Materials/​Biomaterials

Laser Direct Structuring for Sensor Manufacturing

Every day the world’s leading medical device companies rely upon laser direct structuring (LDS) to meet their most demanding design and performance requirements. Millions of electronic...

Nanotexturing Creates Bacteria-Killing Spikes on Stainless Steel Surfaces

By using an electrochemical etching process on a common stainless-steel alloy, researchers have created a nanotextured surface that kills bacteria while not harming...

New Products & Services

Packaging System CleanCut Technologies, Anaheim, CA, has added a new packaging system to the company's portfolio of packaging products. The Vault packaging system is designed as an alternative to pouch-style packaging...

Beating Heart Patch is Large Enough to Repair the Human Heart

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have created a fully functioning artificial human heart muscle large enough to patch over damage typically seen in patients who have suffered...

Therapy Robots a Step Closer to Reality

In tests, a swarm of robots measuring a few millionths of a meter long — about the size of a blood cell — were guided magnetically to sites in the stomach of rats. The robots were manufactured by...

Optimizing Performance and Value of Medical Devices with the Right Plastic Processing Technology

Engineering thermoplastics are widely used to manufacture a broad range of medical devices, from single-use syringes and applicators to diagnostic...

Synthetic Hydrogels Deliver Cells to Repair Intestinal Injuries

By combining engineered polymeric materials known as hydrogels with complex intestinal tissue known as organoids— made from human pluripotent stem cells — researchers have...

From Research to Diagnostics: Plasma Treatments Improve Quality, Function

Each year, billions of multi-well plates, pipettes, bottles, flasks, vials, Eppendorf tubes, culture plates, and other polymer items are manufactured for use in research,...

Super-Elastic Surgical Glue Sticks and Seals in Vivo

To repair ruptured or pierced organs and tissues, surgeons commonly use staples, sutures and wires to bring and hold the wound edges together so that they can heal. However, these procedures...

Spider Silk Improves Hearing Aid Microphones

New research shows that fine fibers like spider silk actually improve the quality of microphones for hearing aids. The microphone improves the directional sensing across a wide variety of...

Gecko-Inspired Adhesive Outperforms Current Methods

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems have developed a soft gripping system that uses differential air pressure and a gecko-inspired...

Electroactive Material for Wound Healing

NASA Langley Research Center’s Technology Gateway Hampton, VA This technology uses electrical activity to facilitate the wound-healing process while protecting the wound. The bandage is made of an...

Helmet Smart Foam Signals Potential Concussions in Real Time

Most football fans have seen players get hit so hard they can barely walk back to the sideline. All too often in years past, those players were back on the field just a few plays...

3D-Printing Materials Offer Safer Option for Wound Care

Cellulose nanofibrils have properties that can improve the characteristics of bio-based 3D printing pastes. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is developing a 3D wound care product...

Low-Density Polymer Lightens the Load of Prosthetic Hand

Researchers at the University of Southampton, UK, have chosen low-density thermopolymer to create various parts of the next generation of its innovative Southampton-Remedi prosthetic...

New Type of Rubber Can Self-Heal

Researchers have developed a new type of rubber that is as tough as natural rubber but can also self-heal. Applications include wearable electronics and other medical devices. In order to make a rubber...

New Material Could Aid Body’s Cellular Repair Process

A research team has demonstrated a therapeutic material that could one day promote better tissue regeneration following a wound or a stroke. The injectable gel-like material, which is...

ADHESIVES: The Importance of CTE for Assembly Reliability

Adhesive compounds play a critical role in the fabrication of assemblies for electronic, optical, and mechanical systems. In securing multiple components into a single structure, bonding...

Sticking to Skin: How to Overcome Human Factors

The qualities that make skin an incredible organism are the same ones that make it a challenge to stick to. Engineers may know all too well the headaches that can come with selecting adhesives for...

Smart Materials Used in Ultrasound Behave Like Water

A team of researchers is gaining new insight into the smart materials used in ultrasound technology, finding striking similarities with the behavior of water. They investigated a behavior of...

Drug-Loaded Collagen Scaffolds Prevent Implant Infection

A study led by scientists from the Regenerative, Modular, and Developmental Engineering Laboratory (REMODEL) and the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices,...

Active Implants: How Gold Binds to Silicone Rubber

Flexible electronic parts could significantly improve medical implants. However, electroconductive gold atoms usually hardly bind to silicones. Researchers from the University of Basel have now...

Intelligent Materials Enable In-Situ Heart Valve Tissue Engineering

About 300,000 patients each year receive a heart valve replacement that is either a mechanical device or produced from animal tissue. Although these valves generally improve...

Sugar-Coated Nanomaterial Excels at Promoting Bone Growth

There hasn’t been a gold standard for how orthopedic spine surgeons promote new bone growth in patients, but now Northwestern University scientists have designed a bioactive...

Hydrogel Material Improves Success of Transplanting Islet Cells

Combining a new hydrogel material with a protein that boosts blood vessel growth could improve the success rate for transplanting insulin-producing islet cells into persons with...

Using Spider Silk, Surgeon Hits a Nerve

Christine Radtke, a Professor for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Austria’s MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital, has 21 spiders. The silk obtained from the Tanzanian golden orb-weavers offers...

New 3D Printing Method Promises New Era for Medical Implants

For the millions of people every year who have or need medical devices implanted, a new advancement in 3D printing technology developed at the University of Florida promises...

Disposables

The potential for environmental stress cracking is a common concern when plastics are used in medical devices. According to materials expert Jeffrey Jansen of The Madison Group, environmental stress cracking (ESC) is considered a...

New Chemical Method Could Revolutionize Graphene

Scientists have discovered a new chemical method that enables graphene to be incorporated into a wide range of applications while maintaining its ultrafast electronics. Graphene, a...