June 2014

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From the Editor: Medical
From the Editor — But Will We Wear Them?

Speaking at a plenary panel session on Innovations Shaping the Future of Patient Care at Medical World Americas in Houston in April, Dr. Stephen N. Oesterle, Senior Vice President for Medicine and Technology at Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN, predicted that implantable and wearable sensor technology will be...

Features: Medical

The plasticizers used to render PVC flexible constitute about a third of the vinyl compound by weight and have a significant effect on overall properties and performance. The most widely used...

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Features: Medical

In the US, many high-volume tubing suppliers have moved production facilities overseas to low-cost producers like China or Mexico. Minimum buys are now the rule, leaving many US...

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Applications: Packaging & Sterilization

Component manufacturers are continually developing new and smaller packages for components that are mere fractions of a millimeter and have board to component clearances of less than...

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Briefs: Medical

A droplet of clear liquid can bend light, acting as a lens. Using that as a guide, researchers at Australian National University have developed a new process to create very inexpensive, high quality silicone...

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Briefs: Medical

A team of scientists at the University College London (UCL) have developed a new antibacterial material that could help cut hospital-acquired infections. They used a combination of two dyes with...

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Briefs: Medical

Light therapy has been used to treat a number of disorders, including psoriasis, and highly targeted lasers have been used for specific skin disorders, eye diseases, or cancers. Advances in...

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Briefs: Medical

On April 10, NASA released more than 1,000 codes in a new online software catalog. Organized into 15 broad categories, the new catalog offers a wide variety of applications for use by...

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Global Innovations: Imaging
Holst Centre, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and Imec, Leuven, Belgium http://www2.imec.be/be_en/home.html

A team of researchers from the Holst Centre working with colleagues...

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Products: Medical

Prima Power Laserdyne, Champlin, MN, announces the LASERDYNE 430 Series of precision laser systems with up to 20 kW QCW (quasi continuous wave) fiber lasers. This expands...

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Products: Medical

Active Controls, LLC, Sewell, NJ, has introduced the new JoyBar®II, the second generation of the original JoyBar that revolutionized electric wheelchairs with intuitive control capability. The new JoyBar II...

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Products: Medical

Pfeiffer Vacuum, Hingham, MA, introduces the first vacuum leak detector with quartz window sensor technology to detect helium. Weighing only 11 lbs., the MiniTest 300 is well suited for mobile leak...

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Products: Medical

SunTech Medical, Inc., Morrisville, NC, announces its new Vinyl BP Cuffs feature a tapered end for easier application and color coding to simplify size selection. They feature size indicators on both the interior...

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Products: Medical

Advantech, Irvine, CA, announces PCE-3028, a PICMG 1.3 half-size system host board with Intel® H81, and compatible with 4th generation Intel® Core™ processors. The PCE-3028...

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Products: Medical

ConTech, Concord, CA, announces the “TMR” Series of DC/DC converters. The TMR Series offers up to 10 Watts of fully regulated output power and is RoHS compliant. The series offers a 2:1 input range with...

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Products: Medical

Elysium Inc., Southfield, MI, introduces the release of CADfeature 11.3, its new browser-enhanced, feature-based program for repairing, migrating, and reporting on product engineering data exchanged within manufacturing...

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Products: Medical

DePuy Synthes Power Tools, Palm Beach Gardens, FL, announced the global launch of the Anspach® EG1™ High Speed Electric System, a next generation high-speed electric drill with multiple...

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Products: Medical

NewAge Industries, Inc., Southampton, PA, introduced three types of medical-grade silicone tubing, with two types peroxide cured and one platinum cured. Silcon® Medical unreinforced tubing is...

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Products: Test & Measurement

Saelig Company, Inc., Fairport, NY, announces the availability of Linux-based software for PicoScope PC-based oscilloscopes. PicoScope 6 for Linux allows a PC to be connected to a USB adapter to produce...

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Products: Medical

Momentive Performance Materials Inc., Columbus, OH, introduces its new fiber-reinforced liquid silicone rubber (LSR) to enhance the ergonomics and aesthetics of wearable medical devices. It can provide...

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Products: Medical

RiverTech Medical, Chattanooga, TN, has developed precision micro-tubing with variable flexibility for catheter-based medical devices. The micro-tubing offers two to three different...

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Technology Leaders: Medical

The English (North America) dictionary definition of the word “precision” is accuracy (noun) or relating to accuracy (adjective). You will find the word “precision”...

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Technology Leaders: Medical

Laser machining has long been used in medical device manufacturing to create small sub-components with extremely fine features. More advanced manufacturers are...

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Mission Accomplished: Medical

For astronauts working aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in low-Earth orbit, getting adequate sleep is a challenge. For one, there’s that demanding and often unpredictable...

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R&D: Materials

Researchers at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, say that they have developed a new, stretchable antenna that can be incorporated into wearable technologies, such as health...

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R&D: Medical

Exciting news was reported by an international team of life scientists at the University of Louisville, KY; UCLA, Los Angeles, CA; and the Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Saint Petersburg, Russia;...

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R&D: Medical

Scientists at the University of Buffalo, NY, are exploring the use of PoP-liposomes or nanoballoons to get chemotherapy drugs where they need to go. They then blast the balloons with...

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R&D: Medical

A team of mechanical and materials engineers at Duke University, Durham, NC, have devised a way to improve the efficiency of lithotripsy—the crushing of kidney stones using focused shock...

