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When babies are deprived of oxygen before birth, brain damage and disorders such as cerebral palsy can occur. Extended cooling can help to prevent brain injuries, but, in developing nations where advanced medical care is scarce, this treatment is not always available. To address this need,...

Around 17 million people in Germany suffer from impaired hearing. A new device being developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), Stuttgart, Germany, can, researchers say, improve patients’ hearing and can be implanted during outpatient surgery. Hearing...

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, with the support of a $3.4 million National Institutes of Health grant, are working to develop an artificial lung to serve as a bridge to transplant or recovery in patients with acute and chronic lung failure. The project aims to develop a compact respiratory...

A team of scientists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, have developed a tiny implantable device that can analyze the concentration of up to five proteins and organic acids in the blood simultaneously, and then transmit the...

Longtime cochlear implant users are reporting dramatic improvements in their hearing, thanks to new image-guided programming methods developed by researchers at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Using a patent-pending nonsurgical process, audiologists can fine-tune and customize cochlear implant programming,...

A new study by researchers at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, examined how bacteria clogs medical devices, and found that the microbes join to create slimy ribbons that form tangles, trapping other bacteria, and creating a full blockage in a very short period of time. Their findings, they say, could...

A team of neuroengineers based at Brown University, Providence, RI, has developed a fully implantable and rechargeable wireless brain sensor capable of relaying real-time broadband signals from up to 100 neurons in freely moving subjects. Several copies of the novel low-power device, described...

Researchers at the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, have successfully coated polymer implants with a bioactive film that, they say should improve the success rate of the implants, typically used in spinal surgeries. The polymer contained in these implants, called Polyetheretherketone...

A team of bioengineers and physicians at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, have created an artificial external ear, using 3D printing and injectable molds, that looks and acts like a natural ear. This could give new hope to children born with a congenital ear deformity, or to those who have lost all or...

Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and the University of Illinois have demonstrated a stretchable lithium-ion battery can power their innovative stretchable electronics. The stretchable electronic devices now could be used anywhere, including inside the human body, they say,...

Scientists at King's College London say they have demonstrated the ability to deliver a dried live vaccine to the skin without using a traditional needle. They also state that this technique is powerful enough to enable specialized immune cells in the skin to kick-start the immunizing...

The Florida State University, Tallahassee, and its High-Performance Materials Institute are leading a major partnership to develop the next generation of prosthetic limbs for military-veteran amputee patients, thanks to a new contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The two-year,...

A specialized 3D printing process, using human stem cells, could pave the way to building custom replacement organs for patients, eliminating the need for organ donation, immune system suppression, and possible transplant rejection. Sound fantastic? The new valve-based technique, developed by the biomedical...

Scientists at the Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), Canada, a world-renowned biomedical research center, were the first to conduct a trial comparing a dual-hormone artificial pancreas with conventional diabetes treatment using an insulin pump. Their research showed improved glucose...

Tucked within the Affordable Care Act is a provision requiring insurance companies to cover breast pumps. Insurers must pay for the new benefit, but the law doesn’t specify whether insurers must cover certain brands or types of breast pumps. It directs health plans to pay for “the costs of...