Robert Dennis (LinkedIn profile), the founder of Micro-Pulse LLC, developed the original TVEMF technology for NASA in 1998 - 1999 for micro-gravity stem cell culture experiments conducted by Tom Goodwin at NASA - Johnson Space Center in Houston TX.  Thus, the "original NASA TVEMF (PEMF)" technology was in reality developed by a private contractor (Bob Dennis), it was not actually developed by or at NASA.  NASA took delivery of the fully designed, assembled, and calibrated system to be used in their stem cell culture experiments in the late 1990's.  This is the source of what has become the widely cited but generally misunderstood "NASA PEMF" experiments.

    

 A concise history of the use of PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic fields) for healing purposes can be found at: http://www.pemf.com/en/history.html. 

 

Cleopatra (c. 40 BC) was reputed to have slept on a bed made of lodestone (natural magnetic rocks, also called magnetite) to slow down the aging process, and around 200 BC the Greek physician Galen noted in one of his books the “cleansing powers” of magnets when used on ill patients.

 
After a long dark period in which magnetic therapy remained mainly in the domain of quacks and charlatans, scientific interest began to rekindle in the 1970’s.  But the area remains stigmatized and is generally avoided by the vast majority of mainstream scientists.  Scientific reputations are easily tarnished by association with pathological science.  It is therefore safe to assume that the biological effects of magnetic fields has not enjoyed the level of scientific interest and scrutiny afforded to many other fields of study.

  

Unfortunately, science published in peer review is not necessarily reliable.  Fortunately though, science is a self-correcting mechanism, and so long as scientists are allowed to work and exchange Ideas freely, the truth of the matter does tend to rise to the surface, eventually.  Such is the case with the biological effects of PEMF.  Long before NASA took an interest, the 600+ published papers in the field of electro-magnetic tissue stimulation were a mixed bag ranging from good work to utterly senseless gibberish, with an unfortunate numerical bias toward nonsense. 

    

More than two centuries ago, when the poorly-understood phenomenon of electricity was classed into categories such as "animal and natural magnetism", the effects of electrical fields on living tissues were studied by first-rate scientists of the day, including Luigi Galvani and Benjamin Franklin.  Over time, voltage-gated channels were isolated and studied and are now widely recognized as an integral component of cell membranes, forever removing any lingering doubts about the veracity of the "electro-" half of electro-magnetic effects on cells and tissues.  Action potentials in nerves and trans-membrane ion pumps are now studied by high school students in advanced biology classes.  But the lingering question has remained: do magnetic fields themselves directly influence living cells and tissues?  Despite many published papers stretching back more than a century this remained an open question, and no general cellular mechanism for directly sensing magnetic fields was verifiably described (except for the unusual cases of specific magneto-sensitive prokaryotic cells such as magnetobacteria and navigation in higher animals using specialized structures for magnetoception).

   

In the late 1990's, first NASA, and then DARPA took an interest in addressing the question of whether or not magnetic fields could directly influence cellular functions such as gene expression, the cell cycle and mitosis, cellular organization, organogenesis, and tissue development.

A photo gallery of time-varying electro-magnetic fields (TVEMF) systems and research images from the original NASA TVEMF work is shown to the left. The original NASA TVEMF system is shown to the far left (silver and blue box with three knobs on it), connected to Petri dishes in a cell culture incubator.  In center is a photo of the original pulse generator employed by NASA-JSC.  This tiny pulse generator was actually developed and published earlier by Bob Dennis, for use in tissue engineering experiments involving the stimulation of denervated muscle using implanted tissue stimulators.  This is the stimulator that generated the most effective PEMF pulse in the NASA experiments that were later published as a NASA Technical Brief by Tom Goodwin.  The NASA TVEMF technology was adapted in 2006-2007 for experiments in bone tissue regeneration and used in a study at Texas A&M (not shown).  The TVEMF technology was later modified for use in the treatment of orthopedic injuries, the first portable system is shown in the figure on the right (c.a. 2008).

    

The NASA experiments involved the use of gene arrays to study Normal Human Neuronal Cells (NHNC) grown in culture while subjected to TVEMF.  The cells would form cell structures that were not present in the absence of TVEMF, and many genes related to cell growth were up-regulated significantly.  The photographs to the right are original photographs taken by Tom Goodwin at NASA during his research, and were published in his doctoral dissertation.  The NHNC cells were grown in a thin layer over 25 mm square-shaped conductive electrodes of platinum.  The frosty-looking area over the center of the two square electrodes to the left show the massive thickening of NHNC cells over the electrodes when subjected to TVEMF.  Tom Goodwin published the data from his research at NASA and eventually completed his PhD, with Bob Dennis as his adviser on his doctoral committee.  The failure to cite Bob Dennis as an author and inventor of the TVEMF technology has subsequently been corrected by internal investigation at NASA, but this lapse in judgement has had the unfortunate effect of casting confusion and obscurity on the true origin of the NASA TVEMF technology for over a decade.

     

Years after the experiments at NASA were completed, and after NASA had begun the process of investigating and correcting the record of the true development of the TVEMF technology, Bob Dennis established his rights to the technology both from NASA and from commercial licensees of the technology, and formed Micro-Pulse LLC to advance the technology for commercial stem cell research, and later, for clinical veterinary treatment of severe orthopedic injuries, inflammation, spinal cord injury, chronic pain, urinary incontinence, paralysis and peripheral neropathy.  In a series of YouTube videos (1 2 3 4), Bob Dennis shows the development of the technology all the way from the original systems developed for NASA, through the modern ICES DigiCeutical systems available today.  ICES technology has been featured by DrPawluk.com, BulletproofExec.com, and AllevaWave.com.  Micro-Pulse ICES technology is also at the core of the very successful SomaPulse technology used by athletes.

