CIMIT blog

Tissue Engineering: Growing new organs, and more!

MIT News Office (December 14, 2012) — In the 1970s and 1980s, tissue engineers began working on growing replacement organs for transplantation into patients. While scientists are still targeting that goal, much of the tissue engineering research at MIT is also focused on creating tissue that can be used in the lab to model human disease and test potential new drugs.

This kind of disease modeling could have a great impact in the near term, says MIT professor Sangeeta Bhatia, who is developing liver tissue to study hepatitis C and malaria infection.

Read full article at web.mit.edu >>

Smartphone-enabled Prosthetics Keep Amputees Out of Doctors' Office — +MassDevice.com

+MassDevice.com (January 4, 2013) — A "smart" prosthetic foot and ankle system uses microprocessor technology and a smartphone app that allows the device to adjust to a user's needs by responding to the environment or taking orders directly from the patient.

Orthocare Innovations' Magellan Microprocessor Foot Ankle System, a "smart" prosthetic that uses microprocessor computer control to automatically adjust for various types of activities and terrain, also features a smartphone app that allows users to adjust features of the prosthetic without needing to visit their doctors' offices.

The app also records activity that can then be shared with a physician or care provider monitoring the device, according to the video.

View original post on +MassDevice.com >>

Taking the Sting Out of Medical Tape — MIT News Office

MIT News Office (October 29, 2012) — Ripping off a Band-Aid may sting for a few seconds, but the pain is usually quickly forgotten. However, for newborns’ sensitive skin, tearing off any kind of adhesive can pose a serious risk.

Newborns lack an epidermis — the tough outermost layer of skin — so medical tape used to secure respirators or monitoring devices critical for the survival of premature babies can wreak havoc: Every year, more than 1.5 million people suffer scarring and skin irritation from medical tape, and the majority of those are infants or elderly people, who also have fragile skin.

“This is just a huge unmet need,” says Jeffrey Karp, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Bryan Laulicht, a postdoc in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer have now joined Karp in developing a new type of medical tape that can be removed without damaging delicate skin. The new tape could be produced by adapting current adhesive-manufacturing systems, according to the researchers.

Although originally designed for infants, the tape could also be useful for elderly patients. The new adhesive is described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers have filed for a patent on the new tape and are now working to secure regulatory approval for safety tests on human adults.

Read full story at web.mit.edu >>

Medical Devices Powered by the Ear Itself — MIT News Office

MIT News Office (November 7, 2012) — Deep in the inner ear of mammals is a natural battery — a chamber filled with ions that produces an electrical potential to drive neural signals. In today’s issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, a team of researchers from MIT, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) demonstrate for the first time that this battery could power implantable electronic devices without impairing hearing.

The devices could monitor biological activity in the ears of people with hearing or balance impairments, or responses to therapies. Eventually, they might even deliver therapies themselves.

The work was funded in part by the Focus Center Research Program, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and the Bertarelli Foundation.

Read full story at web.mit.edu >>

New Device Could Allow Your Heartbeat to Power Pacemaker

sciencedaily.com (November 4, 2012) — An experimental device converted energy from a beating heart to provide enough electricity to power a pacemaker, in a study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2012.

The findings suggest that patients could power their pacemakers -- eliminating the need for replacements when batteries are spent.

Read full story at sciencedaily.com >>

MSSM Presents "SINAInnovations: Launching a New Era of Discovery" on November 12-14, 2012

Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) presents "SINAInnovations: Launching a New Era of Discovery" on November 12-14, 2012 in New York. This unique three-day event celebrates a thriving culture of innovation at MSSM.

CIMIT Chief Operating Officer and Director of Technology Implementation John Collins, PhD, is speaking about CIMIT and CIMIT CoLab™ at the "Blueprints for Innovation in Academia" panel discussion on Monday, November 12 from 9:20-10:30 a.m.

For complete conference information, visit the SINAInnovations website.

Mobile Devices 'On Call' in Hospitals

nytimes.com/science (October 8, 2012) — At hospitals around the country, mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet computers, are becoming critical to efficient and precise patient care.

View original post at http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/10/08/health/100000001824071/mobile-devices-on-call-in-hospitals.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto >>

Automatic Building Mapping Could Help Emergency Responders: A prototype sensor array that can be worn on the chest automatically maps the wearer’s environment, recognizing movement between floors

MIT News Office (September 24, 2012) — MIT researchers have built a wearable sensor system that automatically creates a digital map of the environment through which the wearer is moving. The prototype system, described in a paper slated for the Intelligent Robots and Systems conference in Portugal next month, is envisioned as a tool to help emergency responders coordinate disaster response.



In experiments conducted on the MIT campus, a graduate student wearing the sensor system wandered the halls, and the sensors wirelessly relayed data to a laptop in a distant conference room. Observers in the conference room were able to track the student’s progress on a map that sprang into being as he moved.

Connected to the array of sensors is a handheld pushbutton device that the wearer can use to annotate the map. In the prototype system, depressing the button simply designates a particular location as a point of interest. But the researchers envision that emergency responders could use a similar system to add voice or text tags to the map — indicating, say, structural damage or a toxic spill.

Read full story at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/automatic-building-mapping-0924.html >>

3-D Medical Scanner: New Handheld Imaging Device to Aid Doctors On the 'Diagnostic Front Lines'

science.com (October 2, 2012) — In the operating room, surgeons can see inside the human body in real time using advanced imaging techniques, but primary care physicians, the people who are on the front lines of diagnosing illnesses, haven't commonly had access to the same technology -- until now.

Engineers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have created a new imaging tool for primary care physicians: a handheld scanner that would enable them to image all the sites they commonly examine, and more, such as bacterial colonies in the middle ear in 3-D, or monitor the thickness and health of patients' retinas. The device relies on optical coherence tomography (OCT), a visualization technology that is similar to ultrasound imaging, but uses light instead of sound to produce the images.

Read full story at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121002150035.htm >>

Scientists Make Tiny Medical Devices That Dissolve in Mice

cbsnews.com (September 27, 2012) — As consumers we want our electronic gadgets to be durable. But as patients, we might want them to dissolve - inside our bodies.

Scientists reported Thursday that they succeeded in creating tiny medical devices sealed in silk cocoons that did the work they were designed for, then dissolved in the bodies of lab mice. It's an early step in a technology that may hold promise, not only for medicine, but also for disposal of electronic waste.

The new work is "a remarkable achievement" in combining materials to produce a working device, said Christopher Bettinger of Carnegie Mellon University. He works on biodegradable electronics but was not involved in the study.

Doctors already use implants that dispense drugs or provide electrical stimulation, but they don't dissolve. The new work is aimed at making devices that do their jobs as long as needed and then just dissolved, without need for surgical removal or risk of long-term side effects.

Read full story at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57521928/scientists-make-tiny-medical-devices-that-dissolve-in-mice/?tag=socsh >>