October 2013

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Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs

The new electron beam writer housed in the cleanroom facility at the Qualcomm Institute, previously the UCSD division of the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology,...

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Briefs: Medical
Enabling Microliquid Chromatography by Microbead Packing of Microchannels

The microbead packing is the critical element required in the success of onchip microfabrication of critical microfluidic components for in-situ analysis and detection of chiral amino acids. In order for microliquid chromatography to occur, there must be a stationary phase...

Briefs: Medical

Cardiac surgeons and cardiologists at the University of Maryland Heart Center are part of a multi-center clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of powering heart pumps through a skull-based...

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From the Editor: Medical
From the Editor — What Are Students Up To?

The school year has barely begun and what are students up to? Pretty amazing things, if they’re anything like the students who won grants from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). Grants are also awarded to faculty who ignite a passion for innovation and...

Features: Medical

Over the years, medtech companies have become quite adept at working with clinicians to identify unmet clinical needs, and developing products to address those needs. In both start-ups and established...

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R&D: Electronics & Computers
Silver Circuits Create Conductive Fabric

Researchers at the National Physical Laboratory, Middlesex, UK, Electronics Interconnection group has developed a new method to produce conductive textiles, which could...

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Global Innovations: Materials
Ithree Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
http://www.ithreeinstitute.uts.edu.au/about/index.html

Understanding the enemy, in this case,...

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Mission Accomplished: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Have you heard of Robohand? No, it’s not the next sci-fi blockbuster. It’s a story of compassion, technology, and a collaboration from 10,000 miles apart between Richard...

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Features: Materials

Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, grew from startup roots in the mid- 1980s to a $2.2 billion business by 2012, according to industry consultants Wohlers...

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Features: Materials

If molten plastic behaved like a simple fluid, there would be little need to worry about balanced filling during molding. The melt would fill the cavities like water, and the way the mold...

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Features: Materials

Medical device designers frequently face the need to adhere products to the skin, whether it is for a few minutes or in perpetuity. The huge array of pressure-sensitive...

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Applications: Medical

Worldwide an estimated 185 million people use a wheelchair daily. A company based in Auckland, New Zealand, has developed an innovative robotic technology that helps people with mobility...

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Products: Materials

Value Plastics, Fort Collins, CO, a Nordson company, introduces RQC Series tubing—a cost-effective solution for flexible tubing connections in single-use systems featuring a user friendly interface with a...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

Electrox, Burlington, MA, announces its new Scorpion Rapide Yb: Fiber Laser Marker offered from 20 to 100 watts is capable of high-precision marking in most materials, and deep engraving into a variety of...

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Products: Medical

Epilog Laser, Golden, CO, introduces the Fusion FiberMark Laser system, which includes a 32" × 20" engraving table, and features joystick control, job management software, superior chassis strength, industrial DC...

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Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Aerotech, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, offers a full range of additive manufacturing motion systems and components. Aerotech manufactures its own motors, drives, and motion controllers, and offers a...

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Products: Medical

Lumen Dynamics, Mississauga, Canada, introduces four new high-power, air-cooled UV LED area curing solutions. Its new OmniCure® AC450, AC475, AC7150, and AC7300 enable manufacturers to benefit from the highest...

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Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

KNF Neuberger, Inc., Trenton, NJ, announces its NF2.35 liquid micro diaphragm pump. With a flow rate of 100 ml/min at 235 PSIG, this oil-free pump draws only 10W at full load, is self-priming,...

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Products: Materials

Surface Solutions Group, LLC, Chicago, IL, introduces a new process to permanently mark the surface of fluoropolymer items, from fluoropolymer tubing to PTFE coated surfaces. Called VisiMark®, it can be...

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Products: Materials

Parker Hannifin Corporation, Parflex Division, Ravenna, OH, offers TexLoc PTFE 4:1 Heat Shrink Tubing with the largest expansion ratio available in a PTFE tube. Operating in high temperatures up to 500°F,...

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Products: Motion Control

Portescap, West Chester, PA, introduces the 22ECS brushless motor. Designed to deliver exceptional efficiency in high-speed applications, the 22ECS runs up to 30 percent cooler than similar motors, at speeds...

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Products: Electronics & Computers

Datatronics Romoland, Inc., Menifee, CA, says its 4283-1200 Series of hi-voltage flyback transformers, offering primary- to-secondary isolation of up to 7 KVdc, is ideal for applications requiring a high-voltage,...

