Most people with early-stage glaucoma don’t know they have it, even though early treatment is key to reducing vision loss. While detecting a subtle increase in eye pressure helps doctors to diagnose glaucoma, it’s challenging to monitor continuously, especially with the variety of temperatures eyes experience. Now, researchers in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces report a prototype “smart” contact lens that measures eye pressure accurately, regardless of temperature. About three million people in the U.S. have glaucoma, a group of…
Magnesium implants support coronary arteries and keep them open. Constricted coronary arteries harbor dangers: Because the heart is not supplied with blood properly, this can lead to pain, cardiac arrhythmia, cardiac insufficiency and sudden cardiac death. One way of eliminating a constriction in a vessel is to implant a stent. This involves the minimally invasive insertion of a small mesh tube into the vessel. Until now, all stents were made of metal and remained in the body, sometimes for decades,…
Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) could benefit from a future treatment to repair nerve connections using red and near-infrared light. The method, invented by scientists at the University of Birmingham, U.K. and patented by University of Birmingham Enterprise, involves delivering light directly to the site of the injury. Their latest research, published today in the journal Bioengineering and Translational Medicine has determined an optimal ‘dose’ for this novel therapeutic approach, and shown that it can deliver significant therapeutic improvements…
USC Viterbi School of Engineering researcher Hangbo Zhao presents findings on highly stretchable and customizable microneedles for application in fields including neuroscience, tissue engineering, and wearable bioelectronics. The revolution in personalized medicine is well underway – with wearable devices and DIY home testing, it’s easier than ever to track everything from heart rate, to glucose levels, to microbiome diversity. However, there’s still an innovation gap before we achieve a seamless interface between the human body and invasive monitoring devices. That’s…
Nucleic acid-based medications such as mRNA vaccines are opening up new therapeutic approaches. These active ingredients must be enclosed inside nanoparticles to ensure that they get to where they are needed inside the body’s cells. The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK and FDX Fluid Dynamix GmbH have worked together to develop a technology platform for the production of nanoparticles that can achieve particle quality and stability at levels previously out of reach: FDmiX (Fraunhofer Dynamic Mixing…
Oxygen saturation in the blood that is either too low or too high can cause physical harm or even death. This is why patients’ oxygen concentraions are monitored continuously in both intensive care and trauma units. However, the pulse oximeters clipped onto a patient’s fingertip for this purpose can be unreliable. Researchers at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have developed a fluorescence-based sensor that measures the oxygen content of people’s breath directly and in real time. The sensor determines the oxygen concentration in…
…gives new hope to patient with terminal illness. Surgeons at NYU Langone Health performed the first-ever combined mechanical heart pump and gene-edited pig kidney transplant surgery in a 54-year-old woman with heart and kidney failure—a confluence of advances that showcase the possibility and hope of modern medicine. Doctors performed this feat in two stages: first surgically implanting the heart pump days before embarking on the landmark transplant, which included a gene-edited pig kidney and the pig’s thymus gland to aid…
… can monitor brain activity in real-time during brain surgery. The device represents a huge leap ahead to visualize brain activity to guide neurosurgeons. A thin film that combines an electrode grid and LEDs can both track and produce a visual representation of the brain’s activity in real-time during surgery–a huge improvement over the current state of the art. The device is designed to provide neurosurgeons visual information about a patient’s brain to monitor brain states during surgical interventions to…
Researchers at UC San Diego have deployed state-of-the art imaging techniques to discover the metabolism driving Alzheimer’s disease; results suggest new treatment strategies. Alzheimer’s disease causes significant problems with memory, thinking and behavior and is the most common form of dementia, affecting more than 50 million people around the world each year. This number is expected to triple by the year 2050. Using their own state-of-the art imaging technologies, scientists at the University of California San Diego have now revealed…
Using light pulses as a model for electrical defibrillation, Göttingen scientists developed a method to assess and modulate the heart function. The research team from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) and the University Göttingen Medical Center thus paved the way for an efficient and direct treatment for cardiac arrhythmias. This may be an alternative for the strong and painful electrical shocks currently used. Cardiac arrhythmias account for around 15-20% of annual deaths worldwide. In case of…
…offers increased access for prostate cancer patients. A novel SPECT/CT acquisition method can accurately detect radiopharmaceutical biodistribution in a convenient manner for prostate cancer patients, opening the door for more personalized treatment. Utilizing lead-212 (212Pb), the new imaging technique has the potential to change practice and increase access for patients around the world. The first-in-human images from this method were published in the April issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. There is significant interest in the development of 212Pb-PSMA–based targeted alpha therapy…
Many kidney diseases are manifested by protein in the urine. However, until now it was not possible to determine whether the protein excretion is caused by only a few, but severely damaged, or by many moderately damaged of the millions of small kidney filters, known as glomeruli. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn, in cooperation with mathematicians from the University of Bonn, have developed a new computer method to clarify this question experimentally. The results of their work have now…
Columbia biomedical engineers use AI to build a transformative new tool to study and diagnose heart function. Understanding heart function and disease, as well as testing new drugs for heart conditions, has long been a complex and time-consuming task. A promising way to study disease and test new drugs is to use cellular and engineered tissue models in a dish, but existing methods to study heart cell contraction and calcium handling require a good deal of manual work, are prone…
… for the treatment of patients with myocardial infarction using umbilical cord stem cells. The results of a pioneering study support the safety of the bioimplants called PeriCord, made from stem cells of the umbilical cord and pericardium from a tissue donor, which aid in the regeneration and revascularisation of the affected area. The study has monitored 7 interventions of this pioneering tissue engineering surgery over three years, noting excellent biocompatibility and no rejection in patients. The therapy has been…
Innovative therapy: MHH cardiology can now replace any heart valve in a minimally invasive procedure. First patient receives tricuspid valve without major surgery thanks to innovative catheter system. The human heart has four heart valves. They ensure that the blood flows in the correct direction with every heartbeat. If a heart valve no longer closes properly, it may need to be replaced with a prosthesis. Until now, it was only possible to perform this procedure minimally invasively, i.e. without major…
In a 10-center study, microwave ablation offered progression free survival rates and fewer complications than surgery in the treatment of a form of thyroid cancer known as papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), according to research published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The most common type of thyroid cancer, PTC often presents with multifocality, meaning that two or more bumps or nodules (papillae) are found within the thyroid gland. The occurrence of multifocality within…
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