Kaylene Kau, a recent graduate of the Industrial Design Department at the University of Washington, is suggesting a different approach to prosthetic arms than by simply trying to replicate the human original. Octopuses have made great use of tentacles that can wrap around objects, hence appendage-based devices might deliver good functionality while avoiding the precision required of prosthetic fingers. So who’s ever said that replacement body parts have to be modeled on the human species?
Link: Kaylene Kau’s Prosthetic Arm…
(hat tip: Gizmodo)
Archives: 2010
Dutch researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and Academic Medical Centre (AMC) Amsterdam have developed a potential new method of identifying prostate cancer tumors. Microbubbles that act as an ultrasound contrast agent are first injected into the prostate, and because the structure of vessels within tumors is different than in normal parenchyma, offending tissue looks different on ultrasound:
The technology has been tested on four patients from whom the affected prostate was removed. Massimo Mischi of the TU/e department of Electrical Engineering explains. The location and size of the tumors turned out to match accurately with the images produced using the new technology.
Next year the research team will carry out a pilot with biopsies guided by images made using the new technology. This allows the biopsies to be targeted, and therefore more effective. In a later phase the ultrasound technology will be used to decide whether biopsies are required, which will reduce the number of biopsies carried out. The researchers expect their technology to be available in hospitals within five years. The ultimate goal is for doctors to be able to determine if an operation is necessary, and if so what kind of operation, based on the images produced, without the need for biopsies.
Full story: Accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer with ultrasound …
Cardiac Science has introduced two new electrocardiographs (ECGs) in the Burdick line. For a large part, the new 8000 series are pretty standard ECG devices, one, the 8500 with a nice color display, and the other, the 8300 with a more basic set of features. However, the nice touch is that both of these devices come with wired Ethernet, wireless 802.11 and Bluetooth onboard, with bi-directional communication to EMRs and diagnostic workstations. Patient information can be downloaded directly from the EMR, saving time and avoiding typing mistakes, and acquired ECGs can be sent directly to the EMR. In the picture you see the Burdick 8300, while the video below shows the Burdick 8500. Both are available exclusively in the United States.
Press release: Cardiac Science Introduces the Next Generation of Burdick ECG Devices…
Product pages: Burdick 8300…, Burdick 8500…
Valeritas, from Bridgewater, N.J., has received FDA approval for its V-Go disposable insulin delivery device. The V-Go does both continuous subcutaneous insulin delivery and on-demand bolus dosing. It is fully disposable, meant to be worn for 24 hours before replacement and uses no electronic parts. The device uses the company’s h-patch technology featuring a microneedle, an earlier version of which is shown above. It is aimed at type 2 diabetic patients and is available with preset basal rates of 20, 30 or 40 Units of insulin per 24 hours, with 2 Unit boluses. The device is small enough to be worn under normal clothes and weighs approximately 1 ounce when full. The V-Go will be commercially available in 2011. It seems like a great solution for type 2 diabetics, although details on pricing have not yet been disclosed.
Press release: Valeritas Receives FDA 510(k) Clearance for the V-Go™ Disposable Insulin Delivery Device…
Product page: Valeritas V-Go…
Researchers at A*STAR Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore are using two-photon laser scanning photolithography to build microstructured 3D scaffolds for use in future biomaterial applications. A laser essentially binds molecules within a polymer block together into a “crosslinkable” pattern that forms the 3D structure. An organic solvent is then used to wash out the remains.
From the abstract in Biomaterials:
Current tissue engineering scaffolds fabricated via solvent casting and porogen leaching methods suffer from the lack of control over parameters such as interconnectivity and pore geometry, properties that are a function of the fabrication process. The progress of tissue engineering would thus benefit from the ability to design scaffolds that facilitate cell–cell interactions, and provide mass transfer characteristics necessary for good cell viability and function. In this research, we have developed two-photon laser scanning photolithography (TPLSP) for the fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) microstructured scaffolds with high resolution and fidelity. Modification of our two-photon setup allowed for a scan height of 30 mm and a scan speed of 30 mm/s, making it more amenable to scaffold fabrication. Scaffold production was adapted to computer-aided design (CAD)/computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) technology, to achieve the desired length scales from the submicron level and up. A commercially available photocurable resin that exhibited favorable ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) transparency, cell compatibility and reproducibility in fabrication was used as the scaffold material. As a proof-of-concept, a microporous, cubic scaffold was fabricated for the purpose of hepatocyte culture. Primary hepatocytes could be uniformly seeded on these scaffolds as observed by confocal fluorescence microscopy. Albumin and urea assays demonstrated that hepatocytes cultured in the 3D scaffold maintained higher levels of liver-specific function over a period of 6 days as compared to the monolayer control. These results may be attributed to the high local concentration of soluble factors within the scaffold, which is important for maintaining the hepatocyte phenotype. Our study illustrates the potential of TPLSP as a new platform for the fabrication of designed, well-controlled, 3D microstructured tissue scaffolds.