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Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Tech-Etch, Inc., Plymouth, MA, specializes in the etching, forming, heat treating, and finishing of components made from metals with superior spring characteristics. Materials include MP35N,...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

Trumpf Inc., Farmington, CT, released its first femtosecond laser, the TruMicro 5050 Femto Edition. This ultrashort pulse laser was built to operate consistently and reliably. With an average power of 40 watts during pulses...

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Products: Electronics & Computers

Honeywell Sensing and Control, Golden Valley, MN, launched new customizable pressure and thermal sensor solutions, including modules with multiple sensors. Heaters, magnetic, magneto-resistive, infrared, optical,...

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Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Interface Catheter Solutions, Laguna Niguel, CA, introduces an online tri-layer co-extrusion catalog to order tubing. The catalog offers extrusion for .014" guide wire for peripheral dilatation catheters along...

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Products: Medical

Watson-Marlow Pumps Group, Wilmington, MA, introduces DriveSure™, a new panel-mount OEM brushless DC gear motor with fully integrated speed controller. DriveSure features a 51:1 control ratio and a 408-8rpm...

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Products: Materials

Master Bond Inc., Hackensack, NJ, announces that its UV10TKMed can be employed in a wide variety of applications involving both disposable and reusable medical device manufacturing....

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INSIDER: Medical
Creating Next-Generation Prosthetic Heart Valves

Engineers in the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, are developing a new family of replacement heart valves made from synthetic materials that, they say, will be superior to current mechanical and tissue-based...

R&D: Medical

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have built an experimental device that, they say, could speed up medical imaging using amorphous silicon and a surprising simple inexpensive...

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R&D: Electronics & Computers

Researchers at the National Physical Laboratory, Middlesex, UK, Electronics Interconnection group has developed a new method to produce conductive textiles. This new technique could make...

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R&D: Photonics/Optics

A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) announced that they have developed the first technique to...

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R&D: Materials

Scientists at Duke University, Durham, NC, report that microscopic stresses and tears in a new kind of man-made material could help the substance bulk up like an athlete building stronger muscles. They...

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R&D: Medical

Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, discovered that natural products, like green tea leaves, red wine, dark chocolate, and cacao beans could inspire excellent antibacterial...

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R&D: Medical

A team of electrical and mechanical engineers at Israel’s Tel Aviv University (TAU) has developed a way to print biocompatible components for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS),...

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INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control
Laser-Based Tool Could Dramatically Improve Brain Surgery

Laser-based technology could make brain tumor surgery more accurate by allowing surgeons to better identify cancer tissue from normal brain tissue at a microscopic level during surgery. This could allow them to avoid leaving behind cells that could spawn a new tumor, say a team of...

News: Medical
Breakthrough in Low-Cost, Automated Chemotherapy Treatment Wins $20,000 Global Design Competition

New York, NY – ChemoPatch, a low-cost, disposable, electronic patch-based cancer chemotherapy device designed to be simple, automated, and easy-to-use by cancer patients outside of the hospital, has been awarded the grand prize of $20,000 in the...

INSIDER: Medical
Self-Assembling Robotic Cubes

Small cubes with no exterior moving parts can propel themselves forward, jump on top of each other, and snap together to form arbitrary shapes, say researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Known as M-Blocks, the robots are cubes with no external moving parts. Nonetheless, they’re able...

INSIDER: Medical
Hospital-Grade Blood Flow Imager for Less than $100

Measuring blood flow in the laboratory to study ailments like migraines or strokes and designing new ways to address them can be accomplished using laser speckle contrast imaging. However, this requires expensive professional-grade imaging equipment. Researchers at the University of Texas at...

News: Medical
FDA Hampered by Federal Government Shutdown

An indefinite shutdown of the US government has caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to severely limit its activities related to new medical device registrations. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services as well as an email from the FDA, the agency will have no legal...

INSIDER: Materials
Spider's Silk Could Aid Medical Implants

The silk of the venomous brown recluse spider could be the key to creating new super-sticky films and wafer-thin electronics and sensors for medical implants that are highly compatible with the human body. So says a team of scientists from Oxford University, UK, and The College of William and Mary,...

INSIDER: Medical
Improving Reactions to Device Implants

A team of scientists at the University of Texas at Arlington used mathematical modeling to develop a computer simulation that they hope will one day improve the treatment of dangerous reactions to medical implants such as stents, catheters, and artificial joints.

