Archives: 4/2007

Link Fest Link-O-Rama Link-O-Tastic Link-Mania

by Gene Ostrovsky on Apr 17, 2007 • 12:00 am

53434rota Link Fest Link O Rama Link O Tastic Link Mania

FDA Announces Recommendations to Reauthorize Medical Device User Fee Program
[FDA]

Rotavirus Infection: A Systemic Illness?
[PLoS Medicine]

ISO for vibration and shock
[The Engineer Online]

Pump design could give heart patients new hope
[Queensland University of Technology]

20-year study shows significant rise in childhood obesity, especially among girls
[Acta Paediatrica]

Study shows that indigenous people are not genetically prone to diabetes (.pdf)
[Research Australia]

GE Healthcare Acquires Wave Biotech LLC, Broadening Capabilities in Growing Biopharmaceutical Manufacture Segment
[GE]

UCSF brain glioma vaccine trial shows promising results
[UCSF]

Eating Cured Meats Frequently Can Lead To Lower Lung Function and Potential COPD
[American Thoracic Society]

Quick, Cheap & Easy Bedside Diagnosis of Brain Injury

by Josh Umbehr on Apr 16, 2007 • 6:50 am

Scanner 002 Quick, Cheap & Easy Bedside Diagnosis of Brain Injury Doctors in India are currently testing a handheld device for the bedside screening and diagnosis of brain injury, that they hope may save thousands of lives.

Infrascanner™ is a hand-held, non-invasive, near-infrared (NIR) based mobile imaging device to detect brain hematoma at the site of injury within the “golden hour”. This refers to the period following head trauma when pre-hospital analysis is needed to rapidly assess the neurological condition of a victim. Pending FDA clearance, the Infrascanner™ will be an affordable, accurate and clinically effective screening solution for head trauma patients in settings where timely triage is critical. It is intended to aid the decision to proceed with other tests such as head Computed Tomography (CT) scans. In environments where access to CT scan is restricted or not available, Infrascanner™ will facilitate surgical intervention decisions.
The InfraScanner™ can be a practical solution to the problem of early identification of intracranial hematomas because of the unique light-absorbing properties of hemoglobin and the non-invasive, non-ionizing nature of NIR technology. The basic method for Hematoma detection is based on the differential light absorption of the injured vs. the non-injured part of brain. Under normal circumstances, the brain’s absorption should be symmetrical. When additional underlying extra vascular blood is present due to internal bleeding, there is a greater local concentration of hemoglobin and consequently the absorbance of the light is greater while the reflected component is commensurately less. This differential can be detected via sources and detectors placed on symmetrical lobes of the skull. The science of diffused optical tomography used by the Infrascanner™ enables the conversion of light differential data into interpretative scientific results. The Infrascanner™ unit is a small, portable handheld device based on a PDA platform with wireless detector probes.

BBC: Scanner spots deadly blood clots…
InfraScan…
Press Release: InfraScan Announces First Patients Enroll in Clinical Trial in Brain Hematoma Detection (PDF)
(hat tip: /.)

Medicine

The Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitor

by Josh Umbehr on Apr 16, 2007 • 5:40 am

6245bp1 The Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitor Do you suffer from hypertension and obsessive compulsive disorder? Then we’ve got the product for you. The Oscar ambulatory blood pressure monitor will let you constantly monitor your blood pressure and alert you to [predictable] rises in pressure!

The unit has just received an A/A rating based upon the British Hypertension Society (BHS) protocol as reported in the April 2007 issue of Blood Pressure Monitoring (Goodwin et al., 2007).
The independent evaluation was conducted in the United Kingdom by researchers at James Cook University Hospital. Results showed the Oscar 2 ambulatory blood pressure monitor received an A grade for both systolic and diastolic pressures.
The Oscar 2 ambulatory blood pressure monitor is clinically validated to all three internationally recognized standards: British Hypertension Society (BHS) (A/A), European Society of Hypertension (ESH) International Protocol, and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) SP10. The lightweight design of the Oscar 2 ambulatory blood pressure monitor combined with the comfort of SunTech’s patented Orbit blood pressure cuff dramatically increase patient testing compliance. The included AccuWin Pro V3 software allows flexible programming of the ABP unit, rapid analysis of the data, and a customizable printed report. The automated interpretive summary provides concise and helpful information on BP averages, overnight dip percentage, and instances of White-coat syndrome.

