Category: Medical Tech

A recent publication in the journal Cardiovascular Engineering and Technology describes the production and utilization of synthetic heart valves, arteries, and veins by surgeons and medical residents to practice and improve their cardiac bypass surgical skills, without the use of animal or human cadaver tissues. Researchers from the University of British Columbia used a polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel to create the synthetic tissue, which unlike animal and human tissues, does not decompose or become contaminated.   The treatment of arteries from animal or human cadavers with preservatives to prevent decomposition alters…

Scientists at University of California, Los Angeles have developed a rapid new test for spotting proteins within blood and plasma. Unlike current tests that can take up to four hours to perform, the team’s technique takes only 10 minutes and can be done right inside the doctor’s office instead of a clinical lab.   Typically, enzymes are used to amplify the protein signal, but they introduce their own problems such as difficulty in handling, high associated costs, and false positives. Instead, the team did away with enzymes altogether and focused…

Dr. Thomas J. Webster – the Art Zafiropoulo chair and professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, and president of the US Society for Biomaterials – and colleagues have created synthetic immune cells, referred to as polymersomes. These polymersomes can mimic the behavior of natural immune cells, according to the team, opening the door to a way to boost infection-fighting capability among individuals with compromised immune systems. “They can significantly aid someone who has a failing immune system, or for someone who needs a…

At Stanford University a new fabric has been developed that lets body heat escape unlike any other. While there are a lot of materials on the market that were designed to pass sweat through to quickly evaporate on the surface, Stanford’s flexible plastic textile also lets infrared energy escape as well. Typical clothing traps heat, which, besides showing off, is a big reason a lot of people wear very little while exercising. The researchers claim if made into clothing, the fabric would make a person feel about four degrees cooler…

At the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and Tufts University a team has developed a microfluidic chip that mimics human tissue for use in drug testing applications. The chip is based on a silk gel that overcomes the limitations of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a silicon material widely used to host living cells within microfluidic devices. As an example, PDMS has problems handling lipids, absorbing them instead of letting them move freely along with other nearby compounds and so not applicable with lipid-based compounds. Additionally, PDMS is not biodegradable…

Luminex won clearance from the FDA and European CE-IVD mark of approval to introduce its ARIES M1 real-time PCR system. Designed for smaller clinical labs, the M1 is a lower throughput version of the company’s ARIES system, offering essentially the same features in a smaller package. It can run six samples and up to six different assays simultaneously, extracting, amplifying, and detecting genetic material all on its own once the cartridges are loaded. “In developing the ARIES family of systems, we listened closely to the needs of our customers and crafted…

Against the backdrop of health care reform and a controversial medical device tax, medical technology companies are focusing more than ever on products that deliver cheaper, faster, more efficient patient care. They are also making inroads with U.S. Food & Drug Administration regulators to re-engineer the complex review and approval process for new medical devices.   Many in the industry have long felt overly burdened by what they consider to be an unnecessarily complex approval process. Critics claim it impedes innovation and delays the availability of better health care. To…

Nanorobots hold great potential in the field of medicine. This is largely due to the possibility of highly-targeted delivery of medical payloads, an outcome that could lessen side effects and negate the need for invasive procedures. But how these microscopic particles can best navigate the body’s fluids is a huge area of focus for scientists. Researchers are now reporting a new technique whereby nanorobots are made to swim swiftly through the fluids like blood to reach their destination. Though still an emerging field of science, nanoparticles are gaining something of…

Scientists at the University of Adelaide and ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics have developed a tiny probe for measuring the temperature inside the brain. As anyone with an extremely high fever will attest to, the brain doesn’t respond well to high heat. Various diseases, drugs, and concussions can create swelling, inflammation, and other temperature changes, and studying how treatment affects these can be helped with an accurate brain thermometer. The researchers used their probe to measure the temperature within small regions of a moving rat’s brain because of its size of less…