Aura - A Bio-Intelligent Machine
- DLX Design Lab
- 2017年9月22日
- 読了時間: 2分
更新日：2 日前
What if we could make a computer from neurons?
Sept 2017 - Nov 2017
In collaboration with: Ikeuchi Lab
Our biochemical signature communicates a lot about what’s happening inside our bodies. This chemical signature contains a wealth of personal health data that has proved difficult to sense and interpret.
Aura is a speculative design project in which a device uses neural intelligence to sense and make sense of our biochemical signature in the same way that our brains do.
Project Background
At the Ikeuchi Lab, electrical signals have been measured in a bio-synthetic neuron bundle. Understanding the electrical activity between these neurons might allow researchers to develop bio- intelligent machines. Therefore, a synthetic neuron bundle might be the first building block to creating bio-intelligence. When bio- synthetic neurons replace silicon-based computing, they will bring huge advantages. They consume far less energy; they can process more complex data; they are biocompatible and biodegradable.
Aura is a health monitoring device that reads your biochemical signals and is the first deployment of a bio-intelligent machine. Modified bio-synthetic neurons which are sensitive to volatile organic compounds sweep the surrounding air to identify the user and to read their bio-chemical signature. A microchannel structure made from bio-synthetic neurons gives Aura its intelligence. It analyses the bio-electrical signals from the olfactory antennae to assess the health of the individual based on pre-learnt patterns.
About Ikeuchi Lab
The morphology of neurons is a fundamental component of the circuitry formed in the brain, of which much remains unknown. Ikeuchi lab’s research examines how neurons and brains form their unique shape, to eventually understand how brain works and how brain diseases develop.
The lab uses biochemical and bioengineering techniques to examine the roles of protein synthesis regulation and cell-cell interactions in neural morphogenesis. In collaboration with diverse researchers at IIS including Anges Tixier-Mita, Timothée Levi and Teruo Fujii, they are developing micro culture device and electrical compartments to model parts of our nervous system and their connections outside of our body.