June 2013

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Briefs: Medical
The Next Generation of Cold Immersion Dry Suit Design Evolution for Hypothermia Prevention

A body at sea is vulnerable to hypothermia, which often leads to loss of life. Hypothermia is caused by the differences between the core body temperature and the surrounding air and seawater temperatures. The greater the differences between the body core...

Briefs: Medical

Wireless technology increases the effectiveness of countless every day functions. While some simply are about the convenience factor, like being able to quickly...

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Briefs: Materials

Over the past fifty years, thin wall small diameter precision metal tubing has undergone quite a transformation. From its use in the mid-1960s as pointers for analog...

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From the Editor: Medical
From the Editor — Getting Boston Bombing Victims Back on Their ‘Feet’

The American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association (AOPA) launched its “Coalition to Walk and Run Again,” an effort to aid uninsured and underinsured victims of the April 15th Boston Marathon terror attack. The bombing killed 3 people and left more than 200 injured,...

Global Innovations: Photonics/Optics
Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin, Germany
www.fraunhofer.de/en/research-topics.html

While physicians have largely been skeptical of the advantages of 3D technology, the findings...

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Mission Accomplished: Motion Control

Before Curiosity came the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Before Spirit and Opportunity, came Pathfinder and Sojourner. Before Pathfinder and Sojourner, the Mars Global Surveyor, and...

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Features: Medical

Developing a medical device requires sensitivity to the delicate balance between usefulness, usability, desirability, and manufacturability. Every medical device must be useful (meet a need) and...

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Features: Materials

Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is well known and specified in the medical industry for advanced medical and healthcare products, due to its high performance characteristics. Because of...

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Features: Medical

Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are a major area of concern for providers, payers, and patients alike. These infections play a significant role in the...

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Applications: Medical

With numerous developments in medical equipment and software, physicians no longer have to wait three to five days for lab results for accurate and timely...

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Applications: Software

Steven Conrad, MD, PhD, an emergency and critical care physician at Louisiana State University Health Science Center, New Orleans, is not your typical physician. When he’s...

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Products: Medical

Parker Hannifin Corporation, Salt Lake City, UT, a global leader in motion and control technologies, has created a medical grade polyurethane that not only displays characteristic...

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Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Rinco Ultrasonics, Danbury, CT, a leading manufacturer of ultrasonic welding equipment, was awarded a US patent for its PPS0145 film sealing technology for ultrasonic film sealing of flexible packaging. This...

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Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Tech-Etch, Inc., Plymouth, MA, has released a new interactive PDF version of its 2013 catalog offering standard and custom EMI/RFI shielding product lines in an easy-to-use format that lets the user click...

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Products: Materials

ATW Companies, Inc., Warwick, RI, is highlighting its technologies used in a new disposable metal laparoscopic scalpel device, which was manufactured using capabilities from two different ATW companies....

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Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping

UFP Technologies, Georgetown, MA, introducesFlexShield™, a medical device pouch for screws, rods, plates, and other instruments that provides puncture and abrasion resistance in order to safely ship medical...

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Products: Software

Matrox Imaging, Montreal, Canada, a supplier of machine vision components to OEMs, machine builders, and integrators in manufacturing industries including packaging, announces new hardware and software for...

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Products: Materials

Lubrizol LifeScience Polymers, Wickliffe, OH, has broadened its line of Tecothane™ soft polymers designed specifically for medical applications. This technology features good mechanical properties, excellent...

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Products: Electronics & Computers

Dymax Corp., Torrington, CT, has introduced MD® 1901-M, a flexible, high-performance, LEDcurable coating for medical micro circuits typically used in hearing aids, wound-care devices, and medical...

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Features: Medical

Over the past decade, the power of physician preference has steadily diminished in the face of hospital and physician consolidation, continuing pricing pressures, and structural changes in payment systems...

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INSIDER: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Monitoring Heart Health with Flexible Sensors

Chemical engineers at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, have discovered that they could combine layers of flexible electronics and pressure sensors to create a wearable heart monitor thinner than a dollar bill and no wider than a postage stamp. The flexible skin-like monitor, worn under an adhesive...

Question of the Month: Medical
Question of the Month: June

May’s Question of the Month focused on regulation of healthcare/lifestyle smartphone apps. Since regulation of some medical apps may be covered by the FDA, we asked if you thought lifestyle apps, such as pedometers and personal health records, should be regulated, and if so, by which agency. Answers were mixed,...

INSIDER: Medical
Cloud-Based System to Analyze Cancer Data Launched

The University of Chicago has launched the first secure cloud-based computing system that enables researchers to access and analyze human genomic cancer information without the costly and cumbersome infrastructure normally needed to download and store massive amounts of data.

