Implant

Researchers have created bio-compatible LED arrays that can bend, stretch, and even be implanted under the skin. While this might cause some people to immediately think “glowing tattoos!”, the arrays are actually intended for activating drugs, monitoring medical conditions, or performing other biomedical tasks within the body. Down the road, however, they could also be incorporated into consumer goods, robotics, or military/industrial applications. Read More

Technology is delivering a array of health monitoring systems that can record a person’s blood pressure or perform an ECG on the go. Now researchers have turned their attention to monitoring cardiac pressure, an indicator of heart problems that can normally only be measured using an invasive procedure known as a coronary angiography. Read More

In a study that could eventually restore movement to humans’ paralyzed limbs, researchers at California’s Stanford University have used light to induce muscle contractions in mice. A gene derived from algae was inserted into the mice, encoding a light-sensitive protein which adhered to their nerve cell surfaces. Scientists then placed an “optical cuff” lined with tiny, inwards-facing LEDs around the mice’s sciatic nerves. By penetrating those nerves with brief, high-intensity bursts of blue light, they were able to produce muscle contractions similar to those that would occur naturally. The technology is called “optogenetics.” Read More

Back in June, those brainy folks over at Germany’s Fraunhofer research group announced the development of Resobone, a material designed to replace the titanium plates used to patch holes in peoples’ skulls. Now, perhaps a little ironically, they’ve announced the creation of TiFoam – a titanium foam to be used for replacing injured bone. Unlike Resobone, TiFoam is intended for load-bearing areas, where a balance of strength and flexibility are essential. Like Resobone, however, it’s designed to encourage surrounding bone to grow into the implant. Read More

Using the same technology that allowed them to accurately detect the brain signals controlling arm movements that we looked at last year, researchers at the University of Utah have gone one step further, translating brain signals into words. While the previous breakthrough was an important step towards giving amputees or people with severe paralysis a high level of control over a prosthetic limb or computer interface, this new development marks an early step toward letting severely paralyzed people speak with their thoughts. Read More

End-stage renal disease, or chronic kidney failure, affects more than 500,000 people per year in the U.S. alone, and currently is only fully treated with a kidney transplant. That number has been rising between five to seven percent per year and with just 17,000 donated kidneys available for transplant last year the waiting list currently exceeds 85,000, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network. Those who can’t secure a kidney for transplant are left reliant on kidney dialysis. An expensive and time consuming process that typically requires three sessions per week, for three to five hours per session, in which blood is pumped through an external circuit for filtration. In a development that could one day eliminate the need for dialysis, researchers have unveiled a prototype model of the first implantable artificial kidney. Read More

A study made public this Wednesday has shown that biosynthetic corneas can and do restore eyesight in humans. Researchers from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa in Canada, along with Linköping University in Sweden, conducted a clinical trial using ten Swedish patients with advanced keratoconus or central corneal scarring. Each patient had the damaged corneal tissue in one eye surgically replaced with a biosynthetic cornea made from synthetically cross-linked recombinant human collagen. After two years, six of the patients’ vision had improved. After being fitted with contact lenses, their vision was comparable to that of someone who had received a real human cornea transplant. Read More

Researchers at the University of Louisville/Jewish Hospital's Cardiovascular Innovation Institute (CII) have discovered a method for preventing scar tissue from forming around implantation devices. This discovery could have a great impact on the functionality of common implanted devices, such as pacemakers, chemotherapy ports and glucose sensors. According to the study, if a unique system of blood vessels is created to interact with local tissue around an implanted device, better long term results can be achieved. The process involves “pre-vascularizing” a device prior to implantation, using what the team call a microvascular construct (MVC), which consists of blood vessels contained within a collagen gel. The idea is that a device will be coated in this gel prior to implantation. Since the body’s natural process is to find a foreign object and form a scar around it, this new study could prevent this problem from occurring. Read More

More than 1,000 tons (2.2 million pounds) of titanium devices are implanted in patients worldwide every year with joint replacements one of the more common procedures. Light, strong and totally biocompatible, titanium is one of the few materials that naturally match the requirements for implantation in the human body. Researchers have now developed an improved coating technique that could strengthen the connection between titanium joint-replacement implants with a patient’s own bone. The stronger connection – created by manipulating signals the body’s own cells use to encourage growth – could allow the implants to last longer. Read More