‘Artificial muscles’ help fractured leg bones heal better. Orthopaedic implants are used to fixate the bone fragments of fractures. Novel smart implants are now being developed that can continuously monitor and actively promote bone healing – by, for example, micro-massaging the fracture site. This innovative medical technology is currently under development at Saarland University by an interdisciplinary team of medical specialists, engineers and computer scientists. The team of engineers led by Professors Stefan Seelecke and Paul Motzki have equipped the…
…for comprehensive heart monitoring. In a boon for medical researchers, new tool is the first that can measure both mechanical movement and electrical signal in vitro using a single sensor. A team of engineers led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and including colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently announced in the journal Nature Communications that they had successfully built a tissue-like bioelectronic mesh system integrated with an array of atom-thin graphene sensors that can simultaneously measure…
New model can advance research into neurodegenerative diseases. In a joint project between TU Wien and MedUni Vienna, the world’s first 3D-printed “brain phantom” has been developed, which is modelled on the structure of brain fibres and can be imaged using a special variant of magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI). As a scientific team led by TU Wien and MedUni Vienna has now shown in a study, these brain models can be used to advance research into neurodegenerative diseases such as…
Scientists have developed an ingestible capsule dotted with sensors that can detect pressure in a patient’s guts and detect points of failure. The ingestible system will give colorectal medical teams an unprecedented understanding of the movement of a patient’s digestive tract, or lack thereof. Instead of simply taking images of inside the guts, the system will sense whether it’s contracting, how much pressure is exerted and exactly where it might be inactive. The system has been tested in a synthetic…
The adhesive neck patch is the latest advance by UCLA bioengineers in speech technology for people with disabilities. People with voice disorders, including those with pathological vocal cord conditions or who are recovering from laryngeal cancer surgeries, can often find it difficult or impossible to speak. That may soon change. A team of UCLA engineers has invented a soft, thin, stretchy device measuring just over 1 square inch that can be attached to the skin outside the throat to help…
… with the development of a new optical sensor. For decades, people with diabetes have relied on finger pricks to withdraw blood or adhesive microneedles to measure and manage their glucose levels. Researchers have taken an important step towards eliminating this discomfort. For decades, people with diabetes have relied on finger pricks to withdraw blood or adhesive microneedles to measure and manage their glucose levels. In addition to being painful, these methods can cause itching, inflammation and infection. Researchers at…
Medical image analysis using AI has developed rapidly in recent years. Now, one of the largest studies to date has been carried out using AI-assisted image analysis of lymphoma, cancer of the lymphatic system. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, have developed a computer model that can successfully find signs of lymph node cancer in 90 percent of cases. New computer-aided methods for interpreting medical images are being developed for various medical conditions. They can reduce the workload…
Herz- und Diabeteszentrum NRW, Bad Oeynhausen: “Three-dimensional imaging quality facilitates new ways of evaluating and treating structural cardiac diseases.” Experts have been discussing the use of holograms to support medical-clinical decision-making and treatment for more than two decades. The technology is now so far advanced that physicians can simultaneously take an exact replica of the beating heart of a patient and turn it around in their hands, look at it from all angles or measure distances with their fingertips. For…
New platform separates biomarkers with a water droplet-based centrifuge that spins up to 6000 RPM, pushed only by sound waves. Mechanical engineers at Duke University have devised a new type of diagnostic platform that uses sound waves to spin an individual drop of water up to 6,000 revolutions per minute. These speeds separate tiny biological particles within samples to enable new diagnostics based on exosomes. This blue-glowing water is being spun around by nothing but sound waves. Reaching speeds up…
Equipped with novel homing abilities, the platform activates in cancer environments to release gene-editing tools. A newly developed “GPS nanoparticle” injected intravenously can home in on cancer cells to deliver a genetic punch to the protein implicated in tumor growth and spread, according to researchers from Penn State. They tested their approach in human cell lines and in mice to effectively knock down a cancer-causing gene, reporting that the technique may potentially offer a more precise and effective treatment for…
A research team from the University of St Andrews and the University of Cologne has developed a new wireless light source that might one day make it possible to ‘illuminate’ the human body from the inside. Such light sources could enable novel, minimally invasive means to treat and better understand diseases that today require the implantation of bulky devices. The study was published under the title ‘Wireless Magnetoelectrically Powered Organic Light-Emitting Diodes’ in Science Advances. The new approach presented by…
First-of-its-kind device ‘tags’ an organ to monitor abnormal, life-threatening fluid leaks. Researchers led by Northwestern University and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new, first-of-its-kind sticker that enables clinicians to monitor the health of patients’ organs and deep tissues with a simple ultrasound device. When attached to an organ, the soft, tiny sticker changes in shape in response to the body’s changing pH levels, which can serve as an early warning sign for post-surgery complications…
The mammalian brain is a web of densely interconnected neurons, yet one of the mysteries in neuroscience is how tools that capture relatively few components of brain activity have allowed scientists to predict behavior in mice. It is hard to believe that much of the brain’s complexity is irrelevant background noise. “We wondered why such a redundant and metabolically costly scheme would have evolved,” says Rockefeller’s Alipasha Vaziri. Now, a new study in Neuron—which presents an unprecedented simultaneous recording of the…
…in newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients. Radioguided surgery can detect and remove metastatic pelvic lymph nodes in patients newly diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Targeting the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), which is overexpressed in most prostate cancer patients, radioguided surgery can improve nodal staging to guide treatment recommendations for this important patient population. In newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients, nodal involvement correlates with recurrence, and determining if lymph…
Bioengineered advancement may have implications for more natural-looking reconstructive surgery outcomes, according to international research team. Fat tissue holds the key to 3D printing layered living skin and potentially hair follicles, according to researchers who recently harnessed fat cells and supporting structures from clinically procured human tissue to precisely correct injuries in rats. The advancement could have implications for reconstructive facial surgery and even hair growth treatments for humans. The team’s findings published today (March 1) in Bioactive Materials. The U.S….
A new analysis method can detect pathogens in blood samples faster and more accurately than blood cultures, which are the current state of the art for infection diagnosis. The new method, called digital DNA melting analysis, can produce results in under six hours, whereas culture typically requires 15 hours to several days, depending on the pathogen. Not only is this method faster than blood cultures, it’s also significantly less likely to generate false positives compared to other emerging DNA detection-based…
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