Stanford creates wireless, implantable “Innerspace” medical device

Engineers at Stanford have finally managed to create a wirelessly powered and controlled device that’s small enough to travel through your bloodstream. Future versions will carry sensors and drug delivery systems, for the ultimate in pin-point accurate medicine.

The breakthrough, made by Ada Poon, is depressingly simple. Basically, for some 50 years, it has always been believed that human flesh, muscle, and bone absorb high-frequency radio waves. Low-frequency waves penetrate well, but to power a device using low-frequency waves (using induction) you need a very long antenna — something on the order of a few centimeters, which is obviously too large. Poon, who is obviously an outside-the-box thinker, decided to re-do the math — and what do you know: high-frequency radiation around 1GHz actually penetrates the human body very well. As a result, Poon’s wireless device can use an antenna that’s only two millimeters square — small enough to visit almost any portion of our vasculature.