Peter Passaro
Special To ImmInst.org
The ideas that compose transhumanism have fascinated me since I was a boy. l have always felt it was human destiny and our deep purpose to make our world a better place and to make ourselves better creatures. What do I mean when I say better?
For our world I mean:
1) The seamless integration of our technology with that of the biological machinery of nature in a robust homeostatic balance
2) The creation of political and economic structures that create fulfillment and purpose for the majority of humans
For ourselves I mean:
1) Engineering of bodies free of the pain, suffering, and just general annoyance that is involved in being a biological creature that requires constant maintenance to remain functional and a form that experiences a constant degradation of its systems that eventually leads to death.
2) Enhancement of minds so that we have the ability to examine our own thought structures and improve them, and to have the computational power necessary to solve some of the more complex problems our species is beginning to face.
It is this last goal that has led me to the research I am involved with now. For me, the fields of neuroengineering and artificial intelligence are absolutely critical to solving the majority of the problems facing humanity as a species. With sufficient computational power and structure, all problems became solvable.
Professional Background
My undergraduate education was in microbiology at the University of Florida, but I initially majored in mechanical engineering before moving to the biological sciences. During this time I worked in a molecular biology lab that focused on the reengineering of the E. coli genome to alter its metabolism so that ethanol would be its only waste product. The other interesting highlight from my undergraduate years was a two summer engineering internship with Thiokol (the contractor who builds the Space Shuttle boosters) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
I entered the Biochemistry graduate program at Florida immediately after graduating with my B.S. and later moved to the Cell and Molecular Biology program to do a masters project in molecular control of high blood pressure in the brain. Through this project I formed an intense professional interest in both neuroscience and aging biology, two of the areas that I have been focused on now for a number of years.
In my last semester as a grad student I ran a science outreach program for the local school district and this led me to teaching chemistry and biology (and running the science fair) in a high school magnet program for advanced students for one year. This was a terrific experience for me, but I realized that I wanted to be working on something with a very large impact and something that was closer to my personal philosophical goals.
During that year I was recruited by an entrepreneur to begin background research to create a life extension investment company. For a year and a half I studied the academic and industrial aging research community and prepared the groundwork for starting the business. That company eventually became both a for-profit (LifeEx Technolgies) and a non-profit (Maximum Life Foundation) corporation located in Los Angeles. I was the vice president for both companies for two years before they eventually experienced financial difficulties.
The Maximum Life Foundation's major achievement was organizing two research conferences comprised of some of the top names in the aging research arena. I had the great pleasure of moderating both of these conferences and experiencing first hand the debate over what the key research targets in aging are.
After my startup company experience, I decided to return to graduate school to complete a Ph.D. I wanted to explore my interests in neuroscience and the mathematics of complexity, so I sought out a Ph.D. program in neuroengineering. I worked briefly as a staff scientist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center where I designed and built gene constructs in the Infectious Disease Division while awaiting entry into graduate school. I am now at the Georgia Institute of Technology where I am currently a student in the Lab for Neuroengineering, in the Biomedical Engineering Department. My research at the Neurolab focuses on the creation of silicon to neuron interfaces.
Current Research
My overall research goals are:
1) Understanding the mechanisms of how moderate size (~10,000 cell) networks of neurons encode and decode information
2) Finding out what our neuronal networks are doing biologically (shape, connections, neurotransmitter properties, etc)
3) Applying the mathematical ideas of complex and emergent systems to study how networks of neurons are able to self organize their physical and information processing structures
The end result being:
The ability to interface with, and in some cases, "program" networks of biological neurons.
Uses of the technology
1) Creation of robust neural interfaces that can be used to connect neurons to robotic limbs, artificial sensory systems (retina, cochlea, etc.), and artificial organs
2) Finding new paradigms for use in mathematics, programming, and computation based on the information processing structures we find in our neural cultures
3) The ability to "map" the signal processing occurring in large scale brain structures
My day to day lab activities right now consist of building the tools I'm going to be using to do this analysis.
1) Obtaining or constructing mouse colonies with genes that code for fluorescent proteins to be expressed in specific neurons for easy observation under a microscope
2) Setting up our experimental systems, microscopes and electrical recording and stimulation equipment
3) Studying as much math as I can from the fields of: complexity, nonlinear dynamics, signal processing, control theory, etc.
