $6 million to develop the bionic man of ’70s TV show fame, but today that fantasy is closer to reality than you think. From bionic eyes and ears to kidneys and spines, a surge of activity around the world has created huge advances in medical bionics in the last five years.

Patients of the future may not have Steve Austin’s super powers, but the bionics revolution means something just as wonderful – doctors will be able to replace broken body parts with prostheses that work in much the same way as the real thing.

Bionics is the interface of  biology and electronics. It works on the basis that we are all naturally charged: the millions of cells in our bodies are in effect tiny batteries, carrying about a twentieth of the charge of a normal AA battery. Cells communicate with each other by electrical signals, and proteins move in and out of cells under the influence of electrical charge.

The theory is that if you can introduce electricity into the body in a targeted way, you can influence the way the body works at a molecular level. That means you can stimulate nerves and muscles to make them work normally. And the possibilities are endless.

The first successful bionic body part, the cochlear implant, was developed in Australia by Professor Graeme Clark some 30 years ago. To date, the device has restored hearing to more than 80,000 profoundly deaf people by replicating the actions of the inner ear.

Work is already underway around the world to enable paraplegics to feel, walk and control their environments through thought. It is hoped that balance could be restored to the elderly, and devices will be developed to allow the deaf to hear clearly and the blind to see. Prosthetic limbs will work more like the real thing and will communicate with our brains.

The reason for all this new activity is the development of a range of new materials that make bionic body parts work more effectively. Smart plastics can conduct electricity in a precise way; nanotechnology – the science of controlling matter at a molecular level – is helping to create new coatings for the surfaces of devices; and scientists are discovering how to implant drugs to leach slowly into the body, helping with the targeted delivery of antibiotics and medications.