Robotics, Medicine Merger Poses Quandary
From: United Press International - 05/13/2002
By: Scott R. Burnell

Biorobots and cyborgs were an important topic of discussion at the 2002
International Conference on Robotics and Automation this week. "More and
more, biological models are used for the design of biometric robots [and]
robots are increasingly used by neuroscientists as clinical platforms for
validating biological models," noted Paolo Dario of the Advanced Robotics
Technology and Systems Lab at Italy's Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. He added
that microelectromechanical systems have become small enough to interface
with individual nerves. The two-way conversion of computer signals into nerve
impulses would enable artificial muscles or actuators to be controlled by
such signals, and MIT is conducting experiments in this regard. Its effort
involves a two-dimensional grid that connects an amplifier to actuators, and
MIT's Harry Asada said such research could be applied to an exoskeleton for
soldiers or a means for paralysis victims to gain mobility. Carnegie Mellon
University's Takeo Kanade explained that human medicine could benefit from
the convergence of robotics and biology into such products as a surgical
simulator designed to mimic a human body's responses to an operation.
However, Penelope Boston of the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque said
that such efforts open up an ethical can of worms, and advised researchers to
carefully consider the symbiotic ramifications of melding technology with
biology. 

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=13052002-114441-4229r
http://www.springer-ny.com/staticpages/0387190899.htm
http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/results/pages/medicine/medic2.htm