Medical Innovation Exchange

MedicalInnovationExchange

Pencil-on-Paper Wearable Sensor

Researchers at Penn State have developed a low-cost, wearable sensor using pencil-on-paper technology. This approach involves depositing graphite (pencil ‘lead’) on paper that has been treated with sodium chloride, to create a conductive, low-cost sensor. Previously, these researchers had developed such sensors to detect moisture and even used them to develop a smart diaper (yes, …

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Investigating Bacterial Motion for New Treatment Strategies

Researchers at Florida State University have developed a 3D model that examines how the bacterium Helicobacter pylori moves through viscous fluids. H. pylori can cause gastrointestinal ulcers and even cancer, moving through the intestinal mucus layer to reach the wall of the gut. Using antibiotics can cause side-effects and can contribute to drug resistance, so …

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Smart Sutures Sense Inflammation, Deliver Drugs, Cells

Researchers at MIT have developed smart sutures with a hydrogel coating that contains sensing and drug delivery components, and could even be used to implant therapeutic cells. The sutures are made using pig tissues that have been decellularized with detergents to reduce the possibility that they could provoke an immune reaction. The surrounding hydrogel layer …

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siRNA as a COVID-19 Treatment

Researchers at UMass Chan Medical School have developed a small interfering RNA (siRNA) technology that is stable enough for inhalation into the lungs, where it can potentially treat diseases as diverse as asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, and viral infections such as COVID-19. siRNA is not typically stable enough to survive for long in the lungs, but …

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Cancer Organoids Offer Insights into Treatment Outcomes

Researchers at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands have developed a biobank of cancer organoids using tissue samples obtained from head and neck cancer patients. So far, the team used the biobank to validate tumor biomarkers. Excitingly, they also correlated patient treatment responses with organoid treatment responses, suggesting that the organoids provide a good proxy …

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Cell Culture Chamber Mimics Mechanical States of Disease

Researchers at the University of Göttingen in Germany have developed a cell culture chamber that lets them culture tissue samples, mimic the mechanical conditions that tissues experience in various disease states, and closely monitor tissue reactions. The technology could be particularly useful for pre-clinical drug testing, allowing researchers to test the effects of various drug …

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Soft Robotic Electrode Enables Minimally Invasive Placement

Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed a soft robotic electrode, that can be advanced through a small hole in the skull and then opened into a series of spiral arms, to provide electrocorticography measurements from a relatively large area of the brain surface. The technology could prove very useful …

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Laser-Based Breath Analysis Detects COVID-19 Infection

Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a laser-based breathalyzer technology that can detect molecules in breath samples that indicate the presence of specific diseases, such as COVID-19. The device is called a frequency comb breathalyzer, and using it involves pumping a breath …

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Technique Reveals 3D Genome Interactions

Researchers at MIT have developed a method that allows them to analyze the three dimensional interactions of sections of the genome in unprecedented detail. The technique could let scientists investigate the origin and progression of genetic diseases, as well as identifying new therapeutic targets for them. The new approach, called Region Capture Micro-C, involves using …

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