CIMIT blog

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 >>

Paralyzed, Moving a Robot With Their Minds

Research led by Massachusetts General Hospital, Brown University and the Department of Veterans Affairs allows a paralyzed woman to move a robotic arm with her mind!

Cathy Hutchinson has been unable to move her own arms or legs for 15 years. But using the most advanced brain-machine interface ever developed, she can steer a robotic arm towards a bottle, pick it up, and drink her morning coffee. The interface includes a sensor implanted in Cathy's brain, which 'reads' her thoughts, and a decoder, which turns her thoughts into instructions for the robotic arm. In this video, watch Cathy control the arm and hear from the team behind the pioneering study.

Learn more:

• Original research paper: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7398/full/nature11076.html
• Read stories and watch videos at www.cbsnew.com and  www.nytimes.com.

 

 

Aingeal: Low-Cost, Small, Wearable, Wireless Vital Signs Monitor

Supported by a CIMIT Innovation Grant within its Clinical Systems Innovation (CSI) Program, Aingeal is a low-cost, small, wearable, wireless device that monitors vital signs of patients, with an emphasis on respiratory rate, to reduce false alarms, allow for more virtual dissemination of alarms and simplify clinical workflow. CIMIT envisions this user driven innovative system to be in clinical use within 2 years (approximately 2014).

Learn about the CIMIT Clinical Systems Innovation (CSI) Program at http://www.cimit.org/programs-clinicalsystems.html.

CIMIT Grant Funding Colonoscopy in a Capsule Research at Brigham & Women's

bostonglobe.com (January 9, 2012) — Funded with $200,000 in grants from the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital are now developing a “swimming capsule’’ that they hope will combine the best of both approaches—the control of the endoscope with the safety and ease of a pill.

Read full story on bostonglobe.com >>

Online Submission Process Open for 2012 Prize for Primary Healthcare

Prize for Primary Healthcare Contact: cimitprize@partners.org

About the Prize

The Prize for Primary Healthcare is an annual national competition encouraging engineering students to develop creative technological innovations with great potential to catalyze and support improved delivery of care at the frontlines of medicine. It is open to graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in accredited engineering programs.

Technologies of particular interest are ones that could improve access to medical care, leverage the skill of caregivers, automate routine tasks, increase workflow efficiency, support patients managing chronic disease, increase compliance with care protocols, reduce medical error, or augment the physician-patient relationship.

Prize Awards

• First Prize: $150,000
• Second Prize: $100,000
• Third Prize: $50,000
• Ten Finalists: $10,000 each

Timeline for Award Process

• January 2, 2011: Submission process opens
• January 16, 2012: Pre-proposals due
• February 15, 2012: Ten finalists selected & $10,000 distributed to each
• June 3, 2012: Full proposals due from 10 finalists
• July 2, 2012: Top three winners announced & major awards distributed

RFA Supporting Documents and Instructions

• Instructions for Online Submission of Letter of Intent
• Request for Applications (RFA) Letter of Intent Guidelines
• Student Prize Coversheet
• Full Proposal Evaluation Criteria
• Full Proposal Guidelines
• Frequently Asked Questions

This Prize for Primary Healthcare competition is sponsored by the Gelfand Family Charitable Trust. CIMIT is a non-profit consortium of Boston teaching hospitals and engineering schools.

Innovative Medical Research: Regenerating Muscle Tissue and Creating New Bones

Check out the current medical research at WPT regenerating muscle tissue to help those who suffer major trauma and at WSU creating "bone-like" material using a 3D printer to repair injuries.

Regenerated Muscle Tissue Could Help Those Who Suffer Major Trauma

A team of scientists from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and CellThera have regenerated functional muscle tissue in mice, opening the door for a new clinical therapy to treat people who suffer major muscle trauma.

Read full story at bmes.org >>

Engineers Pioneer Use of 3D Printer To Create New Bones

It looks like bone. It feels like bone. For the most part, it acts like bone. And it came off an inkjet printer.

A 3D printer is being used to create "bone-like" material which researchers claim can be used to repair injuries. The engineers say the substance can be added to damaged natural bone where it acts as a scaffold for new cells to grow. It ultimately dissolves with "no apparent ill-effects", the team adds.

The Washington State University researchers say doctors should be able to use the process to custom-order replacement bone tissue in a few years time.

Read full story at news.wsu.edu >>

More Physicians Embrace Web-Based Health Solutions

CNBC.com (November 22, 2011) — The house call is back...with a high-tech spin.

In a bid to accommodate the aging population and the increasingly hectic lifestyles of their patients, physicians are embracing a broad spectrum of Web-based software solutions that are bringing healthcare services into the home.

From real time videoconferencing to secure online chats, telehealth is not only changing the way care gets delivered, but helping to improve medical outcomes by making care more accessible to patients who lack easy access, according to Ronald Dixon, a practicing general internist and director of the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, CIMIT, in Boston.

Dixon says all ten doctors in his practice are currently testing the software as part of the Virtual Practice Pilot program at Massachusetts General Hospital, which is studying the effectiveness of live office visits versus videoconferencing patient encounters.

Read full story at CNBC.com >>

Epilepsy Therapy Project Shark Tank Competition 2012

Do you have an innovative idea to help make the lives of people with epilepsy easier? Throw it to the sharks!

The Epilepsy Therapy Project, known as the parent organization of epilepsy.com and as funders of select epilepsy research, is inviting proposals -- from people with epilepsy, families, friends, entrepreneurs, students -- for a grant to develop a novel "concept" that will help people with epilepsy. The winner of the 2012 Shark Tank competition will receive national recognition and a cash award supporting the development and commercialization of an important new product, technology or therapeutic concept.

Application due December 15, 2011. Your idea could net you $50,000 to accelerate its development!

Learn more about the 2012 Shark Tank competition >>

Hand Hygiene Compliance Reminder & Documentation System

A Boston-based start up, HanGenix is the first company to be spun out of the CIMIT Accelerator program. HanGenix is focused on reducing hospital acquired infections (HAI) by installing comprehensive hand hygiene solutions that remind clinicians to perform proper hand hygiene and document their compliance. Watch the video below and see how it works!

Design News: MEMS-Enabled Artificial Lung

In a pioneering approach to artificial organ development, engineers at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass. (one of CIMIT's four founding consortium institutions), are applying semiconductor manufacturing technology to the development of artificial organs such as lungs and kidneys. Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein, the principal investigator in the tissue engineering research being conducted at Draper, is CIMIT's Co-Program Leader for Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering.

Read the full story from Design News >>