The...

INSIDER: Materials
New Material Shows Promise for 3D Shaping

Combined with state-of-the-art micro-sculpting techniques, a new resin holds promise for making customized electrodes for fuel cells or batteries, as well as biosensor interfaces for medical uses.

A rabbit sculpture, the size of a typical bacterium, was one of several shapes created by a team of...

INSIDER: Medical
New Nerve and Muscle Interfaces Aid Wounded Warriors

In the past 13 years, more than 2,000 service members have suffered amputated limbs. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) research with advanced prosthetic limbs controlled by brain interfaces is well documented, but such research is currently limited to quadriplegics....

INSIDER: Medical
3D Printed Hearts Aid in Cardiac Surgery

Doctors at Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC, are creating new hearts to help cardiac surgeons. Not actual hearts, but three-dimensional synthetic models using a 3D printer. The only one of its kind at a Washington area hospital, the printer uses scans from individual patients to...

INSIDER: Medical
Wireless Sensors Could Use Sonar to Treat Heart Failure

Move over, “Fantastic Voyage”. Scientists at the University at Buffalo (UB), Buffalo, NY, are developing miniaturized sonar technology to be used inside the human body to treat diseases like diabetes and heart failure in real time, without shrinking scientists to enter a patient’s...

News: Medical
Nation’s First Industry-led Biosciences Research Institute

Indiana Governor Mike Pence joined state-based global life sciences and research university executives to unveil the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute, the first industry-led collaborative life sciences research institute in the country. The Indiana Biosciences Research Institute...

News: Medical
Supreme Court Invalidates Patents on BRCA Cancer Genes

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously invalidated patents on two genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) on behalf of researchers, genetic counselors,...

Industry News: Medical
June Mid-Month Industry News

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

News: Medical
FDA Recommends Safety Measures for Cybersecurity of Devices

On June 13, the FDA issued a safety communication on Cybersecurity for Medical Devices and Hospital Networks , which stipulated that “ medical device manufacturers and health care facilities take steps to assure that appropriate safeguards are in place to reduce the risk of failure...

INSIDER: Medical
Devices Complicate Conditions in Children

A new study, published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, states a significant number of children with complex medical conditions suffer from complications caused by medical devices necessary for their survival.

Study authors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center say their research...

News: Medical
BMEidea Award Winners Announced

The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance announced the winners of its annual Biomedical Engineering Innovations, Design, and Entrepreneurship Awards (BMEidea) during the MD&M East Medical Device Trade Show and Convention in Philadelphia.

INSIDER: Medical
Free 3D Microstructural Model of Human Brain

BigBrain, the first 3D microstructural model of the entire human brain, created at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital—The Neuro, McGill University, in collaboration with researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, is free and has been made publicly available to researchers...

INSIDER: Medical
Closing in on Low-Cost, Implantable Electronics

Researchers at The Ohio State University, Columbus, say that their technology is closing in on creating low-cost electronic devices that work in contact with inside the body, and that their first planned use of the technology is a sensor that will detect the very early stages of organ transplant...

INSIDER: Medical
Bioengineered Vein Implanted in Kidney Patient

In a first-of-its-kind operation in the US, a team of doctors at Duke University Hospital, Durham, NC, helped create a bioengineered blood vessel and transplanted it into the arm of a patient with end-stage kidney disease. The procedure was the first US clinical trial to test the safety and...

INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control
Navigating Inside Airways Using 'GPS' Technology

The innumerable divisions of the bronchi in the lungs can baffle researchers in search of tumors, but soon, lung specialists may be able to navigate accurately inside the airways using GPS-type technology say researchers with SINTEF, the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia. A...

INSIDER: Medical
Coatings May Help Implants Function Better

Implants used to monitor bodily functions or to provide drugs would advance personalized medicine, but there is an inherent problem—the human immune system recognizes the device as an invader and encapsulates it, preventing the device from working properly. To combat this problem, researchers at the...

Industry News: Medical
June Month-End Industry News

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

Ask the Expert

Eric Dietsch on the Benefits of Nitinol Wire
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In collaboration with the Fort Wayne Metals Engineering team, Eric Dietsch focuses on supporting customers with material recommendations, product development, and education. Eric is available to help you and your company with any Nitinol-related questions or needs that you may have.

Inside Story

Inside Story: Establishing Safe EO Residual Levels for Medical Devices
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To find out more about the expertise required to establish safe EO Residual levels for medical devices, Medical Design Briefs recently spoke with Leonard Harris, Manager, Chemistry and Container Testing for Eurofins Medical Device Testing (Lancaster, PA).

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