Here is a compilation of changes in leadership, expansions, mergers, and acquisitions that have taken place in the medical device industry during the second half of September. If you have news to be included in this section, please send it to the editor, Beth Sisk, at beth@techbriefs.com.

The FDA has compiled a list of FAQs provided to assist medical device establishments with understanding the new requirements and responsibilities for registration and listing that become effective today, October 1, 2012. The information includes a list of changes to medical device listing and...

The Reshoring Initiative, whose ongoing mission is to broadcast the benefits of reshoring or bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States, celebrated its first year of incorporation, as well as the achievement of significant national attention and support of its efforts. The number of...

An experimental MRI method may be safer and just as swift as standard X-ray procedures in guiding surgical interventions in the heart. The finding, from a small clinical study by scientists at NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), suggests that MRI might one day offer a radiation-free...

Biomechanical engineers at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, determined that thigh size in obese people is a reason their hip implants are more likely to fail. In a study, the team simulated hip dislocations as they occur in humans and determined that increased thigh girth creates hip instability in...

Any parent who’s had to deal with a screaming child with a painful ear infection knows that getting a quick diagnosis and medication if needed is the key to regaining a happy home. What if they were able to skip taking the upset child to the doctor for that diagnosis? That is the question posed by...

What if every pregnant woman in the world had access to ultrasound technology to examine the health and development of their unborn child? That’s what engineers at Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, wondered. They have developed a portable and easy-to-use ultra-low cost scanner that can be...

Millions of injections are given annually, from annual flu shots to childhood immunizations. However, while hypodermic needles deliver controlled, precise injections, the pain they deliver continues to make them unpopular among recipients, especially children. Now, a new laser-based system, being developed by...

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, believe that it’s possible to predict how well people can remember information by monitoring their brain activity while they study. A team in Sandia’s cognitive systems group monitored test subjects with electroencephalography (EEG) sensors while they...

It's mid-September and there have been many new leadership changes, expansions, and mergers. To see what's happened in the industry in the past two weeks, see below.

An associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, has developed a silicon-on-insulator (SOI)–complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process for fabricating flexible electronics. As reported in Applied Physics Letters, the technology may some day be...

Did you know that you can use federal laboratory-developed technologies to grow your business? The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer has created a free, online “One-Stop Shop” to quickly find the right opportunity for you — no matter which federal lab it comes from. The new...

A team of engineers at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, has demonstrated that a tiny, implantable cardiac device can get its power from radio waves transmitted from a small power device on the surface of the body. The implanted device could fit on the head of pin. In their paper, published in the journal...

Scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, have invented a self-charging power cell that directly converts mechanical energy to chemical energy, storing the power until it is released as electrical current. By eliminating the need to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy for...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has created coated sutures with sensors that could monitor wounds and speed up healing. The electronic sutures, which contain ultra-thin silicon sensors integrated on polymer or silk strips, can be threaded through needles and, in animal tests,...

Scientists at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, have found a way to use the regenerative power of stem cells to improve orthopedic implant surgery. They are collaborating with surgeons at Glasgow’s Southern General Hospital to develop a new type of orthopedic implant that could be stronger and more...

Medical device makers should report all adverse events in pre-market clinical trials, including serious health threats, unanticipated serious effects, as well as any deficiencies that might lead to a serious adverse event, states the Global Harmonization Task Force’s (GHTF) final guidance on...

Biologists at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, pursuing a model for studying heat dissipation, have created a glove that can rapidly cool down athletes’ core temperatures and dramatically improve exercise recovery and performance. A version of the heat-extraction glove is currently nearing...

There are several medical conditions that require intravenous (IV) fluids. Limitations of mass, volume, storage space, shelf-life, transportation, and local resources can restrict the availability of such important fluids. These limitations are expected in long-duration space exploration...