BodyTalks: Connecting in-body nano communication with body area networks (NaBoCom II)

近年来，传感器网络和体域网络(BANS)的研究和开发日益成熟。然而，由纳米设备构建的体内纳米网络仍然代表着一个新的、引人入胜的研究方向，远远超出了传感器网络。例如，我们的愿景是，纳米设备(纳米级设备)在人体内巡逻，在必要的地方进行测量，并将收集到的数据报告给外部。更好的是，这些机器可以立即处理它们在体内检测到的问题，如癌细胞、动脉硬化或HI病毒。所有这些都有助于实现纳米网络研究的最终目标：医学应用，使疾病能够及早发现和缓解。精确医学代表着医学范式的转变，从传统的、非常笼统的疾病治疗方法转变为基于个人独特特征的疾病预防、诊断和治疗策略。纳米技术越来越被认为是实现这一目标的重要组成部分；尽管网络化纳米传感器在这里还很少讨论。该项目的总体目标是探索如何将体内纳米网络与人体区域网络连接起来的基本限制和新见解，以便为广泛的此类集成精确医学应用奠定基础。它的设计期限为六年。在第一个24个月的供资期间，为了为实现这一愿景铺平道路，我们集中讨论了这类系统的一般架构，以及纳米网络和医疗禁令技术互连的若干基本组成部分，即命名和寻址、基于位置的扩散、可靠性和时限以及模拟工具支持。在这第二个24个月的资助期内，我们希望更深入地挖掘体内纳米通信的几个通信方面，特别是短距离纳米通信的通道表征、人体循环系统中的信息流以及体内纳米系统的本地化。这些模块得到了基于模拟的综合性能评估的进一步工作的支持。此外，我们还计划与医学和生命科学领域的同事展开更紧密的合作，以确定可能的方法，将研究的纳米网络转化为下一代精确医学应用的强大构建块。

Research and development on sensor networks and body area networks (BANs) has gained increased maturity in recent years. Yet, in-body nanonetworks built from nanodevices still represent a new and fascinating direction of research, extending upon and going well beyond sensor networks. The vision is that nanodevices (nanoscale devices), for example, patrol the body, take measurements wherever necessary, and report collected data to the outside. Even better, these machines may immediately work on problems they detect within the body, such as cancer cells, arteriosclerosis, or HI viruses. All this is conducive to reach the ultimate goal of nanonetwork research: medical applications allowing early detection and mitigation of diseases. Precision medicine represents a paradigm shift in medicine, from the traditional, very generalized approach to the treatment of a disease to a strategy for the prevention, diagnosis and therapy of diseases based on a person’s unique characteristics. Nano technologies are more and more considered to be an important part of the implementation; although networked nanosensors are hardly discussed here yet. The overall goal of this project is to explore fundamental limits and new insights on how to connect in-body nanonetworks with body area networks in order to establish a basis for a wide variety of such integrated precision medicine applications. It is designed to run over a six-year period. In the first 24-month funding period, we, in order to pave the way towards this vision, concentrated on a general architecture for such systems and a number of basic building blocks for the technical interconnection of nanonetworks and medical BANs, namely naming and addressing, location-based diffusion, reliability and time bounds, and tool support for simulation. In this second 24-month funding period, we want to dig deeper into several communication aspects of in-body nano communications, especially channel characterization for short-range nano communication, information flow through the human circulatory system, and localization of nano systems within the body. These blocks are supported by further work on integrated simulation-based performance evaluation. In addition, we aim to also initiate closer collaborations with colleagues in medical and life sciences to identify possible ways to turn the investigated nanonetworks into a strong building block for next generation precision medicine applications.