News

A group of researchers from Italy's Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies created a robotic arm that bends, stretches, and squeezes through cluttered environments. Inspired by the eight arms of an octopus, the device allows surgeons to easily access remote, confined regions of the body and, once there,...

Medtech companies reshuffle facility locations to capture market opportunities.

In this Outsourcing Outlook newsletter, Contributing Editor Steve Halasey examines the latest industry news concerning outsourcing/contract manufacturing.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has withdrawn 47 draft guidance documents published before December 31, 2013, which were never finalized or acted on. The announcement was posted in the Federal Register, stating that this move was made to improve the efficiency and transparency of the guidance...

CT scans provide valuable details of bones and dense body parts that strongly absorb X-rays, however, the techniques struggle with the visualization of soft tissues and organs. A Compact Light Source (CLS) from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory enables computer tomography...

University of Washington engineers hacked a teleoperated surgical robot to test how easily a malicious attack could hijack remotely controlled operations. Incorporating security measures will be critical to the safe adoption and use of the robotic technology.

Here is the latest batch of news from the medical products community. Please click the link for more.

A new smartphone microscope uses video to automatically detect and quantify parasites in a drop of blood. The CellScope technology, developed by UC Berkeley engineers, could revive efforts to eradicate debilitating filarial diseases in Africa.

A team of scientists from Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, developed a chest strap device for the long-term monitoring of patients with heart and circulatory problems. The new system records an electrocardiogram (ECG) of the wearer.

Scientists from the Pohang University of Science and Technology have developed a simple, thermometer-like device that could help doctors diagnose heart attacks. The technology detects troponin, a protein that rises when blood is cut off from the heart and muscle is damaged.

Georgia Institute of Technology engineers have built a multi-modality cellular sensor. Arranged in a standard CMOS process, each sensor pixel concurrently monitors multiple different physiological parameters of the same cell and tissue samples.

A smartphone app created by students at Rice University regulates the flow of blood through the heart. The combined software-hardware interface works with an Android application to monitor and control a high-tech pump residing in the aorta.

Using a compact synchrotron source, researchers at the Technische Universität München (TUM) have developed a technology that measures X-ray absorption, phase shifts, and radiation scattering. The technology will help doctors and scientists distinguish between healthy tissue and tumors.

A University of Illinois research team developed a new method of soldering gaps in atomically small wires. The more flexible transistor technology, carbon nanotube wires, shows promise in replacing silicon devices.

New wireless retinal implants from Stanford University researchers convert light transmitted from special glasses into electrical current. The resulting current stimulates the retinal neurons known as bipolar cells.

Here is the latest batch of news from the medical products community. Please click the link for more.

Vienna University of Technology and Vienna Medical University researchers have created artificial blood vessels from a special elastomer material. To produce the vascular prostheses, polymer solutions were spun in an electrical field to form very fine threads and wound onto a spool. The prostheses can...

A portable Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) device from the Los Alamos National Laboratory uses low-power magnetic fields to image the brain and other soft-tissue anatomy. The lightweight technology could be deployed on the battlefield and in the world's poorest regions.

Using a single laser pulse, a group of researchers at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands has devised a method that allows silicon, in the polycrystalline form used in circuitry, to be produced directly on a paper substrate from liquid silicon ink. The process can be expanded to...

Manufacturing researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have identified important challenges for powder bed fusion, the chief method for "printing" metal parts. By identifying the factors that influence the manufacturing process, professionals will improve the creation...

A portable device, developed in part by EPFL researchers, monitors one's breath to quickly detect the presence of head and neck cancer. The technology, equipped with extremely sensitive sensors, has been tested on patients and operates with a computer or even a mobile phone.

A device developed by Massachusetts General Hospital investigators provides rapid, accurate molecular diagnosis of tumors and other diseases. The smartphone-based technology collects detailed microscopic images for digital analysis of the molecular composition of cells and tissues.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology team has developed a new, ultrasensitive magnetic-field detector. The device could lead to miniaturized, battery-powered devices for medical imaging.

A new potential manufacturing approach from Purdue University researchers harnesses inkjet printing to create devices made of liquid alloys. The resulting stretchable electronics are compatible with soft machines, such as robots that must squeeze through small spaces, or wearable electronics.

Using an inexpensive silicon chip less than a millimeter square in size, a nanophotonic coherent imager (NCI), developed by California Institute of Technology researchers, provides 3D maps with high depth-measurement accuracy.

Rice University graduate students and researchers have made nanowires between 6 and 16 nanometers wide. The wires are made from a variety of materials, including silicon, silicon dioxide, gold, chromium, tungsten, titanium, titanium dioxide, and aluminum. The development of sub-10-nanometer sizes...

Here is the latest batch of news from the medical products community. Please click the link for more.

A biosensing platform from Florida Atlantic University could be used to diagnose disease, remotely monitor patients, and determine treatment options for HIV, E-coli, Staphylococcus aureas, and other bacteria. Using a drop of blood from a fingerprick, the platform provides clinically relevant...

Using MRI, Johns Hopkins researchers developed a cancer detection method that does not rely on injected contrast dyes. The technique noninvasively finds telltale sugar molecules shed by the outer membranes of cancerous cells.

A new algorithm allows a person to use his or her thoughts to grasp a bottle or other object. The non-invasive brain monitoring technique, developed by University of Houston researchers, will help the team understand the neuroscience behind the action of grasping.