Researchers at MIT have developed an ingestible chip containing genetically engineered E. coli. When swallowed, the bacteria can detect blood in the stomach, and produce light. The chip contains components that measure the amount of light produced and relays this information to a nearby smartphone, allowing a simple and non-invasive diagnosis of gastrointestinal bleeding. In […]
Tag: Materials
Cold Plasma Made Useful to Sterilize Medical Equipment
Cold plasma is a popular topic of research at Purdue University, including as a potential tool for killing cancer cells. It’s cold in the sense that only the electrons within the material are heated up to thousands of degrees, while the rest of the gaseous substance remains near room temperature. Now researchers at Purdue University […]
Soft and Highly Flexible Neural Interfaces Prevent Injury to Brain
While rigid neural interfaces can read brain activity and stimulate it quite well, these devices end up damaging the soft brain tissue they come in contact with. Moreover, the body ends up attacking these implants and forming protective layers around them that quickly degrade the electrodes. “Imagine you have a bowl of Jell-O, and you […]
New Coating for Dental Aligners Keeps Bacteria from Growing
Dental aligners, also known as retainers, are plastic devices that are used to slow adjust the position of the teeth. They’ve become extremely popular, but they require frequent changes because bacteria is known to make a home within the devices’ many small curves. Now a team of Korean researchers have developed a coating that can […]
3D-Printed Smart Gel Could Form Artificial Muscles
Researchers at Rutgers University have developed a 3D-printed hydrogel that can move in response to an electrical signal. The material has potential in soft robotics, and could be used as an artificial muscle in prostheses or implants, or even for drug delivery applications. Soft robotics is a thriving area of research, and soft robots have […]
Metal Based Detector of Dopamine Receptors May Help Identify Early Signs of Cancer
At Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), researchers have created the first metal-based probes for spotting dopamine receptors. While dopamine is best known as a neurotransmitter that plays a major role in defining our mood, dopamine receptors seem to be related to certain cancers. To study this relationship, a technique that can work on living animals […]
Easy Method of Separating Chiral Drug Molecules Discovered
The chiral difference between two molecules often plays a huge role in pharmacology and physiology, even though the two seem nearly identical. The difference, simply that they’re mirror images of each other, turns out to mean, for example, that some molecules of thalidomide cure morning sickness while their chiral twins lead to deformed children being […]
Thousands of Tiny Microfluidic Chips Create Perfectly Sized Drug Particles
While a drug’s chemical makeup determines what impact it will have on the body (pharmacodynamics), it is often the shell that it’s encapsulated in that defines how fast the drug will be released, the location of that release, and even how how the release can be triggered externally (pharmacokinetics). Allowing drug designers to tune such […]
Computer Simulations Help Grow Custom Replacement Cultured Heart Valves
Prosthetic heart valve implantations have become common in modern hospitals, but these devices are still far from perfect. Issues with longevity, calcification, and maintenance of a good fit over many years following placement are some of the existing concerns. An entirely different approach, which involves growing new valves from cultured human cells, may overcome many […]
Device Crushes Drugs Till They Flash to Discover Their Viability
Researchers from Purdue University and Merck & Co. have developed an innovative instrument to identify whether a potential drug has trace crystallinity, a factor that often makes potential medicines impractical for actual use. The device involves crushing powder made of the compound in question and detecting the light that’s produced, a technique known as triboluminescence. Here’s […]
Fluorescent Particles Bind to Cancer Cells to Spot and Diagnose Tumors
Mammograms have become extremely useful in identifying suspect lesions that may be cancer, but biopsies are still required to actually find out whether the tissue is cancerous. Researchers at University of Michigan have developed a molecule, which can be delivered in pill form, that connects to cell surface receptors on certain types of cancer cells. […]
Contact Lenses to Correct Color Perception in Color Blind People
Color correcting glasses have now been available for a few years, Enchroma being the most competitive firm in this business. While they provide impressive results, wearing glasses is not for everyone and combining color correcting qualities into complex lenses is not always easy. Now researchers at Birmingham University in the UK have developed a color […]
Printing Functional Electronics Directly Onto Skin
University of Minnesota researchers have figured out a way of printing electronics on top of skin, even onto hands that are unrestrained and slightly moving. We got a peek at the technology in the Fall of last year, when it was first presented at the 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in […]
Device Keeps Implanted Pancreatic Islets Oxygenated and Alive
MIT researchers have developed a device to keep implanted pancreatic islets oxygenated and alive. The technique involves a replenishable oxygen reservoir and a coating that protects the cells from the immune system. In tests in diabetic rats, the subcutaneous implants kept nearly 90% of the islets alive for up to eight months, and blood glucose […]
Graphene Spike Coating for Implants Kills Any Bacteria Trying to Settle
Graphene, the material that consists of a one atom thick layer of carbons, is so impressive that its development was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics. To add to its abilities, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden used it to create microscopic spikes that kill bacteria upon contact. Because our native cells are […]
Silk-Based Polymer to Help Repair Damaged Bones
University of Connecticut researchers have created a new orthopedic material for fixing bones that’s made out of spider silk, itself one of the world’s strongest natural materials. While silk fibroin, the protein in silk that gives it strength, is already in use in sutures and other medical devices, this is the first time it was […]
Transgenic Silkworms Produce Fluorescent, Bacteria Killing Silk
Fluorescent proteins tend to be toxic, so their clinical applications are sometimes limited and suspect. Researchers from Purdue University and the Korean National Institute of Agricultural Research engineered a new material, made of silk and some genetic engineering, that fluoresces well under green light without causing too much toxicity. The technology works thanks to a protein, which […]
Researchers Release Instructions to Convert 3D Printers Into Bioprinters
If you want to try doing 3D bioprinting at home or at a budget-strapped lab, commercial devices that only start at $10,000 may be out of reach. But researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have now published a series of instructions, as part of a study in Elsevier’s journal HardwareX, that let you turn a cheap […]
Caffeine-Containing Biocompatible Gels for Drug Delivery
Researchers at MIT have developed a biocompatible polymer gel with potential for drug delivery. The new gel uses caffeine as a gentle and biocompatible catalyst during its manufacture, unlike many other gels that require harsh catalysts or manufacturing conditions that can ruin sensitive biological drugs intended for delivery or pose health risks for patients. The […]
Hair-Sized Fiber-Optic Probe Can Measure Temperatures Deep Inside the Body
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have developed a tiny fiber-optic probe that can measure temperatures deep inside the body, while imaging structures in the region of interest. The probe, which has a similar thickness to a human hair, could help researchers to investigate the effects of drugs that raise temperatures in specific parts of […]