Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany have developed tumor-targeting microrobots using bacteria. The team exploited the tendency of bacteria to naturally gravitate towards areas of low oxygen and low ph, which both tend to occur in the vicinity of a tumor. Once near the tumor, the bacteria aggravate the immune [& (Read more...)
Tag: surgery
Surgical Dressing Helps Kill Melanoma, Regenerate Healthy Cells
Scientists at the University of Nottingham in the UK have created a surgical dressing that is specifically designed to facilitate and enhance photothermal therapy following melanoma resection. The dressing allows for near-infrared photothermal therapy that lasts just 15 seconds every 48 hours. The concept involves killing any remaining melanoma cel (Read more...)
TORdx LUNG Test for Donor Lung Assessment: Interview with Eric Brouwer, Chief Scientific Officer at SQI Diagnostics
SQI Diagnostics, a medtech company based in Canada, is developing the TORdx LUNG Test. The technology is intended to assist clinicians in assessing donor lungs in their suitability for transplantation. At present, clinicians typically assess donor lungs using qualitative variables, such as donor health and lung size. One of the most important facto (Read more...)
Improving Transplant Survival with Organ Preservation Tech: Interview with Dr. Anderson, CEO of Paragonix
Paragonix Technologies, a medtech company based in Massachusetts, created the SherpaPak, an FDA organ transportation device that is intended to keep donor organs safe and viable on their journey to a transplant recipient. As the viability of a donor organ can mean life or death for the receiving patient, it makes sense to take exceptional [… (Read more...)
Soft Bioresorbable Implant Controls Pain by Cooling Nerves
A team of engineers at Northwestern University led by John Rogers, the person responsible for many advances in flexible electronics, created a drug-free implant that can control pain by cooling nerves. The soft implant is intended to be wrapped around a nerve during surgical procedures that would typically involve opioid-based analgesia afterwards. (Read more...)
Magnetic Steering System for Guidewires
Percutaneous coronary intervention is an incredibly useful technique to minimally invasively investigate and treat cardiac issues, such as blockages in the coronary arteries, but it requires a significant amount of skill to perform safely and effectively. Manipulating a guidewire through the tortuous vasculature is not for the faint hearted, with t (Read more...)
One-Step Manufactured Meta-Bots with Medical Potential
Engineers at the University of California Los Angeles have developed “meta-bots,” which are fingernail sized robots that can move, sense, and navigate their environment. Strikingly, the robots are essentially ready for use when they emerge from the 3D printer, and consist of piezoelectric actuators that can respond to or generate electr (Read more...)
Perfusion Machine Restores Donor Liver for Transplant
Clinical researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland have created a perfusion machine to store donor livers before transplant. We originally reported on the machine back in 2020, but now the team has announced that they stored and treated a damaged liver in the machine, which would ordinarily not be suitable for transplantation. After [& (Read more...)
Tiny Robot Crab to Perform Tasks Inside Body
Engineers at Northwestern University have developed a tiny remote controlled crab robot. The device is just half a millimeter wide, and can perform a variety of impressive tasks, including jumping, twisting, bending, turning, and walking. The tiny devices do not require electricity and instead are powered through heating using a laser. The shape-me (Read more...)
Preference-Driven Haptic Feedback for Realistic Virtual Surfaces
A team at the University of Southern California developed a system to create highly realistic and personalized ‘virtual surfaces’ that can inform more advanced haptic feedback systems. Haptic feedback uses specific vibrations to simulate how it feels to touch a surface. This new approach allows people to customize their own virtual surf (Read more...)
New Antimicrobial Surface for Implantable Devices
Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles have created a zwitterion polymer coating for in-dwelling medical devices, such as urinary catheters, that prevents microbes from adhering and creating troublesome biofilms. Recurrent infection and biofouling are a serious problem for such devices, leading to the overuse of antibiotics and the (Read more...)
Glucose Fuel Cell to Power Medical Implants
Scientists at MIT created a glucose fuel cell that is small and powerful enough to conceivably power medical implants using the sugar present in our blood. The ultrathin device relies on a ceramic material as an electrolyte and platinum anodes/cathodes. The researchers were able to place just over 150 fuel cells onto a chip and […]
Cryoablation for Treatment of Heavy Menstrual Bleeding: Interview with Ric Cote, CEO of Channel Medsystems
Channel Medsystems, a medtech company based in California, created the Cerene cryotherapy device for the treatment of heavy menstrual bleeding. Heavy menstrual bleeding can affect quality of life for many women, and the condition can be associated with abdominal pain, cramping, and tiredness. The Cerene technology aims to provide (Read more...)
Wireless Implant for Anti-Cancer Photodynamic Therapy
Researchers at Texas A&M University created a wireless device that aims to illuminate and destroy residual tumor cells left after cancer resection. The device can be used by surgeons to illuminate the tumor bed after resection. It works in combination with a photosensitizer drug that is administered before the procedure and accumulates in tumor (Read more...)
Wireless Data Transfer for Implanted Devices Using Ionic Communication
Researchers at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new method for implanted devices to communicate with the outside world that exploits the ions that are naturally present in our tissues. Ion-rich tissues store potential energy, and in this paradigm an implanted device would alter this stored energy wi (Read more...)
Hemostasis on Contact: Interview with Joe Landolina, CEO of Cresilon
Cresilon, a New York-based medtech company, specializes in developing hemostatic technology. Its co-founder and CEO, Joe Landolina, created a plant-based hemostatic gel that can stop bleeding very rapidly when applied to a wound. Landolin developed the gel when he was just seventeen, and has spent the years since building the company to bring it an (Read more...)
Cryomesh System for Long Term Pancreatic Islet Storage
Researchers at the University of Minnesota developed a cryopreservation system that allows for long-term pancreatic islet cold storage. Islets can be implanted in patients with diabetes, and can even be curative in this context, but the technique has been hampered by a lack of techniques to store donor islets beyond 24-72 hours. This latest techniq (Read more...)
Magnetic Tentacle Robot Travels Deep into Lungs
Researchers at the University of Leeds in the UK have created a magnetic “tentacle robot” that is just 2 mm in diameter, which they hope will be able to navigate through some of the smallest airways in our lungs. At present, a bronchoscope is used to investigate the lungs, but this cannot pass into very […]
Surgical Duct Tape Quickly Seals Intestinal Leaks
Researchers at MIT have created a surgical tape that can seal leaks and tears in the intestine. The off-the-shelf product has been designed to replace sutures, which are difficult to sew in the gut and can cause scarring or leaking. The adhesive patch is biocompatible, and the researchers designed it so that it will biodegrade […]
MRI-Guided Magnetic Seeds Heat and Destroy Tumors
Scientists at University College London have developed a highly targeted anti-tumor treatment. The approach involves guiding ferromagnetic thermoseeds to the site of a tumor using the magnetic fields generated by an MRI scanner. The magnetic seeds can then destroy the tumor through localized heating that is induced by an MR-compatible thermoablativ (Read more...)