A team of engineers at the University of Antwerp in The Netherlands has developed a 3D-printed robotic arm that can act as a sign language translator for deaf people. Sign language interpreters are often in short supply, and so this research team set out to develop a low cost automated system that can translate text […]
Author: Medgadged
Deep Sequencing of Loose DNA in Blood for Early Detection of Many Cancers
A collaborative project between scientists in the U.S., Denmark, and The Netherlands has developed a way of spotting bits of DNA in blood that derive from tumors deep in the body. The technology may allow for early detection of cancers before any symptoms arise and earlier than any other existing approach. Though the fact that tumors [… (Read more...)
Growing and Testing Drugs on Dozens of Tiny Guts at Once
In a demonstration of where the field of organ-on-a-chip technology is inevitably going, MIMETAS, a company developing organ-on-chip technology out of Leiden, The Netherlands, and Roche, the giant pharmaceutical company, teamed up to grow and test 350 perfused gut tubes within a matter of days. The gut tubes replicate the basic structure of an (Read more...)
Gold Nanostars and Immunotherapy Combined for a Cancer Vaccine
Researchers at Duke University have combined an FDA approved immunotherapy and a gold nanostar/laser treatment to completely eradicate tumors and vaccinate against the cancer. The team’s technique involves injecting gold nanoparticles into the bloodstream. These star-shaped nanoparticles (nanostars) can accumulate in tumors after circulating (Read more...)
Stimulating the Brain with Magnetic Fields Can Control Movement
Scientists have developed a method to stimulate small clusters of brain cells using magnetic fields. Using this technique, they were able to control movement in mice. Understanding how the brain works is an ongoing effort, with a huge number of research teams working intensively to unlock its secrets. As part of this effort, an international [&hell (Read more...)
Micromotors Powered by Stomach Acids Lower pH, Safely Release Antibiotics
Researchers at University of California San Diego have developed tiny micromotors that propel themselves around the stomach, neutralizing the acids within, eventually releasing a cargo of drugs once the pH is at a desired level. This approach can change how antibiotics and other pH sensitive drugs are delivered, as currently proton pump inhibitors (Read more...)
New Material to Help Repair Brain Tissue Damaged by Stroke
One of the reasons why strokes are so devastating is that brain tissue does not exhibit the same healing mechanisms as other tissues that repair themselves quickly. Integrin proteins are responsible for some of the healing processes, including getting new cells to move and having them adhere to the extracellular matrix, and these are not stron (Read more...)
Miniature Bioengineered Vessels to Study Progeria Therapies
Progeria is a rare but deadly disorder that is commonly known as an early aging disease, bringing forth conditions in children that are normally only reserved for older adults. To better study how to fight progeria, a disease that significantly affects the cardiovascular system, researchers at Duke University have developed a way to grow tiny [&hel (Read more...)
New Optical Tool to Spot Nerves During Surgery
A team of medical researchers has come up with a way to optically spot nerves within tissue, which should prevent nerve injuries that can happen during surgeries of the hand and other sensitive and delicate parts of the body. The technology uses something called collimated polarized light imaging (CPLi) and by rotating the polarization, one is (Read more...)
Silver Nanoparticle Coating and Tiny Electric Current Prevent Bacteria from Settling on Medical Devices
Silver ions and electric current are well known killers of bacteria that have been utilized to keep things clean in different scenarios for many years. Yet, their use is limited to only certain applications as a fairly high current or potentially toxic concentration of silver ions are needed to destroy bacterial buildup. At the Karolinska (Read more...)
SOZO High End Bioimpedance Spectroscopy System Being Released
ImpediMed, a company with offices in California and Australia, is releasing its new SOZO bioimpedance spectroscopy system that performs advanced body composition analysis. The technology involves sending out electric current through the arms and legs and detecting how the body affects it as it passes through. Though this technology has been in exis (Read more...)
New 3D Printing Method to Create Complex, Multi-Cellular Tissues
Researchers from University of Oxford have been working to overcome some of the major challenges of 3D printing living tissues and have just published a report of how they were able to create complex, multi-cellular structures that stay viable and are able to structurally support themselves. This high density bioprinting process is also cheap, (Read more...)
Paper Test for Zika Powered by Gold Nanoparticles
Zika is often a silent disease that might not display any symptoms in infected persons, making screening particularly important. In the developing world, mobile testing systems that can be easily transported and used are not available, so sending a sample to a lab is still required to detect Zika infected individuals. Researchers at Washington Univ (Read more...)
HAART 200 Aortic Annuloplasty Device for Bicuspid Valve Repair FDA Cleared
BioStable Science & Engineering out of Austin, Texas won FDA clearance for its HAART 200 aortic annuloplasty device indicated for repair of congenital bicuspid aortic valve in patients with aortic valve insufficiency. A similar device, the HAART 300 for people with all three aortic valve leaflets, was cleared by the FDA earlier this y (Read more...)
Injectable Tissue Patch to Fix Broken Hearts
Scientists at the University of Toronto have developed a bandage-like patch that can be delivered into the heart through a needle, in combination with stem cells allowing for minimally invasive cardiac tissue repair, currently an impossible task. After a massive heart attack, myocardial tissue damage can significantly reduce the cardiac output. One (Read more...)
Video Recognition System Tracks Washing Patterns of Hospital Workers
A team from Stanford University built and tested a computer vision system that uses cameras to track clinicians that wash their hands, helps to identify offenders that don’t do it often enough, and hopefully lowers the rate of disease transmission through a hospital. If the approach proves itself, it may convince hospitals to introduce this [ (Read more...)
Incentive-Based Systems to Improve Patient Compliance: Interview with Matt Loper, CEO of Wellth
Wellth, a digital health company based in New York, has developed a system that provides patients with daily financial incentives to improve their compliance with drug regimens. Low patient compliance results in significant issues in terms of patient health and increased financial costs. The company is particularly interested in targeting type 2 di (Read more...)
Handheld Device Coupled with Tissue Clearing to Analyze Biopsy Samples
A team of researchers at UCLA may have come up with a method that will introduce tissue biopsy analysis to places where medical systems currently can’t afford conventional pathology lab equipment. The technology relies on Clarity, a way of removing fat and other materials from tissue samples while leaving proteins and DNA behind, as (Read more...)
Data Mined Insurance Records Point to Interesting Disease Relationships
Data about who has what disease holds a lot of clues about the diseases themselves and their causes. Researchers at the University of Chicago undertook a data mining effort to figure out what genetic and environmental patterns that a few dozen common diseases share with each other. The team gathered data from insurance claims related […]
New Automatic Technique to Measure Blood Pressure with Greater Accuracy
Existing and commonly used automatic blood pressure meters suffer from inaccuracies. An old fashioned auscultatory blood pressure test can avoid inaccurate results, but it has to be performed by a medical professional. Now researchers at the Jerusalem College of Technology in Israel have developed a new method that may be more accurate than co (Read more...)