Press release: Photolithography using a two-photon laser makes it possible to produce precise microstructured scaffolds for tissue engineering …
Abstract in Biomaterials: Three-dimensional microstructured tissue scaffolds fabricated by two-photon laser scanning photolithography
As we reported last year, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, are working on spinal neurostimulation to make spinal cord injured persons walk again. They have advanced a bit further and now use a “neural bridge” that carries neural signals across spinal cord injury lesions. Currently the researchers are in a stage where they can make rats with severed spinal cords and completely paralyzed hind legs run on all four legs again. One of the tricks exploited here is the fact that walking is controlled in a big part by spinal cord reflexes. Thus, only a simple signal needs to be transferred to the spinal cord part distal of the lesions to set the walking reflex in motion. This also means that the neural bridge only needs to be attached to electrodes on the outside membrane of the severed spinal cord, avoiding the complexity of connecting individual nerve bundles. Slow neural pulses invoke a stepping pattern and once the legs bear weight the movement pattern is automatically continued without the need for additional pulses. This produces better walking patterns than what complicated muscle stimulation devices have achieved so far.
Rats are at an advantage here however, in that they walk on four legs, which enables the researchers to detect walking activity using implanted EMG wires into the front legs. The wires are connected to a small device on the back of the rat, seen in the picture above, which sends out pulses to the spinal cord when walking activity is detected on the EMG. So far the technique works fine with rats in a treadmill, however there will still be much work ahead before it will be usable in two-legged humans walking on flat surfaces.
More: MIT Technology Review: Device Helps Paralyzed Rats Walk Again…
Image credit: Parad Gad
Imagine a water bottle that knows how hard and how far you are running, how much you’re drinking, what’s the outside temperature, and, based on all these variables, the device calculates when you need to have a drink. Cambridge Consultants have developed the i-dration bottle that does just that.
Intelligent sensors in the i-dration bottle can be used to monitor the external temperature, drinking frequency and quantity, and this data is then sent via Bluetooth to its user’s smartphone. The phone’s inbuilt accelerometer and gyroscope can measure exercise levels, and by ‘fusing’ the data from a heart rate chest-band and information pre-entered using the smartphone interface (such as height, age and weight), the application can perform an assessment of a user’s hydration levels. The i-dration bottle then responds accordingly by flashing a blue light if the athlete needs to drink more.
i-dration demonstrates the work that Cambridge Consultants is currently undertaking in bringing mobile applications to life. “Most people still perceive an ‘app’ to be something that performs a certain task, whether it’s checking the weather or the latest sports results, in a virtual world. However, we believe that in the next 12 to 18 months we will see a plethora of new dedicated ‘hardware apps’, such as the i-dration drinks bottle, that will work in tandem with a smartphone to enhance a range of consumer products and services ,” said Rachel Harker, Business Development Manager at Cambridge Consultants.
Press release: Real-time hydration advice from new ‘smart’ drinks bottle …
A team of European researchers has developed an endoscopic microscope to visualize bacteria in the gut associated with inflammatory bowel disease. The researchers tagged bacteria with enhanced green fluorescent protein and used the Confocal Laser Endomicroscope (CLE) to image fluorescence in vivo in live mice.
From the study abstract in Gut:
Methods Initially, E coli strains expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein (pEGFP) were endomicroscopically imaged in mice. In addition, ex vivo and in vivo imaging of fluorescent human enteric bacteria was performed to specify the distinct endomicroscopic appearance of enteral bacteria. Targeted mucosal biopsies towards endomicroscopic identifiable intramucosal bacteria and negative mucosal areas were prospectively obtained during colonoscopy and correlated with bench-top fluorescence microscopy (FISH) to prove the endomicroscopic visualisation of intramucosal bacteria. Finally, a retrospective analysis as well as a prospective study was performed in patients with UC and CD to confirm the presence and distribution of intramucosal bacteria within the gut.
Results Confocal endomicroscopy was able to identify intramucosal pEGFP E coli in mice and strains of enteric microflora in the mucosa of humans. Using FISH as the gold standard, evaluation of 21 patients showed that CLE had a sensitivity of 89% and specificity of 100% to identify intramucosal bacteria. In a retrospective study, 113 patients with CD and UC had intramucosal bacteria significantly more often than 50 control patients (66% vs 60% vs 14%, p<0.001). This result was confirmed in a prospective study in which 10 patients with CD and 10 with UC had a significantly wider distribution of involvement with intramucosal bacteria in the colon and terminal ileum compared with 10 controls (85.2% vs 75.9% vs 16.8%, p<0.0001).
Paper in Gut: Confocal laser endomicroscopy is a new imaging modality for recognition of intramucosal bacteria in inflammatory bowel disease in vivo
East Anglia University press release: New tool in the early detection of bowel disease …
Felasfa M. Wodajo, an orthopedic surgeon in the Washington DC area and senior editor of iMedicalApps.com, has published a short article in the Journal of Surgical Radiology describing his experience with using an iPad in the OR. Not surprisingly, his experience is generally positive and Dr Wodajo finds great use in having patient imagery along with other tools available in a light package. One particularly interesting finding is that while using gloved hands to operate the iPad produces poor results, having it wrapped in a common surgical plastic bag delivers a better touch sensitivity.
Journal of Surgical Radiology column: The iPad in the Hospital and Operating Room
Press release: Apple iPad Becomes an Icon in the Operating Room …
Images courtesy of iMedicalApps.com…
