Molecular Communication-Inspired Particle Collector-Transmitter (PaCoT) for Heavy Metal Removal from Human Circulatory System

TL;DR

This paper introduces a molecular communication-inspired nanomachine called PaCoT designed to detect, collect, and remove toxic heavy metals from the human circulatory system, using receptor-ligand interactions and binary concentration encoding.

Contribution

It presents a novel nanomachine design that combines molecular communication principles with heavy metal removal, including receptor modeling, toxicity detection, and controlled release mechanisms.

Findings

PaCoT effectively detects heavy metal toxicity via receptor binding durations.

Simulation results show low bit error probability in toxicity detection.

The system demonstrates efficient heavy metal collection and release with manageable energy use.

Abstract

This study proposes a novel molecular communication (MC)-inspired nanomachine, PArticle COllector-Transmitter (PaCoT), to remove toxic heavy metals from the human circulatory system. PaCoT collects these toxic metals and transmits them to release nodes, such as lymph capillaries, before they reach critical organs. The design incorporates key physical parameters and operates through particle reception and release mechanisms. In the reception process, described as ligand-receptor binding reactions, modeled as a continuous-time Markov process (CTMP), PaCoT uses metallothionein proteins as receptors and heavy metals (e.g., Zn, Pb, Cd) as ligands. We assume that the toxicity condition (toxic (bit-1), non-toxic (bit-0)) is encoded into the concentration of heavy metal molecules. Thus, we consider that heavy metal concentration within the MC channel (e.g., human circulatory system) employs binary concentration shift keying (binary CSK). The concentration ratio of specific heavy metals is estimated to infer toxicity, i.e., a high ratio indicates toxicity and a low ratio suggests non-toxicity. Toxicity detection is achieved by monitoring the receptor bound duration in the presence of interferers and various types of heavy metals. After detecting and collecting toxic heavy metals, PaCoT securely retains them in a liquid medium (e.g., water) until release, employing two mechanisms: (1) a single-disc viscous micropump to regulate flow rate, and (2) Brownian motion to facilitate diffusion. PaCoT's performance is evaluated through MATLAB simulations, focusing on bit error probability (BEP) of the toxicity detection method, release time of molecules from PaCoT and energy consumption.