Posts tagged medicine
Artificial heart ready for human trials.
French company CARMAT have announced that their artificial heart is scheduled to be implanted into patients in four medical centers around the world. The device completely replaces the patient’s original heart.
The artificial heart consists of two cavities, mimicking the organ’s ventricles, which are separated by a moving membrane that’s hydraulically powered via a special actioning fluid. This membrane reproduces the action of the ventricular wall during contractions, creating blood flow in and out of the device. The system is works in conjunctions with sensors and a microcontroller that continuously adjust the activity of the prosthesis to match the needs of the patient.
Video: Google Glass app shows off facial recognition features.
MedRef for Glass is a new “Glassware” app designed for doctors to allow them to quickly identify a patient through facial recognition and pull up relevant files and information on that person. The app also allows users to add photos and voice notes taken with Glass to a patients file.
The video here also gives a good insight into how it looks to see someone using Glass itself. He looks freakin ridiculous, staring off into space and stroking the side of his glasses like Dr Evil stroking Mr Bigglesworth. Damn I wish that was me.
New fuel-less micromotors are so tiny, thousands of them would fit inside this “o”.
New micromotors and even microrockets have been detailed at a meeting of the American Chemical Society this week. The tiny motors don’t need to carry any external power, instead relying on their surroundings as an energy source.
Joseph Wang, D.Sc., who leads research on the motors, says “We have developed the first self-propelled micromotors and microrockets that use the surrounding natural environment as a source of fuel. The stomach, for instance, has a strongly acid environment that helps digest food. Some of our microrockets use that acid as fuel, producing bubbles of hydrogen gas for thrust and propulsion. The use of biocompatible fuels is attractive for avoiding damage to healthy tissue in the body. We envision that these machines could someday perform microsurgery, clean clogged arteries or transport drugs to the right place in the body. But there are also possible uses in cleaning up oil spills, monitoring industrial processes and in national security.”
One of their micromotors is one of the world’s fastest, able to move 100 times its 0.0004-inch length in just one second. That’s like a sprinter running 400 miles per hour.
Tiny implant can transmit realtime blood data to your doctor.
Researchers at Switzerlands EPFL have demonstrated a 14mm long implant, able to analyse up to five proteins and organic acids in the blood simultaneously, and transmit the data to a doctor.
The data transmission works in several stages, with the implant using radio waves to transmit to a patch on the skin (which also provides power back to the implant through the patients skin). The patch then uses bluetooth to transmit data to a smartphone, which can then feed it into a web-based database accessible by a doctor.
The implant could be particularly useful in chemotherapy applications. Currently, oncologists use occasional blood tests to evaluate their patients’ tolerance to a particular treatment dosage. In these conditions, it is very difficult to administer the optimal dose. De Micheli is convinced his system will be an important step towards better, more personalized medicine. “It will allow direct and continuous monitoring based on a patient’s individual tolerance, and not on age and weight charts or weekly blood tests.”
In patients withchronic illness, the implants could send alerts even before symptoms emerge, and anticipate the need for medication. “In a general sense, our system has enormous potential in cases where the evolution of a pathology needs to be monitored or the tolerance to a treatment tested.”
New research could lead to a pill that ‘cures’ drunkenness.
New research published in Nature Nanotechnology has found a method to rapidly reduce blood alcohol levels in mice, by injecting them with nanocapsules containing enzymes that help the body metabolize alcohol.
The advance could open the door to a new class of enzyme drugs, says Lu. Down the road, for example, he envisions an alcohol prophylactic or antidote that could be taken orally. Since alcohol metabolism naturally occurs in the liver, it would “almost be like having millions of liver cell units inside your stomach or in your intestine, helping you to digest alcohol,” he says.
Woman grows bones in eye after stem cell treatment.
A Los Angeles resident in her late sixties became unable to open her right eye without considerable pain, after a procedure to rejuvenate the skin in her face went wrong. Doctors as a Beverly Hills clinic used adult stem cells isolated from the womans abdominal tissue, which were then injected into her face and were meant to heal aging cells nearby.
Instead, the unapproved procedure caused bone fragments to grow in the womans eye, eventually causing the pain and a scraping sound when she opened and closed her eye - the sound was bone fragments on the eye and eyelid scraping together.
After a six and a half hour surgery to remove the bone, the womans eye was left scratched but with no severe damage.
Video: Larry the vomiting robot.
Just a dull video about norovirus research, then BAM there’s a vomiting robot at 2:40. Check it out!
The robot is part of a study into how norovirus sufferers spread the virus to other people:
They have found that during projectile vomiting, tiny particles containing the virus become aerosolized, allowing them to infect people up to 10 feet away. Norovirus infection is a bit like the common cold in that it only lasts a few days and has proven particularly difficult to eradicate.
Thought-controlled arms to be fitted to patients this Winter.
Researchers in Sweden are preparing for the first operations to attach mind-controlled artificial arms to patients this (Northern) Winter.
Current prostheses are only used by around 50% of arm amputees, as they are often uncomfortable and offer very limited functionality. The new technology will be anchored directly to the skeleton by a process known as osseointergation, which will mean the prosthetic arm will be more comfortable.
A titanium implant inside the arm stump will pick up brain signals reaching the nerves near the point of amputation, which will be processed and sent out to the arm to electronically control specific joints and actions.
“Our technology helps amputees to control an artificial limb, in much the same way as their own biological hand or arm, via the person’s own nerves and remaining muscles. This is a huge benefit for both the individual and to society,”
New tool enables surgery in space.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created a tool which creates an airtight seal over a wound, enabling surgery in space. Traditional surgery in space would contaminate the cabin with blood, but the ‘Aqueous Immersion Surgical System’ is able to cover the wound and contain or even reuse blood for later use.
The transparent box is pumped full of a sterile saline solution, which can contain blood from escaping by adjusting the pressure. That pressure could also be adjusted to pump blood out to be stored for later use - useful in space where there is no bloodbank.
The device will next be tested aboard NASA’s zero gravity C-9 aircraft, and it is hoped it may be used aboard the ISS or on longer space mission in the future, such as missions to Mars.
KickStarter campaign hopes to fund an anti-cancer virus.
The campaign is hoping to raise US$1,000,000 to fund the development of potential treatment for neuroendocrine tumours, or NET - the same cancer that killed Steve Jobs.
The potential therapy, a cancer-busting virus, is currently sitting in a freezer in Sweden – but it can’t be tested for lack of just £2million.
Without the money, the research will cease and the virus will be thrown away, placing in jeopardy a therapy that could significantly extend the lives of thousands of NET cancer sufferers.
Big business won’t stump up the £2million needed to fund the first stage of clinical trials, because there is no money to be made. The Swedish research team, led by Prof Magnus Essand from Uppsala University, were so keen to collaborate and share the findings they published the research.
But now it is out in the public domain it can’t be protected by the patent that would have enabled business backers to make a profit.
We want to raise enough money to enable Prof Essand and his team to conduct clinical trials on their groundbreaking cancer eating virus. £1 million will enable him to do it - £2 million will enable him to do it really well.
Check out the campaign here.
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