“There is a large and growing interest in developing two-way interfaces to the human nervous system,” Maharbiz said. “By nervous system I mean the brain, the central nervous system and your peripheral nerves and the many functions that they perform – from fighting inflammation to being wired into all of your organs.”Maharbiz and his team have succeeded in implanting the sensors next to organs, gastrointestinal tracts and muscles. The sensors contain a piezoelectric crystal that converts outer body ultrasound vibrations into electricity, which in turn powers a transistor that is in contact with the organ, muscle or nerve. The body’s own electrical impulses alter how the crystal vibrates. The crystal collects information on the changing pattern, or backscatter, which is then translated by computer algorithms, decoding the body’s key metrics such as hormone levels.

“There is academic interest in this research for fundamental neuroscience, but also for uses in futuristic prosthetics and being able to alleviate symptoms from people who have motor dysfunctions such as Parkinson’s disease,” Maharbiz said. “In addition, it has been realized that there may be many, many dysfunctions that can be treated by nervous stimulation in the periphery, like appetite, bladder control and so on. The potential list of treatments is very high.”

This potential, Maharbiz said, is why big pharma player GSK (formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline) and technology leader Verify Life Sciences, created Galvani Bioelectronics, a company located in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England, dedicated to the development of bioelectronic medicines using smart dust technology. Galvani is “developing the expertise to place tiny devices inside the human body,” Galvani President Kriss Famm said. “These will be programmed to read and modify electrical signals passing along nerves.” The goal, Famm said, is to manage the signals to restore patients’ health.

Meanwhile, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, has started a company called Neuralink, based in San Francisco. According to the company’s trademark filings. The Economist reports that Neuralink aims to create “invasive devices for treating or diagnosing neurological ailments.”

AMATTER OF TIME

When it comes to broader applications of smart dust, Pister’s Dust Networks has already achieved some success.

Joy Weiss, the president and CEO of Dust Networks, has been working in the field for more than a decade to develop working examples of how smart dust can be administered within an industrial setting. For example, Dust Networks’ sensor networks are now installed in Chevron’s oil refinery in California and GSK’s plant in Cork, Ireland also uses wireless mesh network to monitor its water storage tanks.

“If you can combine wire line reliability with totally wireless economics – in other words to be able to put a sensor anywhere – then the applications are limitless,” Weiss said in an interview with ARC Advisory Group, a global technology research firm. Wireless communications also improve the economics of smart dust, she said; Dust Networks can install its wireless applications in a matter of hours compared to weeks for wired systems.

However, Pister is quick to emphasize that “most of the commercial stuff out there right now is making the same mistakes that were made 15 years ago.” Like Gartner, however, he believes the smart dust industry will conquer the learning curve and play an indelible role in the lives of future generations. It’s just a matter of time. ◆