Researchers at the University of Michigan have shown that nanoparticles can distract neutrophils from causing inflammation, which could be helpful in treating inflammatory diseases. The immune cells carry the nanoparticles to the liver instead of causing inflammation at injury sites. Excessive inflammation is a component of many diseases, from athe (Read more...)
Author: Medgadged
Stryker’s Neuroform Atlas Stent Gets Humanitarian Device Exemption to Treat Brain Aneurysms
Stryker landed FDA approval for its Neuroform Atlas stent via a humanitarian device exemption (HDE). The nitinol stent is intended for use along with neurovascular embolic coils to treat wide neck, intracranial, saccular aneurysms. The coils are used to pack aneurysms, while the Neuroform Atlas stent is placed across the neck of the aneurysms (Read more...)
Ford Trialing Exoskeleton to Help Factory Workers Avoid Injuries
Ford, the automaker, is trialing a new exoskeleton at two of its factories. The device is designed to help line assembly workers perform overhead tasks. The exoskeleton, called EksoVest, was developed in a partnership with Ekso Bionics, a company we visited and whose technology we tried on ourselves a couple years ago. While Ekso has devoted [ (Read more...)
Students Win Dyson Award for sKan Melanoma Detector
A team of biomedical engineering students have won the 2017 international James Dyson Award, and the £30,000 ($39,000) prize that goes with it, for their innovative sKan device that uses skin temperature measurements to diagnose skin cancer. The James Dyson Award runs in 23 countries, and is open to university level students and recent g (Read more...)
CT Scanning at Resolutions Down to 100nm Unveiled by German Researchers
CT scanning technology has become a routine modality in many fields of medicine, and yet the imaging provided by CT scanners is pretty low resolution in a world of $500 4K TVs. Researchers at Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on a potentially revolutionary new way tha (Read more...)
Vaica Unveils Capsuled Drug Adherence System for Different Drug Types
Vaica Medical, a company out of Tel Aviv, Israel, is releasing a product designed to help introduce patients to new types of medications, such as injections and atomized drugs, or to complicated pill regimens. The cigar box-like device, called Capsuled, holds patient medications, like injectors and inhalators, and a touchscreen display provides a p (Read more...)
Speidel Scrub Watch Review: Matches Form, Simple Function
Well it is what it is! A watch that is targeted towards medical professionals who wear scrubs – i.e. doctors and nurses. They call it the Scrub Watch because the colors of the bands match with typical scrub colors. Speidel reached out to us to see if we would review their watch, and, slightly intrigued […]
Researchers Break Fundamental Barrier of Photoacoustic Imaging: Can View Capillaries at Super Resolution
Photoacoustic imaging is a way to look beneath the surface of a biological sample at high resolution. A laser is used to excite tissue, expanding it slightly and generating vibrations within it, which results in sound waves. It images better than ultrasound and at depths greater than optical techniques, revealing some pretty small objects (Read more...)
BITalino Body Monitoring Project Kit Gets Cloud Software Upgrade
BITalino is a set of hardware and software ingredients that allow just about anyone to build their own body monitoring devices. We’ve covered the technology in the past (see flashbacks below), which is designed for prototyping, research, and education. Now the folks behind BITalino have made it easier to collect data from different body senso (Read more...)
Gold Nanoshells Ferry Chemo Drugs Into Cancer Cells to Spare Rest of Body
Researchers at Rice and Northwestern universities engineered a way of encapsulating toxic chemo agents inside of gold nanoshells that deliver and deposit their contents only inside neoplastic cells. Reported on in the latest Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study involved getting docetaxel and l (Read more...)
Encellin is Developing a Cell Therapy Technology to Address Type I Diabetes
Molecular drugs are far from perfect. As biotechnology develops, researchers are finding that human cells may be used in the treatment of certain diseases, and in some cases offer benefits over traditional therapies. This is the theory behind Encellin, a San Francisco-based company that hopes to change the treatment for Type I diabetes. Encellin&rs (Read more...)
LabBag Automates Preparation, Management of Stem Cells
Stem cells are a way to test new drugs and therapies that would otherwise require the use of animals or difficult to obtain patient samples. While they have great potential for medicine, stem cells are hard to manage, particularly growing and differentiating them into other cells, and then storing them for later use. Now a […]
New Brain Probe Maps Dopamine in Brain to Help Study Psychiatric Drugs and Diseases
Researchers at University of California, Berkeley have developed special sensors that provide a look at the location and concentration of neurotransmitter chemicals, such as dopamine, inside living brain tissue. The new capability should help scientists to study a variety of neurological conditions and the drugs that are used to treat them. Th (Read more...)
DynamX, a Novel Stent That Turns from Rigid to Flexible While Inside Vessel
With every heart beat, our blood vessels expand and contract, something known as pulsatile motion. When commonly used metal stents are placed within vessels, they prevent those vessels from exhibiting pulsatile motion. This may be a cause of or a compounding factor for restenosis and may even lead to a cardiovascular disease to develop faster. [&he (Read more...)
An Ingredient Technology Company Powering the World of Wearables: Interview with Valencell VP Ryan Kraudel
At Medgadget, we cover a lot of digital health devices and wearables. Some are developed by startups, while others come from brand name businesses that have branched out into this new and growing market. A common thread among most of the digital health technologies covered is the need to record data through various sensor technologies. However (Read more...)
Reminder: Medgadget Sci-Fi Writing Contest!
We are excited to announce the return of the Medgadget Sci-Fi Writing Contest! We cover the latest medical technologies on a daily basis, many of which may seem like they come from the future. Yet, we feel that the medical device industry can benefit from the work of creative fiction writers, as literature of the […]
Targeted Radiotherapy Combined with Immunotherapy Kills 100% of Colorectal Cancer
Researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and from MIT are reporting the development of a new combination therapy that completely eliminates colon cancer, at least in laboratory mice. The technique is a type of radioimmunotherapy, which delivers radioactive particles directly to tumors on the backs of targeting antibodies that se (Read more...)
Nanoporous Needles May Significantly Boost Effectiveness of Acupuncture
Acupuncture still has a way to go to prove itself useful in many clinical applications, but its effectiveness may be significantly boosted by improving the needles that are used. A study in journal Nature Scientific Reports by researchers at DGIST (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea) introduces acupuncture (Read more...)
Claris Reflex Brings Monitored Rehab Following Total Knee Replacement to The Home
Claris Healthcare, a company with offices in Vancouver, Canada and Ferndale, Washington, is releasing its novel Claris Reflex knee rehab monitoring system. The product consists of a sensor attached to the leg, above and below the knee, that constantly measures the flexion and extension of a knee that underwent a surgical procedure, and a software [ (Read more...)
Medtronic’s Compact Intellis Implantable Neurostimulation System Cleared in Europe
Medtronic won European regulatory approval for its Intellis system, which can be used for either spinal cord or peripheral nerve neurostimulation to help relieve chronic pain. This is currently the smallest implantable spinal cord stimulator on the market, which was released in the U.S. only a couple of months ago. The Intellis implant delivers bot (Read more...)