Antibiotics are usually only needed at particular sites, where infection is likely to start. Yet, they’re delivered throughout the entire body via pills and injections. This results in poor localized effectiveness, unnecessary effects on the rest of the body, and sometimes leads to the development of resistance. Researchers at Flinders Univer (Read more...)
Tag: Plastic Surgery
Alvo Medical Shows Off Its Vision of The Future of Operating Room Design
Located in the picturesque town of Śmigiel, Poland, Alvo Medical is a family-run business that specializes in everything related to operating room layout and design. Since the company first started producing steel operating room furniture 25 years ago, Alvo has grown to become a worldwide provider of innovative healthcare solutions in the OR. (Read more...)
Galen Microsurgery System Eliminates Hand Tremor
Galen Robotics, a company based in Baltimore, Maryland, has been working on incorporating robotics and microsurgery. Microsurgery requires a steady hand and a great deal of patience, something that robots can be pretty good at. By creating an innovative interface between the surgeon’s hands and a specially designed robot, Galen’s techno (Read more...)
Smith & Nephew Releases PICO 7Y Negative Pressure Wound Therapy in U.S.
In the United States, Smith & Nephew is releasing its PICO 7Y negative pressure therapy system that can treat two wounds at the same time. The device uses a single pump to support two dressings thanks to a special Y extension. The capability helps to reduce costs and makes it easier on patients. Women undergoing […]
Sacrificial Ink Writing Technique for 3D Printed Organs
Researchers at Harvard have developed a way to 3D print vascular channels in large matrices composed of stem cell-derived organ building blocks. The technique could pave the way for 3D-printed organs. Creating human organs using 3D printing would help to address the current shortfall in available transplants. However, to date, this has proved to be (Read more...)
Nexus Ultrasonic Surgical Platform from Misonix Cleared in Europe
Mixonix, a Farmingdale, New York company that focuses on ultrasonic devices for surgical applications, including osteotomies and debridements, landed European CE Mark approval for its Nexus surgical platform. The system was FDA cleared earlier this year. The Nexus combines the capabilities of Mixonix’s three existing products, namely BoneScal (Read more...)
Biomaterial Tricks Immune System to Grow New Blood Vessels
Researchers from Harvard’s Wyss Institute have developed a new biomaterial that can activate T cells to promote vascularization of ischemic tissues. Their work demonstrates that the biomaterial results in local blood vessel development, increased perfusion, and new muscle growth after ischemia. Various compounds have been tested to try to imp (Read more...)
Magnetically Controlled Soft Robots to Operate on Human Body
Although a myriad of robots is already used in a variety of industries, including medicine, they’re almost exclusively rigid devices using conventional mechanics. To best work with the pliability of the human body, it may be advantageous for medical robots to be soft and not include gears, motors, and metal cables. Researchers at North Caroli (Read more...)
Future of Robotics in Healthcare: Interview with Corey Ryan of Kuka Laboratories
As the manager of Medical Robotics at KUKA Robotics, Corey Ryan is at the helm of company’s research, sales, and growth in the medical sector for North America. Under his leadership, KUKA has diversified its expertise to grow its relationships with startups and expand its robotic applications. Corey is a sought after speaker and has [… (Read more...)
Using Microparticles to Measure Oxygen in Tissues
The field of tissue engineering is rapidly progressing, in large part thanks to hydrogel scaffolds that provide a comfortable home for new cells. A major issue that researchers bump against is tracking how well oxygen reaches freshly grown cells within such scaffolds, which can indicate how well the new cells are generally functioning. Now, researc (Read more...)
Smart Bandage Pulls Skin Together to Speed Healing
Wounds on the skin are usually treated with bandages that protect the area and keep it moist, but which don’t actively help to promote healing. Researchers at Harvard and McGill universities have now created a mechanotherapy bandage that actually works to close the wound, keeps it protected from microbes, and speeds up healing much faster [&h (Read more...)
Printing Skin, Bones for Surgeries on Way to Mars
Traveling to Mars, our closest planet and which may one day serve as another base for humanity, is very far away. Any practical mission there and back will take years. The health of the astronauts undertaking such a journey will be paramount, so researchers are working on ways to be able to create customized tissues […]
Floating Flexible Sensor to Monitor Engineered Tissues and Cell Cultures
Tissue engineering is a vibrant research field poised to revolutionize how we heal organs and tissues following damage from injury and disease. One of the difficulties that scientists working with cultured cells discover is the inability to closely monitor a number of characteristics of their cellular cultures. One reason is that water and electron (Read more...)
Protein-Loaded Antimicrobial Hydrogel to Treat, Prevent Bone Infections
Bone infections are quite common following orthopedic surgery or as a result of injury or disease. They can be incredibly difficult to treat, and heavy duty antibiotic regimens coupled with debridement surgery is the current approach. Even after all that, inflammation is a frequent side effect. Now, researchers at Georgia Tech have created a hydrog (Read more...)
3D-Printing Utilized to Grow New Human Hair
Researchers from the Columbia University Irving Medical Center have developed a tissue engineering and 3D printing method to grow new hair follicles and stop hair loss. Their work, recently published in Nature Communications, demonstrates that they were able to grow human hair follicles in a dish and on mice for the first time. These hair [… (Read more...)
Researchers 3D Print Materials to Mimic Soft Tissues and Create Custom Braces
3D printing is already widely utilized in medicine during cardiac surgeries, to make orthopedic implants, and as guides to accurately put them in place. Typically, the devices that are printed are rigid, but the body is mostly made of soft tissues. Engineers at MIT have been working on offering clinicians a way to use additive […]
Engineers Create Cross-Linked Hydrogels to Lure Stem Cells Into Wounds
Hydrogels have become a popular material for new treatment strategies targeting a variety of diseases. They can deliver encapsulated therapeutic molecules, degrade in the body at a predefined rate, and can be biocompatible. However, each application requires the hydrogel to have appropriate strength, consistency, and the ability to carry growth fac (Read more...)
Nexus Ultrasonic Surgical Platform from Misonix FDA Cleared
Mixonix, a Farmingdale, New York company that specializes in ultrasonic devices for surgical applications such as osteotomies and debridements, won FDA clearance for the new Nexus surgical platform. The Nexus combines the capabilities of Mixonix’s three existing products, namely BoneScalpel, SonicOne and Sonastar, into a single system that ca (Read more...)
Bioabsorbable Wound Dressing with Nanoscale Chitosan to Rapidly Stop Bleeding
Chitosan is a sugar compound derived from the exoskeletons of shrimp, crab, and other shellfish. It is used extensively in medicine, including in dressings, because of its well known hemostatic properties. These properties work at the nanoscale, so delivering tiny bits of chitosan to the site of a wound can help improve how it works […]
Prevena Negative Pressure System FDA Approved for Superficial Surgical Site Infections
KCI, now a part of the Acelity Company, has announced that its PREVENA negative pressure incision management system is the first to receive FDA’s indication to help with reducing superficial surgical site infections in those at high risk of post-op infections. The approval comes under the FDA’s de novo pathway that was designed to bring (Read more...)