Jetsons Moments: Fast Forward

By: Lucas ConleyWed Dec 19, 2007 at 8:08 AM

Here's what they've thought of next: waterless washing machines, robotic skin, and wireless broadband from on high. In the pages that follow, we present a portfolio of emerging technologies that could change the world in the next decade--or at least get our clothes clean.

Drugs From the Coop

Innovation: Monoclonal antibodies produced in chicken eggs
Location: Burlingame, California
Available: As soon as 18 months

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), a class of disease-fighting proteins that target specific antigens on the molecular level, allow doctors to diagnose and treat everything from cancers and viruses to cardiovascular disease and arthritis. That's why the market for mAbs is expected to double--to $30 billion--by 2010.

But mAbs, which derive from rather esoteric materials (Chinese hamster ovaries, for instance), are also expensive. "MAbs are complex proteins that need to be made in a living system," explains Robert Etches, vice president of research at California-based Origen Therapeutics. "Mass manufacturing is a time-consuming proposition."

Now Origen has discovered a low-tech method using chicken eggs. It adds genetic material to stem cells in new chicken embryos, which are then stabilized in surrogate eggs. Once the birds hatch and reach maturity, they become feathered factories, laying eggs with mAbs 10 to 100 times the potency of those produced in cell-culture labs.

Will big pharma buy in? Scientists have used eggs for decades to produce flu vaccines. Plus, egg-incubated mAbs cost 50% less than those from labs.

The Remote-Control You

Innovation: Galvanic vestibular stimulation
Location: Atsugi, Japan
Available: Whenever they tell us

Care for a little depolarization of your eighth cranial nerve? In August, Japan's NTT revealed it has been investigating the effects of applying a modest electrical current to the inner ear. Known as galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS), the "novel sensation interface," NTT says, could save lives--or at least make video games more realistic.

Weak doses of electricity cause small hairs in the inner ear to act in strange ways, basically recalibrating your equilibrium without your permission. Zap the left ear and you'll feel drawn to your left. Ditto for the other side. Mix the two just so, and you'll get the impression you're executing a loop in a jet. At last August's SIGGRAPH 2005 conference, NTT researchers fitted volunteers with a GVS-equipped headset, then guided them around via remote control. That drew criticism from those who envisioned GVS being used in all sorts of Orwellian ways. But Taro Maeda, the program's lead researcher, is optimistic about commercial applications: GVS, he says, could be used to unconsciously guide commuters out of the way of accidents or traffic jams. GVS-synced music, he says, is another area of interest.