We love to organize contests. But until now, all our contests were for bloggers, medical professionals, or scientists. Times have changed. Welcome to My Medical Museum competition! This is a contest in which everyone can participate and have a fun and learning experience in the process.
Basically, we want you to visit your local medical museum, and file a report about it.
Chances are that no matter where you live, there is a medical museum nearby. Maybe it’s an overlooked building in the center of your city, or a hospital library. Inside, you’ll find bizarre specimens, important documents, and yes, medical gadgets.
This contest is an opportunity to showcase your medical museum’s treasures, as well as to document your local medical history and explain how clinicians and scientists in your area contributed to medicine. So, make a presentation and tell everyone a fascinating story.
Medgadget is sponsoring this competition along with Dr. Allen Roberts, aka GruntDoc.
To get everyone on equal footing, we’ve implemented a dynamic publishing platform where you create an online presentation. The My Medical Museum website will let you upload pictures, file reports, embed videos, and make a presentation that will impress the judges. Collaboration is fine, too — form a group and grant access so your teammates can contribute.
The Grand Prize is a brand-new Wi-Fi 32GB Apple iPad, no less.
So, what else are you waiting for? Gather your friends, family or fellow medical geeks and head over to explore your local medical museum. Develop your presentation and finalize it by Sunday, June 27, 2010.
The winner will be announced on Monday, July 5, 2010 here on Medgadget. All final decisions will be made by our editors.
LINK: My Medical Museum Competition…
Archives: 5/2010
Cell phones may soon be able to detect carbon monoxide and other dangerous toxins found in gasoline and chemical warfare agents using a tiny silicon chip sensing system developed by researchers at UCSD and Rhevision, Inc. Embedded within the silicon sensor are hundreds of separate spots that can change color in response to specific chemicals. By capturing the pattern of color changes using a new kind of supermacro lens, researchers at UCSD plan to create a versatile sensor small enough to fit into a cell phone that can recognize a wide variety of chemical hazards.
From the press release:
Already their chips can distinguish between methyl salicylate, a compound used to simulate the chemical warfare agent mustard gas, and toluene, a common additive in gasoline. Potentially, they could discriminate among hundreds of different compounds and recognize which might be harmful.
“The beauty of this technology is that the number of sensors contained in one of our arrays is determined by the pixel resolution of the cell phone camera. With the megapixel resolution found in cell phone cameras today, we can easily probe a million different spots on our silicon sensor simultaneously. So we don’t need to wire up a million individual sensors,” Sailor [Michael Sailor, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCSD] said. “We only need one. This greatly simplifies the manufacturing process because it allows us to piggyback on all the technology development that has gone into making cell phone cameras lighter, smaller, and cheaper.”
Press release: Cell Phone Sensors for Toxins Developed at UC San Diego…
Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a condiment-sized pouch for enhancing the shelf-life of drugs like Nevirapine, an anti-HIV medication. An improvement over currently-used storage systems like syringes and containers, the pouch reduces evaporation loss while remaining potent at various temperatures. Ideal for preventing mother-to-child HIV infection, the pouch can be used in developing countries where HIV-positive mothers who give birth at home can immediately start protecting their newborns from the virus with a single dose of Nevirapine, and then follow up later at a clinic or hospital. Field tests using the pouch have been performed in Tanzania, and clinical trials are underway.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 90% of 430,000 new cases of AIDS in Africa in 2008 were attributable to mother-to-child transmission, and that just 32% of infants born to HIV-positive mothers received prophylactic antiretroviral drugs as compared to 45% of their pregnant mothers.
Duke press release: Novel Pouch Could Reduce Mother-to-Infant HIV Infection…
UnitedHealthcare Brings Preventative Medicine Into the Patient’s Home With New Diagnostic Kits
by on May 14, 2010 • 12:00 am
UnitedHealthcare has announced that it will begin providing at-home screening kits to its customers, which will allow patients to determine their risk of heart disease and diabetes without visiting a laboratory. The kits, made by BioIQ, will require patients to extract a blood sample and mail it in to a lab, which will then analyze the levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood glucose in the sample. Following analysis, the test results and some health recommendations are made available to the patient via a secure website.
From the press release:
The national launch of the at-home screening kits follows a UnitedHealthcare pilot program last year with select employers in the state of Washington. The program resulted in helping to identify about 10 percent of participating employees as having high cholesterol and 4 percent as having elevated indicators for diabetes.
Spokane, Wash.-based ACRAnet was one of more than 80 firms that participated in the pilot. “Employees were very receptive to the program, in part because the tests were easy, accurate and, most importantly, private,” said Preston Ritter, ACRAnet assistant general manager. “The program helped keep our health care costs down, enhanced employee productivity and improved the overall health of our work force.”
Press release: UnitedHealthcare Wellness Programs Now Available with at-Home Health Screening Kits…
BioIQ’s test kits…
SPIROCOR is a new noninvasive test for coronary artery disease (CAD). It uses pulse oximetry to measure fingertip blood flow in response to paced breathing at a rate of 6 breaths per minute for 70 seconds. From these data the Respiratory Stress Response (RSR) is calculated as a measure of coronary artery disease. Results from a study of the test are published in this month’s American Journal of the Medical Sciences. Patients with significant CAD had a lower RSR compared to patients without, with the test having a sensitivity of 83% and specificity of 70%. Multivariate analysis with conventional risk factors showed RSR to be an independent marker of significant CAD. A study comparing the technique with stress ECG is currently ongoing.
