Medical device maker Medtronic has awarded Weiss-Aug, East Hanover, NJ, as one of the top 12 suppliers from its 52,000 worldwide vendor base. For more than 25 years, Weiss-Aug has collaborated with R&D teams of Medtronic at both its Boulder, CO, and North Haven, CT, locations on the development and manufacture of surgical instrument components and subassemblies.

Designing and developing surgical tools that heat tissue for necrosis requires understanding the temperature distribution that develops during the use of the device. Multiphysics simulation enables designers to understand and address the interaction of the heat source with the body in order to develop devices that target specific tissue without damaging the surrounding healthy tissue.

Global production of Polylactic Acid (PLA) is increasing dramatically as it becomes the biodegradable plastic of choice for a wide range of medical and industrial applications. PLA requires a specialized recycling plan…is your company ready? Attend this Webinar to learn what you need to know to prepare for the PLA revolution.

Tech-Etch, Inc., Plymouth, MA, has sold 100 percent of the company to its employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). An ESOP is a qualified defined-contribution employee benefit plan that provides a company's workforce with an ownership interest in the company.

A team of physicians and computer scientists has shown that it is easy to modify medical test results remotely by attacking the connection between hospital laboratory devices and medical record systems. While the vulnerabilities the researchers exploited are not new, this is the first time that a research team has shown how they could be exploited to compromise patient health.

These vulnerabilities arise from the standards used to transfer patient data within hospital networks, known as the Health Level Seven standards, or HL7. Essentially the language that allows all devices and systems in a medical facility to communicate, HL7 was developed in the 1970s and has remained untouched by many of the cybersecurity advances made in the last four decades.

Researchers are developing a novel biomedical imaging system that combines optical and ultrasound technology to improve diagnosis of life-threatening diseases. The system provides real-time compositional information of body tissue without the need for contrast agents and with better depth penetration compared with conventional optical techniques. The ultimate goal is to enhance the clinical care of patients.

Photoacoustic tomography is a noninvasive technique that works by converting absorbed optical energy into acoustic signal. Pulsed light is sent into body tissue, creating a small increase in temperature that causes the tissue to expand and create an acoustic response that can be detected by an ultrasound transducer. The ultrasound data is used to visualize the tissue.

A wearable energy-harvesting device could generate energy from the swing of an arm while walking or jogging. The device, about the size of a wristwatch, produces enough power to run a personal health monitoring system.

Energy-harvesting devices are in high demand to power the millions of devices that make up the Internet of things, including medical wearables. By providing continuous power to a rechargeable battery or supercapacitor, energy harvesters can reduce the labor cost of changing out batteries when they fail and keep dead batteries out of landfills.

Researchers have successfully demonstrated how an electronic device implanted directly into the brain can detect, stop, and even prevent epileptic seizures. The work represents an advance in the development of soft, flexible electronics that interface well with human tissue.

Researchers implanted the device into the brains of mice, and when the first signals of a seizure were detected, delivered a native brain chemical which stopped the seizure from progressing. The results, could also be applied to other conditions including brain tumors and Parkinson’s disease.

A new metamaterial will improve the accuracy of nano-sensors in optics and biomedicine by cloaking them from external radiation. The aim of the project is to model and then prototype a metamaterial that will make nano-scale objects — including needles — invisible in the uncovered THz frequency range.

A cylinder of perfect electric conductor (PEC) with radius r=2.5 µm has been considered in order to imitate a nano-sensor. Being metallic, it possesses very high wave scattering, allowing to carry out calculations for the maximum possible level of re-radiation. The modeling was performed in THz range, which stands between infrared and microwave bands.

Before launching their latest science experiment, University at Buffalo researchers bought more than 200 types of tea, chocolate, herbs, and other foodstuffs. The goal wasn't to stock up for long hours in the lab but to find an elusive, edible contrast agent to show doctors what's happening inside our bodies.