Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a ‘sucker’ to pick up and transfer thin cell or tissue sheets that are intended for therapeutic purposes, such as wound healing or tissue grafting. Inspired by octopus suckers, the device can gently manipulate the delicate sheets without causing damage, and uses heating and a temp (Read more...)
Tag: Plastic Surgery
Supportive Gel Allows for Bioprinting of Complex Shapes
Researchers at Penn State have developed a supportive gel that allows for printing of complex shapes using cell aggregates. The gel provides a supportive matrix during the printing process, and permits the researchers to place the aggregates wherever they want. This technique could pave the way for printed replacements for tissues and organs. Biopr (Read more...)
Oxygen-Releasing Bioink to Enhance Cell Survival in 3D Printed Structures
Researchers at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation in Los Angeles, California have developed an oxygen-releasing bioink that may be useful in 3D printing bioengineered cell constructs. This can help live cells to survive in limited oxygen environments, such as those that exist inside of 3D printed devices, in the first days after impla (Read more...)
Wearable Ozone Therapy Device for Chronic Wound Treatment
Researchers at Purdue University have developed a wearable device that can administer antibacterial ozone gas to chronic wounds to help disinfect them. The technology could allow people to disinfect chronic wounds at home, and would be helpful in cases where wounds have been colonized by drug-resistant bacteria and aren’t responding to antibi (Read more...)
Origami Surgical Manipulator to Perform Microsurgeries
Robotic surgical assistants, such as the da Vinci systems from Intuitive Surgical, are now routinely used during laparoscopic procedures to improve operative precision, flexibility, and to manipulate multiple tools at once. Such devices can be quite complex inside and so they tend to be quite large, often taking up much of the space of an [… (Read more...)
Tiny 3D Printed Cubes Serve as Scaffolding for Broken Bones
A good deal of orthopedic bone repair surgeries involve injecting powders or pastes, to serve as scaffoding, into fractures. Now a collaboration between scientists at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), University of Oregon, New York University, and Mahidol University in Thailand has led to the development of a Lego-like 3D printed scaff (Read more...)
Nanostimulators Activate Damaged Tissue to Heal Itself
Peripheral artery diseases and injuries to tissue reduce the amount of oxygen that reaches the affected muscles. Such ischemia is difficult to treat, as new vessels are required to carry more oxygen into damaged tissues. Stem cells derived from fat tissues have been shown to excrete substances that spur angiogenesis and calm nearby inflammation. Bu (Read more...)
Easily Removable Surgical Tape to Seal Internal Wounds
Researchers at MIT recently developed an adhesive tape that allows surgeons to seal internal wounds and that can readily stick to slippery internal surfaces, as a potential replacement for sutures. However, the adhesive worked a little too well, and was difficult to remove or adjust without causing irritation or tissue damage. Now, the research tea (Read more...)
Printed Soft Objects for Shape-Shifting Biomedical Implants
Researchers at Rice University have developed a method to 3D print soft structures that can reversibly change their shape in response to external stimuli, such as heat or an electric current. The researchers have dubbed their technique “reactive 4D printing” and it could have potential in creating adaptive biomedical implants that can r (Read more...)
Microneedle Patch for Delivering Stem Cells Into Tissue
Researchers at the Terasaki Institute in Los Angeles have developed a microneedle patch to deliver mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into the skin. The biodegradable needles contain a gelatin matrix in which MSCs can survive. Once applied to the skin and removed, the needles detach from the patch and remain within the tissue. The hard outer […]
Magnetic Tracking System for Flexible Surgical Robots
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a magnetic tracking system for surgical robots to operate with dexterity within the body. The technology does not require patient or clinician exposure to radiation, and is much less expensive that pre-existing monitoring techniques. A magnet is embedded in the tip of the robot an (Read more...)
Personalized Blood Flow Modeling Benefits from Virtual Reality Interface
Researchers at Duke University have developed a fluid dynamics simulator that can model blood flow within the body, including the motion of individual blood cells. The researchers hope that the system could eventually be used by clinicians to model blood flow for individual patients and help with treatment decisions, such as stent placement. By tes (Read more...)
Electric Stimulation Gives Robot-Assistive Surgery a Sense of Touch
A team of researchers at Texas A&M have performed studies evaluating how electrical stimulation can help users control robots, for example helping surgeons steady their movements during robot-assisted procedures. They found, in 11 subjects, that small electrical stimulations to the fingertips can help users control the pinching of a hardwood bl (Read more...)
SX-One MicroKnife Makes Carpal Tunnel Release a Minimally Invasive Procedure: Interview with CEO Dr. Darryl Barnes
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a fairly common diagnosis in the United States, affecting approximately three to six percent of adults. Symptoms include pain, numbness, and tingling along the thumb, index, and middle fingers. For severe or refractory cases, the best treatment is surgery. However, because open surgery requires anesthesia and many weeks of (Read more...)
New Non-Toxic, Printable Biomedical Material Developed
Synthetic dry elastomers are polymeric materials that feature cross-linked networks that form into random and unordered shapes and textures. These materials have a host of properties that are applicable in biomedicine, but the randomness of their internal structures at different scales makes it difficult to actually use these elastomers. Now, resea (Read more...)
Universal Biomedical 3D Printing Ink Developed
3D printing is already used in medicine in many applications, but there’s still a great deal that custom-built implants could offer to patients. Bioinks, the materials from which bespoke implants can printed, may be the most important focus of research aimed at expanding the use of additive manufacturing, another term for 3D printing, in medi (Read more...)
Device Prints Scaffolds Inside Wounds to Replace Lost Tissue
3D printing of artificial scaffolds intended to replace injured tissues has become a ballyhooed technology that’s yet to prove itself in clinical practice. One issue that complicates things is that the scaffolds have to match the volume that they’ll be replacing, in both shape and the direction in which cells will have to grow. To [&hel (Read more...)
Microsure MUSA Robot Used for First Time on Real Patients
In a world first, clinicians at Maastricht University have used a robot to perform “supermicrosurgeries”, which involved operating on vessels as small as 0.3 mm in diameter. The procedures were conducted on women with lymphedema, a condition that arose as a result of breast cancer, whose lymphatic vessels were connected to veins to prov (Read more...)
Textiles from Human Cells for Replacement Vessels, Tissues, Organs
Scientists at University of Bordeaux/French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) have developed a completely new biological material, made using human fibroblast cells, that can be turned into sutures, vascular grafts, and many other medical devices and tissue replacements. They showed that their Cell-Assembled extracellular M (Read more...)
New Customizable Bio-Ink for Printing Organs, Tissues
3D printing of tissues and organs requires a bio-ink that can host the living cells that are required for every unique application. A viable construct requires an extracellular matrix that will have the right mechanical and biochemical properties for the intended cells. Researchers at Rutgers University believe they’re on track to being able (Read more...)