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R&D: Medical

An interdisciplinary research team from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Arizona, Tucson, has developed a flexible medical implant...

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R&D: Materials

A team of engineers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, have demonstrated thin, soft stick-on patches that stretch and move with the...

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INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Chip Could Eliminate Need for Magnets in Imaging

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, say that they have built and demonstrated a chip-scale device that both produces and detects a specialized gas used in biomedical analysis and medical imaging. The new microfluidic chip produces polarized...

INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control
Making Augmented Reality Easier on the Eyes

Augmented reality is quickly becoming more integrated into everyday usage, such as smartphone apps that can identify landmarks, constellations, and more. Head-worn goggles, like Google Glass can superimpose computer-generated images onto your direct view of the physical world. But, moving your eyes...

INSIDER: Medical
World’s Smallest, Fastest Nanomotor Created

A team of engineers at The University of Texas at Austin say that they have built the smallest, fastest, and longest-running synthetic motor to date. This nanomotor, which could fit inside a human cell, is an important step toward developing miniature machines that could one day move through the body...

INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Introducing the Bionic Man

The NIH’s Bionic Man site helps viewers visually explore some of the latest bioengineering creations from research funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. From prosthetics to artificial kidneys, these technologies are changing lives now and in the future.

INSIDER: Medical
Wormlike Motion Lets Hydrogels Swim

Inspired by earthworms, which use peristaltic locomotion to wriggle, an engineering student at the University of Cincinnati's College of Engineering and Applied Science used a worm’s contracting and expanding motion to provide a way for gels to freely swim in liquids.

INSIDER: Medical
Further Progress Toward Detecting Glucose Levels in Saliva

A team of engineers at Brown University, Providence, RI, say that they have developed a new biochip sensor that that can selectively measure glucose concentrations in a complex fluid like saliva. This an important step toward a device that could enable diabetics to test their glucose...

INSIDER: Materials
Nature-Inspired Model for Low-Friction Bearings

The natural mechanical properties of natural joints are considered unrivalled. Cartilage is coated with a special layer of lubrication that allows joints to move virtually friction-free, even under high pressure. Using simulations on supercomputers, scientists from Forschungszentrum Jülich in...

INSIDER: Medical
Students Design Defibrillator Vest

A team of biomedical engineering students at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, designed a lightweight, easy-to-conceal shirt-like garment to deliver life-saving shocks to patients experiencing serious heart problems. The students say their design improves upon a wearable defibrillator system that is...

INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control
Making Laser-Like Beams with 250x Less Power

Using precarious particles called polaritons that straddle the worlds of light and matter, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, researchers have demonstrated a new, practical and potentially more efficient way to make a coherent laser-like beam. They say that their first-time polariton laser is fueled...

INSIDER: Medical
Improving Retinal Prostheses and Artificial Vision

Researchers at Stanford University say that they used electrical stimulation of retinal cells to produce the same patterns of activity that occur when the retina sees a moving object. They say that this is a step toward restoring natural, high-fidelity vision to blind people.

INSIDER: Medical
Detecting Ultrahigh Frequency Sound Waves for Unprecedented Clarity

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, say that they have demonstrated a technique for producing, detecting, and controlling ultrahigh frequency sound waves at the nanometer scale. Through a combination of...

INSIDER: Medical
Printing Electronic Circuits and Sensors Directly onto 3D Surfaces

Digital printing technologies play an important role in microelectronics, microsystems engineering, and sensor systems. Recently, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM in Bremen, Germany, have discovered that they can use...

Industry News: Medical
June 2014 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 Issues First Phase of GUDID Guidance

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has issued the first phase of its Global Unique Device Identification Database (GUDID): Guidance for Industry on June 11, 2014. To quickly provide industry with information critical to successful use of the GUDID, the FDA is issuing the GUDID Guidance in two...

INSIDER: Medical
Bionic Pancreas Provides Dramatic Results in Clinical Trials with Type 1 Diabetics

A team of researchers from Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital report their study results in a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that reveals that the latest version of a bionic pancreas device was successfully tested in type...

INSIDER: Medical
Improving MRI with Nanoscale Composites

A team of researchers from Rice University, Houston, TX, and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute say that submicroscopic particles containing even smaller particles of iron oxide could make magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) a far more powerful tool to detect and fight disease. They created composite...

News: Medical
FDA Issues Draft Guidance on Cybersecurity

Recognizing that the need for effective cybersecurity to ensure medical device functionality has become more important with the increasing use of wireless, Internet- and network-connected devices, and the frequent electronic exchange of medical device-related health information, the FDA has issued a...

INSIDER: Software
Medical Imaging Software Helps Diagnose Lung Cancer

Scientists at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, are developing imaging software that, they say, could give radiologists a tool to measure the growth of nodules in patients at risk of lung cancer. In a two-year study, Nathan Cahill, an associate professor in RIT’s School of...

INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Treating PTSD with Removable Brain Implant

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) recently received $5.6 million from the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an implantable neural interface that can record and stimulate neurons within the brain to treat neuropsychiatric...

Industry News: Medical
June 2014 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 Sterilization for Medical Devices
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To find out more about the expertise required to establish a safe and effective EO Sterilization for medical devices, MDB recently spoke with Elizabeth Sydnor, director of microbiology for Eurofins Medical Device Testing (Lancaster, PA).

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