  Bob Dennis gives frequent interviews and scientific talks, many of which can be viewed on out blog, tutorial, podcast/video links.

  

The original NASA TVEMF technology has become the basis for countless PEMF products that are commercially available today.  But oddly, not one of these products uses a properly licensed and technically accurate version of the technology, even as it was way back in 1998.  Bob Dennis still serves as the consultant for any company wishing to accurately and comprehensively understand the NASA TVEMF technology, and only Bob Dennis and Micro-Pulse LLC have carried the technology forward through many refinements (three generations of TVEMF and 5 generations of ICES technologies) to ultimately present in a modern version a portable, effective, low-cost and ultra-low power product.  ICES stands for Inductively Coupled Electrical Stimulation, and ICES is a registered trademark owned by Micro-Pulse LLC.  In its current embodiment, ICES is designed to utilize magnetic fields as an intermediate energy field to couple external electro-magnetic coils to cells and tissues deep within the body.  Modern advanced ICES is a far cry from the early systems Bob designed for NASA way back in 1998.  The theory of operation of ICES has been described both in peer-reviewed scientific literature and in a technical brief available from Micro-Pulse LLC.  ICES technology is under continuous refinement and is regularly subjected to extensive scientific testing.  At the time of this writing, ICES is under study at independent laboratories for use in control of acute inflammation, is being studied for elucidating new cellular transduction mechanisms in our search for the receptor mechanism which we hypothesize to be a new class of membrane receptors that detect ion flux along membranes (not across them) through the paracellular/paramembranous fluid space, is in a veterinary clinical study for the treatment of severe orthopedic and spinal injuries, and is under review by the US Army for use in the treatment of severe spinal cord injury.

Many PEMF products have spawned from the original NASA technology developed by Bob Dennis, but only Micro-Pulse has continued to advance and refine the technology, with federally-funded R&D projects from DARPA (completed) the US Navy (completed) and US Army (pending), independent laboratory testing, scientific publications, and four recent US patents (1 2 3 4).  And only Micro-Pulse LLC has legitimate claims to the original NASA technology for use in PEMF systems.  If a product claims to use NASA PEMF technology but does not say "Micro-Pulse ICES DigiCeutical", it is a crude, unauthorized off-license clone of old, out-dated technology.

MAKE SURE YOU GET THE BEST.  Micro-Pulse LLC has become the leading technology innovator for PEMF and ICES ® technologies.  Micro-Pulse continually researches and refines ICES-PEMF technology to increase effectiveness and efficiency while reducing size and cost.  You will know you have Micro-Pulse ICES DigiCeutical ® Technology when you see our name on the label, and you pay only a reasonable price* for the best technology.

    

CONTACT US to discuss opportunities for using ICES technology for your research, or embedded into your advanced products.  ICES technology is available both for license and for sale.
    
Micro-Pulse ICES technology has been at the heart of the most effective, portable, and lowest cost PEMF systems on the market.  The brands that once contained ICES technology (through ICES gen 4) included:

SomaPulse
Pulse-Pet (the only authorized warranty service provider)
Alleva-Wave
MagnaWave Jr and "Low Power"
We Heal Animals, WeHelpPlus and WeHealPlus

       

But now the only real source for ICES technology is directly from us: micro-pulse.com.  We now sell directly to our customers so we can cut out the middleman and provide the best possible price and service.  If you are contemplating the purchase of PEMF products that *claim* to be based on original NASA technology, but the products do not clearly state "ICES DigiCeutical ® Technology", you may not be getting what you pay for, caveat emptor. How can you tell?  Ask to see their patents, their scientific data, and ask to talk to their inventor.  Bob Dennis is the real inventor, with real scientific and engineering credentials, who gets real royalty checks from NASA for his TVEMF - PEMF inventions that were later patented by NASA.  The PEMF technology pirates and wannabes will not bear close scrutiny.  See for yourself.

    

    

*  A NOTE ABOUT PIRATED PEMF TECHNOLOGY
We are often asked:  Why do the pirated versions of the original "NASA"  PEMF technologies cost so much more than products that use the real ICES DigiCeutical ® Technology? 

   

There are two reasons: greed and fear.  First, the pirates want your money, second, they know their days are numbered since they are selling pirated technology, often with illegal medical claims and unauthorized reference to work done for NASA by a private contractor.  Their only goal is to take your money while they can, and then run for the border when they have to.  One such company has already fled to the Canary Islands to evade legal action in the United States, others have closed their doors and fled under cover of dark, without notice, leaving their customers hanging without support and abandoned.  Micro-pulse is in business legitimately, and for the long-term.  Our long-term investments in infrastructure, ongoing scientific and clinical studies, comprehensive product quality control systems, efficient business operations, private ownership, zero pressure for sales (we have no sales or marketing people), zero pressure for quick profits from investors (we have no investors by choice), zero debt, and modest profit margins assure you get the best PEMF technology for the lowest price.  When you purchase Micro-Pulse ICES DigiCeutical technology and products you get a lifetime of access to premium PEMF technology.