DARPA and the U.S. Military Want to Give Us Mutant Healing Abilities

DARPA, government purveyors of fine bonkers future technology, is working on a new initiative to create tech implants that can adjust your body’s functions and accelerate healing. Your ability to survive the process of receiving your very own adamantium skeleton isn’t far away now. All you have to do is create adamantium and devise a system to implant it in your body! That’s the easy part, right?

The program is called ElectRx (pronounced “electrics.” Get it?), so I guess that’s what you get out of a government subsidized pun. Of course, it’s currently being developed for military use, but a long-term goal is to aid in new research about how nerve signals control the body’s healing processes and help fight diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, systemic inflammatory response syndrome, and inflammatory bowel disease according to DARPA’s press release.

Such technology already exists, but it’s not quite at the “get slashed in the face with a sword and grimmace menacingly while the wound closes” level yet. DARPA is looking to improve upon current methods, saying:

Simple implantable devices for management of chronic inflammatory diseases and other disorders are already in clinical use, and the market for neuromodulation devices is growing rapidly. Current devices, however, are relatively large (about the size of a deck of cards), require invasive surgical implantation and often produce side effects due to their lack of precision. ElectRx seeks to create ultraminiaturized devices, approximately the same size as individual nerve fibers, which would require only minimally invasive insertion procedures such as injectable delivery through a needle.

Like most DARPA announcements, this is still just as much in the planning phase as all that talk about a military Iron Man suit, and they’re currently taking bids from tech companies who think they can make it happen. Unfortunately, they forgot to include requests for bids on who can build an adamantium infusion machine, so you’re on your own there. Better get to work.

(via Gizmodo, image via X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

Previously in DARPA

• DARPA contracted a brain implant to record and restore memories
• They also want to put tech in brains to help with PTSD and other issues
• DARPA’s robotic arm is dexterous and super strong

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