At a recent nanotech conference , I was talking to a friend, and one of the most prolific writers and designers of future man-made nanotech products – Robert Freitas. Dr. Freitas has written volumes on Nanomedicine, and how tiny nanobots will change medicine forever, hopefully within the next 10-15 years. For example, one of the things he is known for is the design of a ‘respirocyte’. A respirocyte is a smaller-than-blood-cell-sized machine that produces oxygen. Being able to theoretically hold far more oxygen than a red blood cell ever could, respirocytes will supersede the need for lungs to deliver oxygen to the brain and to all the other tissues of the body.
Although it has been computationally designed, the technology is not yet there to actually fabricate a respirocyte. However, that day is not too far off. With that in mind, imagine the year is 2022 AD. A person presents with severe sleep apnea (lack of oxygen to the brain during sleep, resulting in snoring, insomnia, following day fatigue, and more seriously, high blood pressure, stroke and death). During this routine medical or dental appointment, the patient can be injected intraveneously with a tiny vial containing literally trillions of molecular-sized respirocytes. Within an hour of injection, the respirocytes get busy and supplement the oxygen to the patient’s body. Depending on the quantity of these tiny nano-machines, the patient’s lungs have become secondary and simply not necessary for the biology of human life.
Why? Because the respirocytes will produce all the oxygen their body will ever need.
Welcome to the 3rd decade of this incredible century!
The implications are staggering. It simply will not matter if the patient gets inadequate amounts of air during nightly sleep apnea episodes due to lack of healthy breaths. With the body’s lungs becoming an unnecessary and obsolete organ, the patient’s lack of nightly oxygen by breathing is simply not important anymore.
The uncomfortable, nightly CPAP oxygen mask- gone forever. Even the mouth appliances I currently make for patients who have sleep apnea and who can’t tolerate the CPAP oxygen machines could become obsolete! The scourge of 120 million Americans who currently suffer from sleep apnea, and their significant others who suffer from their snoring, have a new lease on life!
This aspect of nanomedicine needn’t stop there. Imagine being able to hold your breath underwater for an hour or more (are you listening, designers of scuba diving equipment?). A terrible drowning where one becomes submerged by a car accidentally smashing into a river during a thunderstorm, will now survive even if trapped underwater for hours. Of course, it is hoped that the accident won’t occur in the depths of a freezing winter.
With as much oxygen as desired, the Olympic sprinter of the early 2020’s will easily break track records overnight, with a 500% increase in endurance. That is, unless respirocytes are deemed as taboo as steroids or male hormone augmentation.
What about lung cancer? Pneumonia? Other respiratory illnesses? Simply surgically remove the lungs! After all, they are now unnecessary.
The Respirocyte. Science fiction now, but within a little more than a decade, it could change the lives of us mere humans forever.
Ed Reifman, DDS (818) 990-6659 www.encinosmiledr.com
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