Study abstract: Respiratory Stress Response: A Novel Diagnostic Method for Detection of Significant Coronary Artery Disease From Finger Pulse Wave Analysis During Brief Respiratory Exercise….
Product page: SPIROCOR…
Scientists at the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) have developed a simple technique to transform sheets of cells grown in a lab into 3-dimensional shapes. Called “micro-masonry”, the new method uses a gel-like material to organize cells into cubes, which can then be fashioned into structures resembling organs. As the artificial organs are built, small channels can be left in place to provide nutrient access.
More from the press release:
The HST researchers built their “biological Legos” by encapsulating cells within a polymer called polyethylene glycol (PEG), which has many medical uses. Their version of the polymer is a liquid that becomes a gel when illuminated, so when the PEG-coated cells are exposed to light, the polymer hardens and encases the cells in cubes with side lengths ranging from 100 to 500 millionths of a meter.
Once the cells are in cube form, they can be arranged in specific shapes using templates made of PDMS, a silicon-based polymer used in many medical devices. Both template and cell cubes are coated again with the PEG polymer, which acts as a glue that holds the cubes together as they pack themselves tightly onto the scaffold surface.
After the cubes are arranged properly, they are illuminated again, and the liquid holding the cubes together solidifies. When the template is removed, the cubes hold their new structure.
Press release: Building organs block by block…
Abstract in Advanced Materials: Micro-Masonry: Construction of 3D Structures by Microscale Self-Assembly
One of the challenges investigators hoping to advance quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have faced is the lack of a standardized phantom to calibrate scanners. 
Quantitative MRI aims to remove as much subjectivity from image interpretation as possible by correlating values to certain features observable by MRI – analogous to the Hounsfield unit used in CT. Until now, a suitable phantom has not been available for this purpose.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), together with the standards committee of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), have recently presented their solution to this dilemma. Phannie, the first phantom traceable to standardized values, is filled with small plastic spheres containing various enhancing agents. Investigators using Phannie can assess image contrast, resolution, and accuracy of distance and volume measurements. Designed to be stable and (eventually) affordable, the researchers hope that Phannie will improve the quality and consistency of scanning throughout the world.
More from the press release: Meet Phannie, NIST’s Standard ‘Phantom’ for Calibrating MRI Machines…
Cleared and launched in Europe earlier this year, the Unify cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) and Fortify implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) from St. Jude Medical are now also FDA approved. The devices cram in more energy into smaller footprints, and feature advanced sensing technology and more anti-tachycardia pacing options.
More about Unify and Fortify from the press release:
The Unify CRT-D and Fortify ICD have 45J of stored energy and can deliver 40J, the highest energy of any ICD available today. This high energy capacity gives these devices the ability to provide a greater safety margin, which could increase the chances that therapy will be successful for patients who may need more energy to correct their heart rhythm.
The devices’ narrow shape, along with their small footprint, allows physicians to implant them using a smaller incision, leading to less time spent closing the incision and a reduced scar for the patient. The company’s SJ4 lead connector system further streamlines the procedure by reducing the number of set screws and connections between the defibrillation lead and the device, which can improve patient comfort by reducing the bulk of wires in the patient’s chest.
Both devices also have features designed to reduce inappropriate or unnecessary defibrillation therapy, while ensuring effective therapy occurs when the patient needs it. The features include advanced sensing technology and more anti-tachycardia pacing options, which can convert many fast ventricular arrhythmias painlessly and avoid the need for high voltage shocks.
Press release: St. Jude Medical Announces FDA Approval of Unify CRT-D and Fortify ICD…
Imagine being electrocuted by 20,000V and having both arms amputated when you are just 17 years old and barely old enough to drive. Now imagine driving to work just four years later with a mind-controlled robotic arm. Such is the incredible feat of biomedical engineers at Otto Bock, surgeons at Vienna General Hospital and a 21-year-old Austrian patient named Christian Kandlbauer. The procedure involves a new technique, known as targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), in which existing nerves that once controlled a lost limb are wired to control a prosthesis.
From BBC:
Surgeons at Vienna General Hospital transplanted the nerves that previously controlled his healthy limb to the chest muscles in a six-hour operation. The transplanted nerves allow electrical impulses from the brain to reach the muscles in the chest. The muscles act like a booster, amplifying the signal to a level that can be picked up by electrodes on the surface of the chest. These signals are interpreted by a micro-computer, and used to control a prosthesis which responds in real time to thoughts from his brain. This allows him to control his prosthetic arm as if it were his real arm. Now Christian can drive, hold down a job, and even grasp a glass of beer.
When phantom limb is ‘moved’, electrical impulses from the brain move along grafted arm nerves into chest wall. Muscles boost electrical sensors and they are picked up by electrodes on surface of skin. Signals analysed and converted into a pattern that can be used to control the prosthetic using artificial intelligence.
