TED Talks Daily
Electronic pills that could transform how we treat disease | Khalil Ramadi
25 May 2021
Chapter 1: What innovative therapy is Khalil Ramadi developing for chronic diseases?
Hi, it's Bryce Dallas Howard here, guest hosting today on TED Talks Daily. Here's a talk from the TED Fellows community, given by medical hacker Khalil Ramadi, who is inventing the future of medicine with cutting edge, non-invasive technologies for gut and neuromedicine. Do you know what a bio nudge is? You will in five minutes.
For decades, scientists have tried to use brain modulation to treat neurological disorders. Techniques usually involved sticking wires onto our head and helmets that immobilized our head and zapping our brain with magnetic or electrical pulses. Given what we now know about the millions of circuits that our brain has, this was much like trying to fix a pothole by resurfacing the entire road.
Brain modulation can actually come in different forms. The brain connects with all organs in our bodies through neurons, much like an octopus's tentacles. This means that diabetes, cancer, autoimmune disorders can all be induced, affected, and exacerbated by the brain and the nervous system.
Chapter 2: How do BioNudges work to influence our health?
This also means that brain modulation can be achieved through different parts of the body by zapping organs and limbs with electrodes that have usually been implanted with drills and scalpels. Today, however, brain modulation doesn't have to be so invasive.
Some of my colleagues at MIT have discovered that a potential therapy for Alzheimer's could be watching light of a certain wavelength flash at a particular frequency. This is an example of something I like to call a bio-nudge, simple techniques that target specific circuits in our bodies to achieve a certain outcome, like using light to slow degeneration in Alzheimer's.
BioNudges don't need to be shocking or jarring. They just need to be designed to activate or silence a specific brain circuit. Combining BioNudges in a certain order can allow us to use them for a more targeted purpose. My team and I at MIT develop micro devices, similar in shape and size to a pill.
They can be swallowed like we do pills and contain electronics to deliver little bursts of electrical or chemical stimuli, BioNudges, to our gut. Our gut is the largest interface of our body with the outside world.
Chapter 3: What are the advantages of electronic pills over traditional treatments?
It has an incredible combination of tissues all working together. It houses enteroendocrine cells that sense what we eat and induce the release of hormones that can regulate hunger and metabolism. It houses immune cells that sense the microbiome while preventing bacteria from entering our body. And neurons. Lots and lots of neurons.
This is why certain sugary or salty foods can ramp up dopamine levels in our brain and make us feel quite good after eating them. Our electronic pills can be designed to reside in the gut for days to weeks, delivering bio-nudges to neurons along the GI tract.
Depending on the shape and strength of these electrical impulses, they can either affect hormone levels in our blood or travel up to our brain where they can activate or silence specific brain circuits that control hunger, metabolism, and arousal.
Using our devices, we could stimulate the stomach to tackle nausea or influence satiety, or the intestine to change the way we digest things like glucose by affecting absorption of nutrients in food.
Chapter 4: How can electronic pills specifically target conditions like diabetes and obesity?
This could mean new non-invasive therapies for the 34 million diabetics in the US and 650 million obese population worldwide. We could even affect things like inflammation in the brain. slowing down degeneration for the almost 60 million patients with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's around the world. By being super specific, we can avoid side effects, unlike most of our drugs.
And in this way, we can control appetite, nutrient digestion, hormone levels, even happiness and reward. This is exciting. Bio nudges are more targeted than medicines and less invasive than surgery. Neuromodulation therapies could be a new gold standard in healthcare.
A single pill, not filled with drugs or chemicals, but with electronics and micro devices that deliver little bursts of energy to our gut. This pill can treat Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes or obesity.
Chapter 5: What role does the gut play in our overall health and treatment?
all without any chronic drugs, completely non-invasively. No drill, no surgery, no hospital stay. This is how medicine could be. This is how medicine should be.
Thank you. Hello, Chris Anderson, head of TED here. That talk was by one of our impressive TED fellows. The TED fellows program recognizes local leaders and equips them to make change on the global stage. There's a possibility you could be one of them. Learn more at ted.com slash fellows and apply today to join the program.
Chapter 6: What is the future of non-invasive therapies in medicine?
That's ted.com slash fellows.