Industry News: Medical
October Mid-Month Industry News

Here is the latest batch of news from the medical products community. Please click the link for more.

INSIDER: Medical
Building Neuro-Inspired Chips

The world’s largest smartphone chipmaker, Qualcomm, says it wants to start helping partners manufacture a radically different kind of a chip—a neuro-inspired chip that mimics the neural structures and processing methods found in the brain. This approach could enable machines to perform complex tasks while...

INSIDER: Medical
New Prosthetic Blueprint Restores Touch

New research at the University of Chicago is laying the groundwork for touch-sensitive prosthetic limbs that one day could convey real-time sensory information to amputees via a direct interface with the brain.

INSIDER: Lighting
Narrow-Spectrum UV Light Could Reduce Infections

A study by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), New York, NY, researchers suggests that narrow-spectrum ultraviolet (UV) light could dramatically reduce surgical infections without damaging human tissue.

INSIDER: Medical
An Artificial Leg that Moves Naturally

While most artificial feet and limbs work well to restore mobility to people who have lost a leg, few provide a natural gait. As a result, more than half of all amputees suffer a fall every year, compared to about one-third of people over age 65. To find a better way of restoring natural motion to...

INSIDER: Medical
Restoring Sense of Touch to Laparoscopic Surgeons

A small, wireless capsule has been developed by a team of doctors and engineers at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, that, they say, can restore the sense of touch that surgeons are losing as they shift increasingly from open to laparoscopy or minimally invasive surgery.

INSIDER: Medical
Surgically Treating Vertebral Fractures Proves Safer and Cheaper

According to a study of 69,000 Medicare patient records led by researchers at The Johns Hopkins Hospital's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Spine Outcomes Research Center, people with spine compression fractures who undergo operations to strengthen back bones with cement...

INSIDER: Materials
Contact Geometry Determines Adhesion Strength

Researchers at Kiel University, Kiel, Germany, have been studying the role of adhesion in nature, which allows insects and lizards to climb walls, plants to twine up structures, and even bacteria cling to surfaces. During evolution, many of these develop mushroom-shaped adhesive structures and...

INSIDER: Medical
Slug Glue May One Day Replace Sutures

While sutures have evolved over millennia, and catgut gave way to synthetics for stitching up injuries and surgical wounds, the basic process of suturing tissue remains the same. However, the method may finally have become outdated, say a team of researchers at Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY.

INSIDER: Materials
4D Printing Technology for Composite Materials

A team of engineers at the University of Colorado at Boulder say that they have successfully added a fourth dimension to their printing technology, opening up exciting possibilities for the creation and use of adaptive, composite materials in manufacturing, packaging, and biomedical...

INSIDER: Medical
Using NIR Light to Treat MS

Multiple sclerosis (MS) involves an immune system attack against the central nervous system and causes progressive paralysis by destroying nerve cells and the spinal cord. It interrupts vision, balance, and even thinking. Although there is still no cure, there are some medications and alternative treatments that may...

Industry News: Medical
October Month-End Industry News

Here is the latest batch of news from the medical products community. Please click the link for more.

INSIDER: Imaging
Using Light to Image Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer and cancer deaths among women worldwide. Routine screening can increase breast cancer survival by detecting the disease early when it is most treatable. A new imaging tool, called a photoacoustic mammoscope, being developed by a team of researchers at the...

INSIDER: Medical
Riboflavin Can Be Used to 3D Print Medical Implants

A team of scientists from North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Laser Zentrum Hannover have discovered that a naturally-occurring compound called riboflavin, which is better known as vitamin B2, can be incorporated into 3D printing processes to...

Ask the Expert

Dan Sanchez on How to Improve Extruded Components
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Improving extruded components requires careful attention to a number of factors, including dimensional tolerance, material selection, and processing. Trelleborg’s Dan Sanchez provides detailed insights into each of these considerations to help you advance your device innovations while reducing costs and speeding time to market.

Inside Story

Inside Story: Ensuring Reusable Devices Are Safe for the Next Patient
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To find out more about the expertise required to establish safe processes for cleaning and disinfecting reusable medical devices, MDB recently spoke with Elizabeth Sydnor, Director of Microbiology Medical Device Testing, Eurofins Medical Device Testing (Lancaster, PA).

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