A “Living Pharmacy” That Can Shift the Body’s Circadian Clock
By Anna MacDonald
June 14, 2021
Many of us are familiar with the undesirable physical and mental effects of a disrupted sleep/wake cycle caused by traveling across multiple time zones or working irregular hours. A collaborative project designed to address these issues is working to develop a “living pharmacy” – a personalized, wireless and fully implantable device that can control the body’s circadian clock.
The project, NTRAIN (Normalizing Timing of Rhythms Across Internal Networks of Circadian Clocks), is part of the ADAPTER (Advanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness) program initiated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and includes partners from Northwestern University and Blackrock Neurotech.