Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has the resources to pursue long-term bets in medicine that could eventually change the course of disease treatment and yield large payoffs. Three and half years ago the company announced its plans for an audacious goal: to literally eavesdrop on the body’s electrical system and enter into the body’s own internal conversations in order to heal disease.
Not as crazy as it sounds
Medicine has long focused on chemical processes to alter biological function, but every organ has a nerve connection that regulates its function. Organs are controlled by patterns of electrical impulses transmitted through nerve fibers, but when organs dysfunction in chronic disease, the electrical patterns are different.