Hear that? That’s the sound of doctors crying as they wait for the onslaught of patients calling concerned with their occasional spikes in pressure…
Gizmag…
Product Page…

Diagnostics

Physicists Use Laser [Beams] to Detect Anthrax, Monitor Glucose

by Josh Umbehr on Apr 16, 2007 • 3:51 am

Physicist Marlan Scully from Texas A&M has led a team of researchers to make a breakthrough in the use of lasers for the rapid and accurate identification of biological samples.

“Our report shows how to use lasers to detect anthrax in real time as opposed to the cumbersome and wieldy way it is done now,” says Marlan Scully, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Texas A&M. “We do our experiments ‘on the fly’, so we can get a signature within a tiny fraction of a second. Our procedure can work for monitoring anthrax in mail, but it can also scan the whole atmosphere. And there are a lot of other potential applications — monitoring glucose in the blood, for example.”
The new technique is based on coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS), a phenomenon that measures the light scattering that occurs when a molecule is bombarded by light energy (photons). Molecules are composed of two or more atoms, and the subatomic particles which make up these atoms are in constant motion, producing vibration patterns unique to each substance. When a molecule is hit by an appropriate sequence of laser pulses, it gives off light in a specific ‘fingerprint’ pattern. If three laser pulses are used, the resultant emitted light yields a coherent signature at a particular frequency.
“This paper is a remarkable achievement in that it makes very clever use of modern techniques for coherent control to detect molecular signals with high sensitivity. Many important practical applications can be foreseen for this technology,” says Harvard professor of physics Mikhail Lukin.

Press Release…

Uncategorized

First Measurement of a Cellular Heartbeat

by Josh Umbehr on Apr 16, 2007 • 2:47 am

yeastsignal First Measurement of a Cellular Heartbeat Due in part to the work of Professor Andre Geim, and his team of researchers at the University of Manchester, pharmaceutical research may soon be conducted at the cellular level.

Researchers have made a breakthrough by detecting the electrical equivalent of a living cell’s last gasp. The work takes them a step closer to both seeing the ‘heartbeat’ of a living cell and a new way to test drugs.
To stay alive, individual biological cells must transfer electrically charged particles, called ions across their cell membranes. This flow produces an electrical current that could, in principle, be detected with sensitive enough equipment. The recognition of such electrical activity would provide a kind of ‘cellular cardiogram’, allowing the daily functioning of the cell to be monitored in a similar way to a cardiograph showing the workings of a human heart.
“Once we know the average or usual pattern of electrical activity in a cell, we can see how different drugs affect it,” says Professor Geim. This would put an early safeguard into the system that could be applied long before the drug was tested on animals or even humans. In addition, the electrical activity test could be used to monitor the effects of pollution on naturally occurring micro-organisms in the environment.
To detect a cell’s normal activity, Andre Geim and fellow researchers modified apparatus used originally to detect weak magnetic fields in superconductors. Unfortunately, these modifications reduced the sensitivity of the technique, and the normal activity of the yeast cell could not be detected. This is the first time such a technique has been used on a living cell.
Not to be defeated, the researchers went about livening things up. They chose to invoke what any self-respecting party-goer would: alcohol. “We added ethanol – which is essentially vodka – to provoke a response from the cell. Ethanol is known to increase the transparency of cellular membranes which we hoped would give a signal we could detect,” says Dr Irina Barbolina, who carried out the experiments.
It worked. As soon as the yeast got a taste of the vodka, the probe registered an electrical signal. A drunken hiccup perhaps? “It was probably the last gasp of the dying cell,” says Professor Geim. The researchers had added so much ethanol that it poisoned the cell.

