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KB1EHE Article In ARRL Letter - N1API - 12-21-2017


Radio Amateur's Invention to Treat Alzheimer's Patients Going to Clinical Trials

Inveterate inventor and radio amateur Eric Knight, KB1EHE, may be on the cusp of medical history as a device he developed in collaboration with a prominent Alzheimer's disease researcher enters clinical trials this month. Both are hoping that the device, which essentially saturates the brain with low levels of RF, may prove to be a viable treatment for the dreaded disease affecting millions.

"Sometimes breakthroughs happen in ways that are unexpected," Knight told ARRL.

Knight learned of experiments that world-renowned Alzheimer's researcher Dr. Gary Arendash was carrying out on mice specially bred to have the disease, exposing them to low levels of RF. Knight said the effects were dramatic, sometimes even reversing the disease's effects in the mice. Borrowing some concepts from his early experiments with small rockets and avionics, he set about developing, and later patented, a device that could provide the requisite RF exposure to the human head.

"In the early 2000s, we were trying to figure out then how to make antennas that would wrap around the airframes of the rockets we were designing," he said, noting that the diameter of his group's space vehicle was about the same as that of a human head. Knight learned that Arendash was attempting to extend his investigations in a similar vein, and eventually they collaborated.

"He came at it from mice and science, I came at it from an aerospace and hobby perspective," said Knight, who patented a device based on a bicycle-type helmet. At the same time, Arendash was developing a similar wearable -- a fabric cap resembling an old-time aviator's headgear. Both devices are embedded with small antennas to bathe the brain in electromagnetic radiation in the 900 MHz spectrum set aside for Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) applications -- some 100 MHz higher than a cell phone's frequency.

"Ironic for sure," Knight said. "Who would imagine that cell phone radio waves could be a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease?"

Knight, who has no medical background, said the device to be used in the clinical trials consists of the cap plus a palm-sized transmitter and wiring harness worn on the arm. The resulting combination has been dubbed the NeuroEM 1000. Participants will get doses of RF twice a day.

From the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) standpoint, the clinical trials aim primarily to show that the technology is safe, but Knight said he and Arendash are also looking for data that might demonstrate that the device could be beneficial in treating Alzheimer's. The protocol they've developed goes further than what the FDA requires and includes before-and-after baseline data, with cognitive testing, assays of spinal fluid and blood, and PET scans.

"The hope is that there is a tiny bit of efficacy. Then we can work to refine it," Knight said, adding, "No one is expecting a magic cure."