R&D

Dissolvable silicon electronics offer an unprecedented opportunity to implant advanced monitoring systems, according to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Implantable brain devices that literally melt away at a pre-determined rate, for...

By blending pulverized natural bone with man-made plastic, researchers at The Johns Hopkins University 3D-printed replacement skeletal structures of the head and face, including the lower jaw of a female patient. The team's composite material combines the strength and printability of plastic...

Researchers at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Sheffield, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have demonstrated a tiny origami robot that unfolds itself from a swallowed capsule. Steered by external magnetic fields, the bot can crawl across the stomach wall to remove...

A mobile container from Rice University sterilizes surgical instruments in low-resource settings. The "Sterile Box," built into a standard 20-foot steel shipping container, houses a water system for decontamination and a solar-powered autoclave for steam sterilization.

Drexel University researchers have developed a new method for making polymer nanobrushes. The technology can be used in various medical applications, including coating, biomedical, sensing, and catalysis processes.

Researchers from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a small, implantable device that delivers chemotherapy drugs directly to pancreatic tumors. Using mice, the team determined that the implant approach was up to 12 times more effective than the common method of delivering chemotherapy...

Combining the best features of a lobster and an African fish, University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have created an artificial eye that sees in the dark. The technology could help brighten the dim surroundings presented from surgical scopes.

Using samples of store-bought meat, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated the possibility of real-time video-rate data transmission through tissue. The development supports in-body ultrasonic communications with implanted medical devices.

Vanderbilt University researchers have created an implantable artificial kidney that is powered by a patient's own heart. The bio-hybrid device uses living kidney cells and microchip filters to keep a patient off dialysis and remove waste products, salt, and water.

A University of Missouri School of Medicine researcher has evaluated technology that may be used to replace fluoroscopy, eliminating the need for X-ray during cardiac ablation procedures.

A mind-controlled prosthetic arm developed by Johns Hopkins researchers allows wearers to move individual digits independently of each other. The proof-of-concept device represents an advance in technologies to restore refined hand function to those who have lost arms to injury or disease, say the...

A plasmonic interferometry technique created by Brown University engineers has the potential to enable compact, ultra-sensitive biosensors. The method combines nanotechnology with plasmonics — the interaction between a metal's electrons and light.

University of Rochester researchers created a material that undergoes a shape change when triggered by body heat alone. The shape-memory polymer can be programmed to retain a temporary form and then revert back to its original structure.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab have developed a new imaging device that consists of a loose bundle of optical fibers; no lenses or protective housing are needed. Tight bundles of the fibers could yield endoscopes with narrower diameters.

A two-part system created by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley detects and analyzes a profile of chemicals in sweat. The flexible sensors and flexible circuit board stick to the skin and provide a health-monitoring device that continuously tracks a user's health...

An interdisciplinary group of researchers at UC Santa Barbara has developed an underwater adhesive that can be used in tissue repair applications. The technology replicates the adhesion strategy of the Sandcastle worm (Phragmatopoma californica), a segmented marine invertebrate commonly found along...

Mechanical engineers from the University of Wisconsin are building a handheld microscope to help doctors and dentists distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells. The tool captures details up to a half millimeter beneath the tissue surface, where some types of cancerous cells originate.

A team at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has characterized a fundamental origami fold, or tessellation, that could be used as a building block for medical devices. The folding pattern, known as the Miura-ori, can be packed into a flat, compact...

To prevent scar formation within blood vessels, a team from Northwestern University has created a biodegradable material with built-in vitamin A. The soft elastic material can be used to treat injured vessels or make medical devices, such as stents and prosthetic vascular grafts.

Rice University bioengineers have reprogrammed a laser cutter to etch 50,000 microwells per hour. The open-source, low-cost method for making microwells could reduce the cost of mass-producing metastatic microtumors and therapeutic microtissues for screening and research.

Using a portable device developed at Drexel University, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have identified differences in brain activation patterns associated with postural stability in people with Parkinsonian syndromes and healthy adults. The findings describe the critical role...