Jay Walker, the host of TEDMED, collects fascinating historical artifacts that highlight the power of human imagination. During the last conference, Jay took five minutes to introduce us to the medical side of the first manned mission to the Moon and how long distance telemedicine was done in the 1960′s.
Posts by: Gene Ostrovsky
Prosthetic Artificial Vocal Cords to Replace Damaged Ones
Researchers from MIT and Harvard are working on artificial polymer vocal cords that may one day help those with the damaged organs to regain their voice. Here’s a Bytesize Science video report produced by the American Chemical Society that describes how the researchers are working on their technology:
BioDigital Human Anatomy System Expands Possibilities for Virtual Bodies
There have been a lot of human anatomy simulators made over the years, but when we saw the BioDigital Human at the last TEDMED we were sold. Here’s John Qualter, co-founder of BioDigital Systems, and Dr. Marc Triola, Associate Dean for Educational Informatics at NYU School of Medicine, talking about the simulator and what led to its development.
Draeger Infinity Acute Care System Coming to North America
Dräger is bringing its Infinity Acute Care System, an advanced ICU monitoring package, to the U.S. and Canada. The system features a wireless patient monitor that stays attached to the bed, allowing for quick movement of patients between different clinical departments without ever losing live data feeding back to the central console.
The Infinity includes Masimo’s complete rainbow SET noninvasive Pulse CO-Oximetry, interfaces with Dräger’s ventilators, and the “Medical Cockpit” integrates the data with information from the EMR including diagnostic images and patient history.
Presentations from Health Hack Day Now Available for Online Viewing
This past weekend, Hoa’s Tool Shop and Psykologifabriken, two Swedish sister companies, hosted the Health Hack Day (really three days), an event in Stockholm where computer programmers get to spar in a challenge to develop new medical apps.
The organizers posted video presentations from the Health Hack Day participants and here is team Line HQ, the winner of the contest, presenting their app that reads urinalysis test strips and converts the results for easy reading by professionals and patients.
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Viruses Used to Generate Electricity from Mechanical Motion
Viruses, though commonly associated with infectious disease, have been increasingly used therapeutically in medicine over the last few years. Now, thanks to researchers at UC Berkeley, viruses might see an even greater rehabilitation of their reputation.
After discovering that the commonly studied M13 bacteriophage is piezoelectric, the Berkeley team developed a device that turns mechanical energy into electricity thanks to their genetically engineered version of the virus. The discovery has consequences for nanotechnology, portable devices, and of course for energy hungry medical implants.
Medtronic’s Resolute Integrity DES Grabs New Indications in EU
Medtronic has received expanded clearance for a bunch of new indications for its flagship Resolute Integrity drug eluting coronary stent in countries using the CE Mark. It was previously labeled for use in patients with diabetes and multi-vessel disease, but is now also approved for acute coronary syndromes, acute myocardial infarction, unstable angina, bifurcations, in-stent restenosis, total occlusions and chronic total occlusions.
Recent clinical study results, according to the latest company’s announcement:
NIH Director Francis Collins on Speeding Up Arrival of New Disease Treatments
Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, spoke at the last TEDMED about the challenges of converting fundamental research into practical therapeutics. In addition to proposing new approaches like repurposing of drugs and using manufactured human tissue for testing new compounds, he spoke on stage with a 15-year-old boy with Hutchinson–Gilford Progeria, a rare condition that accelerates aging, who had some words for medical researchers everywhere.
Severely Disabled People Control Robotic Arm Through Thought (video)
We’ve been covering the development of the BrainGate brain-computer interface system for the last seven years, and we’re glad to see that it’s now at a point where severely disabled tetraplegics are able to control a robotic arm in three dimensional space purely by thinking about it.
The system relies on an implanted 96-channel microelectrode array attached to the brain that records the motor cortex neurons responsible for arm movement. Because the implant reads the very neurons that are normally activated during arm movement, the people in the study didn’t require any explicit training or instruction in operating the roboarm. One of the two people in the study, who last moved her arms effectively before a severe stroke 14 years prior, was able to control the robotic hand to pick up a cup and take a drink from it. See for yourself in this Nature video:
