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Manufacturers are always trying to find ways to make things better, faster, and cheaper. In a search to find new ways to make medical tests meet that criteria, a University of Washington, Seattle, bioengineer developed a way to make plain paper stick to medically interesting molecules that may be used to create...

Medical Design Briefs News Online is kicking off Breast Cancer Awareness Month with new optical imaging technology developed at Tufts University School of Engineering, Medford, MA, that may provide doctors with new ways of both identifying breast cancer and monitoring individual patients' response to initial...

Asthma? There’s an app for that. Currently, those who suffer from asthma or other chronic lung problems only get a measure of their lung function at the doctor’s office a few times a year by blowing into a specialized piece of equipment – the spirometer. But, more frequent testing at home could detect...

Researchers at the University of Illinois (UI), Champaign, in collaboration with Tufts and Northwestern universities, have created a new class of electronic devices: biocompatible and biodegradable electronics for medical implants that can dissolve completely in water or in body fluids. “We refer to this type of...

Robotic surgery though the mouth is a safe, effective way to remove tumors of the throat and voice box, according to a study published in in the journal, Head and Neck, by surgeons at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, OH, Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J....

For a skilled surgeon performing general surgery, tiny hand tremors are usually not a serious risk for patients. But what if the surgeon is operating inside the human eye or repairing microscopic nerve fibers? Scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering and Johns Hopkins...

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...

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...

The Canadian Space Agency will soon be testing a new device to rapidly diagnose the health of astronauts in space on the International Space Station (ISS). Microflow, a miniature flow cytometer that uses a unique fiber optics technology to test for diseases and bacterial infection within minutes, will...

Two engineers and a Harvard Medical School student have teamed up to enhance the human capabilities of touch with a robotic sensor glove. The glove could take the potential of a diagnosis altering physical exam and put it into the hands of patients. Its primary goal, they say, is to bring the glove...

As diabetes becomes more prevalent across the globe, it is clear that a new method to test blood glucose levels needs to be found. Sampling with needle pricks is pricks is unpleasant at best and places a significant burden on the patient population. Researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette,...

Electrical and computer engineers at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, are developing a technology to predict when a person might fall. They created a small prototype wireless sensor that analyzes posture and gait, and sends an alert when there is a break in routine. The alert could signal muscle or vision changes, or may...

Three blind mice? No longer, say two researchers in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Cornell Medical College who deciphered a mouse's retina's neural code. Then, they linked this information to a novel prosthetic device that restored sight to blind mice. In addition, they say that they...

To head off possible postoperative problems, undergraduate biomedical engineering students at Johns Hopkins University have invented a disposable suturing tool. Their invention, called FastStitch, guides the placement of stitches and guards against accidental puncturing of internal organs after abdominal...

Scientists in the schools of Pharmacy and Molecular Medical Sciences at the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, have discovered what they say is a new class of polymers that are resistant to bacterial attachment. These new materials could lead to a significant reduction in hospital infections and medical...

Computer scientists at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, are working to develop a wearable electronic device that identifies a person’s unique physiological responses, such as heart rate, skin response, or other physiological data. The worn device could then use that information to coordinate and protect the...

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) holds great promise to treat neurological disorders ranging from Parkinson's disease to depression. But the current electrode used for implanting in DBS tend to induce an immune response in patients that reduces the treatment's efficacy. over time....