Press Release: A New Study of Living Cells Could Revolutionise the Way We Test Drugs

Sports Medicine

Wireless Helmets Monitor Head Injuries

by Josh Umbehr on Apr 16, 2007 • 1:41 am

wireless%20helmets Wireless Helmets Monitor Head Injuries Have you ever watched a football game and wondered about the impressive concussive force the players endure? Well, so have many coaches and team physicians, which is why several college teams are joining forces with Simbex and their Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) System™

The HIT System™ is the first and only (commercially available) system that can measure head accelerations (impacts) in real-time during games and practices. The HIT System’s sensor/encoder, contains impact sensors, a processor and transmitter, and transforms any helmet or headgear into a head impact monitor.
A data collector receives impact data continuously from encoders that can be hundreds of meters away, and can monitor dozens of players or soldiers simultaneously. Our proprietary software analyzes those data and sends a pager warning if any impact has a potentially injurious profile.

The data collector stores all of the key signatures of the impacts: peak linear acceleration, rotational acceleration, duration, location, time stamp, etc, for future analysis.
After more than a decade of research (supported in part by the National Institutes of Health), the HIT System was put to the test in the crucible of elite college and high school football stadiums and practice fields. Using the HIT System™ we have recorded over one-quarter of a million impacts and corresponding head injury data.
Simbex and partner researchers are using the analysis of these data to shed new light on the biomechanical causes of mild traumatic brain injuries. This research may lead to advancements in protective equipment or other injury reduction strategies.

Head Impact Telemetry System™
PhysOrg: Virginia Tech Tackles Head Injuries Using Wireless…
(hat tip: Engadget)

Uncategorized

A Technical Note

by Gene Ostrovsky on Apr 16, 2007 • 12:18 am

This weekend Medgadget.com moved to a new server. If you experience any issues with the website, please let us know through the email at medgadget -_at_- medgadget dot com.

Ophthalmology

Software to Improve Retinal Prosthetic Devices

by Gene Ostrovsky on Apr 13, 2007 • 9:40 am

876989bon1 Software to Improve Retinal Prosthetic Devices
Scientists from the University of Bonn have developed novel software that will supposedly improve retinal prosthetic devices. The software, to be presented at the upcoming Hanover Fair (April 16th – 20th) is touted to allow the development of a learning visual prosthesis:

Currently, the results do not meet the high expectations. “The camera generates electrical signals, which are almost useless for the brain,” comments Rolf Eckmiller, a professor at the Department of Computer Science at Bonn University. “Our own system translates the camera signals into a language, which the central visual system in the brain understands”. Unfortunately, the central visual system of each individual speaks a different dialect; this poses a difficulty for the translator function. For this reason, the computer- and neural scientist developed the “Retina Encoder” together with his graduate students Oliver Baruth and Rolf Schatten. At the Hanover Fair he is looking for commercial partners for the next step into clinical trials.
“In principle, the Retina Encoder is a computer program that converts the camera signals and forwards them to the retinal implant,” explains Oliver Baruth. “The encoder learns in a continuous process how to change the camera output signal so that the respective patient can perceive the image.” Currently, tests of the learning dialog process are being performed with normally sighted volunteers. The camera images are translated by the Retina Encoder and subsequently forwarded to a kind of “virtual central visual system.” This simulation mimics the brain function for the interpretation of the converted camera data.
Initially, the Retina Encoder does not know which language the virtual central visual system speaks. Therefore the software translates the original picture – for example a ring – in different, randomly selected “dialects”. This way, variations of the picture emerge, which are more or less similar to a ring. The volunteer sees these variations on a small screen that is integrated in a frame of glasses. By means of head movements, the person selects those variations that appear most similar to a ring. From these choices, the learning software draws conclusions how to improve the translation. In the next learning cycle, several new picture variations are being presented, which look already more similar to the original: during this process, the Retina Encoder becomes adapted step-by-step to the language of the virtual central visual system. In the current tests it works very well; however, the scientists have not yet tested their system in patients. The scientists emphasize that in principle, the Retina Encoder could be integrated in implanted visual prostheses within a few months.
In normally sighted humans, a kind of natural Retina Encoder is already integrated in the retina: specifically, four layers of nerve cells are positioned in front of the photoreceptor cells. “The retina is a transparent biocomputer,” Eckmiller says. “It transforms the electrical signals of rod and cone photoreceptors into a complex signal.” This signal reaches the brain via the optic nerve.