Are diamonds forever?
A Melbourne professor is proving ‘diamonds really are forever’ as he and his team attempt to use the sparkly gems to stimulate nerves in the human body. While it reportedly takes up to 3.3 billion years for nature to make a diamond, the University of Melbourne’s, Professor Steven Prawer, has been ‘cooking up’ diamonds in his laboratory in just five days using a microwave-like oven.
A Melbourne professor is proving ‘diamonds really are forever’ as he and his team attempt to use the sparkly gems to stimulate nerves in the human body.
While it reportedly takes up to 3.3 billion years for nature to make a diamond, the University of Melbourne’s, Professor Steven Prawer, has been ‘cooking up’ diamonds in his laboratory in just five days using a microwave-like oven.
While Professor Prawer recently presented at a recent conference how he and his team developed a nano-diamond array which can be used as electrodes in the bionic eye, his next quest is to use diamonds to stimulate the nerves – which has reportedly never been done before.
“They are made with methane and hydrogen. You cook them in the microwave oven on high for five days and then you have lovely little diamonds,” he tells DPS News.
Diamonds have long been used in the body due to their durability and low rejection rate, with diamond coating applied to everything from heart valves to hip joints.
“Diamonds are very robust and it doesn’t degrade in the body at all. It’s an excellent platform,” he says.
Professor Prawer says he and his team have discovered a form of diamond that they can make which is “bio-compatible and very good as a stimulating electrode”.
“[This] means we can put an electrical signal onto it that then causes the neurons to fire and get a response,” he explains.
Professor Prawer says diamonds may be used to stimulate nerves, assisting in future applications in the treatment of conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
With pre-clinical trials under way, the Bionic Vision Australia consortium – including Melbourne University, the Centre for Eye Research Australia, the Bionics Institute and the University of New South Wales – hope the first human implant will take place next year at the Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.
There are hopes “biocompatible” electrodes that can last a lifetime will be safely implanted in people within a year.
