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World's first neurotechnology device can sniff out cancer cells & explosives
During the TEDGlobal conference in Arusha Tanzania, Oshiorenoya Agabi, a Silicon Valley-based neurotechnology entrepreneur presented his incredible invention, Koniku Kore.
A device able to detect the smell of explosives and cancer cells. It is a computer based on the living neurons of mouse stem cells that have been fused into a silicon chip.
As a sensory system, it is able to sense and recognise the smell of explosives due to the particles they transmit. Koniku Kore can also sniff out different diseases, in the same way, that dogs can.
"In the same way that a dog is able to detect if someone has prostate cancer, the real question we ask is 'how does a dog do it?' We can clone that process on our chip, so yes in the same way that a dog can detect diseases or explosives at an airport, it's a sensory system, that is essentially what we recreate in our chip," says Agabi.
However, its Agabi's main goal to use this device to increase airport security all over the world, as they are vulnerable to high risks of terrorism. As well as other places where bombs are a real threat to humans.
Agabi is adamant about the benefits of neurotechnology and hopes that in the future it can be used on robots. “We think that the processing power that is going to run the robots of the future will be synthetic biology-based and we are laying the foundations for that today,” he added.
