Medical Implants: Zwitterions Coating Could Prevent Blood Clotting

Zwitterions sound likes a distant cousin of Twitter (X), but in fact they are a common macromolecule found in human cells. Scientists at the University of Sydney are also now using zwitterions to create materials that could stop blood clots from forming in medical devices and implants. Read on to learn more.

Sensitive Ceramics for Robotics, Prosthetics

Researchers are developing soft sensor materials based on ceramics. Such sensors can feel temperature, strain, pressure, or humidity, for instance, which makes them interesting for use in medicine, but also in the field of soft robotics. Read on to learn more.

Materials Help Manage Side Effects of Brain Pacemakers

A team at the Nanostructured and Novel Materials Laboratory at the University of Tabriz has created organic materials for brain and heart pacemakers that rely on uninterrupted signal delivery to be effective. Read on to learn more.

Twisted Nanotubes Power Sensors

Researchers have shown that twisted carbon nanotubes can store three times more energy per unit mass than advanced lithium-ion batteries. The finding may advance carbon nanotubes as a promising solution for storing energy in devices that need to be lightweight, compact, and safe, such as medical implants and sensors. Read on to learn more.

Hydrogel Implant Treats Endometriosis

Researchers have now developed the first hydrogel implant designed for use in fallopian tubes. This innovation performs two functions: one is to act as a contraceptive, the other is to prevent the recipient from developing endometriosis in the first place or to halt the spread if they do. Read on to learn more.

Implantable Miniature Brain-Machine Interface Offers Low Power Usage

Researchers at EPFL have developed the first high-performance, miniaturized brain-machine interface (MiBMI), offering an extremely small, low-power, highly accurate, and versatile solution. Read on to learn about it.

Material Improves Implantable Technology

Borophene is more conductive, thinner, lighter, stronger, and more flexible than graphene, the 2D version of carbon. Now, researchers have made the material potentially more useful by imparting chirality — or handedness — on it. Read on to learn what this could mean for advanced sensors and implantable medical devices.

Implant Powers Healing after Spinal Cord Injury

A research team has developed a new implant that conveys electrical signals and may have the potential to encourage nerve cell repair after spinal cord injury. Read on to learn more.

Soft Implantable Polymer Balloon Enables Controlled and Targeted Drug Delivery

In a paper published in Biomaterials Research, a team led by researchers from the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology present data on their nonbiodegradable, ultrasoft, and flexible balloon implant for drug delivery. Their findings demonstrate the balloon’s effectiveness in delivering a model drug both in the laboratory setting and in animal models. Read on to learn more.

Implant Targets Optical Stimulation

A new device platform allows for smaller wireless light sources to be placed within the human body. Research indicates that such light sources will enable novel, minimally invasive means of treating and...

Improved Ultrasound Wireless Charging for Implantable Biomedical Devices

Ultrasound-based wireless power transfer is becoming a more attractive option to power implanted biomedical devices because it could overcome many of the limitations and challenges facing other wireless charging approaches. Now, a new study has shown that the shape of the implanted receiver can significantly increase the efficiency of power harvesting from the ultrasound beam.

Smart Implant Holds Promise for the Blind

By sending electrical impulses via an implant to the visual cortex of the brain, an image can be created, and each electrode would represent one pixel.

Advancing Medtech Requires Advanced Battery Technology to Match

In the coming years, companies will continue to evolve ultrasonic metal welding technologies to answer the needs of an ever-changing field of medical devices and the batteries that power them. Developing new assembly technologies will maximize the performance and precision of ultrasonic metal welding to satisfy the new design, size, and power requirements of advanced-performance medical devices.

Robot-Driven Orthopedics Manufacturing

By embracing advanced robotic machine-tending automation, SpiTrex unlocked new levels of precision, capacity, utilization, and profitability. The successful deployment of robot-driven manufacturing with autonomous process control using Flexxbotics marks a transformative milestone for SpiTrex Orthopedics’ smart factory operations.

3D Printing Method Builds Structures with Two Metals

Taking a cue from the structural complexity of trees and bones, Washington State University engineers have created a way to 3D print two types of steel in the same circular layer using two welding machines. The resulting bimetallic material proved 33–42 percent stronger than either metal alone, thanks in part to pressure caused between the metals as they cool together.

Under-the-Skin Implant Could Treat Type I Diabetes

Researchers have created a new technique to treat Type 1 diabetes: implanting a device inside a pocket under the skin that can secrete insulin while avoiding the immunosuppression that...

Transparent Brain Implant

A neural implant provides information about activity deep inside the brain while sitting on its surface. The implant is made up of a thin, transparent, and flexible polymer strip that is packed with a dense array of...

Using Static Electricity to Enhance Biomedical Implants

Researchers have created electrostatic materials that function even with extremely weak ultrasound, heralding the era of permanent implantable electronic devices in biomedicine.

Squishy, Metal-Free Magnets to Power Robots and Guide Medical Implants

Creating robots from flexible materials allows them to contort in unique ways, handle delicate objects, and explore places that other robots cannot. More rigid robots would be crushed by the deep ocean’s pressure or could damage sensitive tissues in the human body, for example.

Infection-Resistant, 3D Printed Metals Developed for Implants

The work could lead to better infection control in many common surgeries, such as hip and knee replacements, that are performed daily around the world. Bacterial colonization of the implants is one of the leading causes of their failure and bad outcomes after surgery.

Implantable Device for Diabetes

Researchers have developed an implantable device that could provide a long-term supply of insulin to the body. The implant was designed to shield insulin-producing, or islet, cells from damaging immune responses, while continuously generating oxygen to sustain them.

Collaboration to Explore Next-Generation Biomedical Implants

A new collaboration between The University of Manchester and CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials could transform the field of biomedical implants.

Piezoelectric Material Printing

A microprinter can print piezoelectric films 100 times faster for the production of MEMS for sensors, wearable, or implantable medical devices, offering the possibility to lower the mass production costs.

Eye Implant Treats Diabetes

A microscale device for implantation in the eye presents new opportunities for cell-based treatment of diabetes and other diseases. The 3D printed device aims to encapsulate insulin-producing pancreatic cells and electronic sensors.

Minimally Invasive Smart Glaucoma Implants

A minimally invasive and smart glaucoma implant has the potential to decrease the incidence of postoperative complications. The biodegradable glaucoma implant is approximately the same size as the world’s smallest medical device known to be implanted in the human body.

Nature-Inspired Pressure Sensing Technology

A novel aero-elastic pressure sensor, called eAir can be applied to minimally invasive surgeries and implantable sensors by directly addressing the challenges associated with existing pressure sensors.

Manufacturing Considerations for Implantable Drug-Delivery Systems

With all the benefits implantable systems offer therapy developers, clinicians, and patients, it is easy to see why market projections for this segment are on the rise.

Implantable Drug-Delivery System Powered by Light

A team of scientists has developed novel technology with the potential to change the future of drug delivery. The device developed represents the first implantable drug-delivery system that is triggered by external light sources of different wavelengths, and not by electronics.

Innovations Drive Improved Orthopedic Prosthetic Implants

The first ever bone plate that was implanted in a human body is reported to be in the 1560s, centuries before the advent of anesthesia.