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Archive for April, 2009

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Magnetic Beads Find Blood Poisoning Attractive

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

An experimental method for treating blood poisoning, or sepsis, is being tested at Children’s Hospital (Boston). Based on the use of magnetic beads and magnets to draw out harmful organisms from infected blood, the therapy holds promise for curing a condition that kills approximately half of its victims—often within a few hours.

The treatment relies on tiny magnetic beads coated with an antibody for attracting the bacteria invading the blood system. First, the blood is removed from the body through a small tube made from a fine, meshlike material, beside which is another tube with salt water flowing through it. After removal from the body, the blood is mixed with the magnetic beads, which attract passing bacteria. Then an external magnet is activated, pulling the beads and the bacteria through the mesh wall into the salt water. Finally, the clean blood is pumped back into the body, while the bacteria are discarded.

Sepsis develops rapidly when bacteria get into the body through wounds or infections in the ears, lungs, or urinary tract. Particularly dangerous to the very young, the elderly, and the sick, the ailment is caused by toxin-producing organisms that damage cells. Some of the organisms attack the walls of small blood vessels, causing them to leak and resulting in a severe drop in blood pressure. Starved of blood, major organs begin to shut down.

By gradually removing the patient’s blood and treating it outside the body, the new method for curing sepsis aims at preventing the overproduction of cytokines, proteins generated by the immune system that are supposed to ward off infection. However, in the case of sepsis, such large quantities of cytokines are produced that they not only attack dangerous bacteria but healthy cells as well. This reaction, in turn, causes inflammation deep within the body.

Don Ingber, a doctor who helped develop the technology, remarks, “It offers a potentially new weapon to fight pathogens in septic children and adults. It works simply by removing the source of the infection.”

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Posted in Emerging Technologies, Materials | No Comments »

NRC Canada Reinvests in R&D

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Responding to the need to increase revenues and productivity in Canada’s manufacturing industries, National Research Council Canada (NRC; Ottawa, ON, Canada) has launched what it is calling an R&D strategy to boost innovation in the next couple of years. Investing more than $6 million in the project from 2009 to 2012, the council outlined its R&D plans in the Spring issue of its quarterly publication NRC NewsLink, explaining that one of the council’s main objectives is to strengthen the global competitiveness of Canada across the supply chain.

In the current economy, many manufacturers are suspending R&D efforts just to survive, explains council president Pierre Coulombe in his President’s Outlook column in the same issue. “But reduced R&D today means less opportunity tomorrow. R&D can’t be cosidered a luxury, not in this economy,” he writes. “We need to use all the resources at hand to help Canadian manufacturers innovate today and compete among the world’s best.”

Following his lead, the council has put together a team of experts from several of its institutes to focus on developing new materials and enhancing processing technologies. Researchers will work to create lighter, safer, more-affordable, and environmentally friendly materials, according to the council. These will include polymer blends, foams, composites, films, nanomaterials, ceramics, and specialty metals. The team also will try to help minimize energy consumption, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with such processes as machining, robotics, automation, joining and surface technologies, molding, and nanoscale manufacturing of polymers and metals.

The initiative is supposed to benefit primary materials producers, engineering firms, machinery manufacturers, and component producers in Canada so that they will be better equipped to compete globally. It also aims to develop decision-aid systems to improve manufacturing quality, efficiency, and environmental safety. To do so, researchers will work to advance computational and sensing technologies that incorporate modelling, simulation, and interaction hardware, according to NRC.

Coulombe also detailed in his article several current government incentives and investments that will help Canadian manufacturers retool and boost their productivity for long-term success. These efforts will help companies continue to put money into R&D, even if that innovation does not lead to immediate profitability, he writes. “We must shorten the timeline for innovations to flow from the lab to the marketplace so that companies see a quicker return on investment. Putting NRC’s expertise to work on these areas of R&D will generate good economic returns.”

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Pizza Tossing Puts New Spin on Micromotor Design

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
Australian researchers found that studying professional pizza tossing could enable better motor design for medical applications.

Australian researchers found that studying professional pizza tossing could enable better motor design for medical applications. Image: Monash University.

A team of researchers at the MicroNanophysics Research Laboratory at Monash University (Clayton, VC, Australia) is tossing out a new concept: Taking a cue from professional pizza tossing could lead to the design of better micromotors for surgical applications.

In a recent study, the researchers examined pizza-tossing techniques by professional chefs, predicting that the specific motion used could impact such factors as effort, speed, and ease of handling. They were able to break the movement of the tossed disk down into four phases: parabolic flight, impact, sticking contact, and sliding contact.

During their investigation, the scientists also found that advanced chefs are often able to perform multiple tosses of the dough, which is when a person is able to do multiple tosses before the dough comes to rest in his or her hands. This advanced technique typically entails a helical motion for the first toss followed by a semielliptical motion for subsequent tosses. It’s also similar to the operation of standing wave ultrasonic motors (SWUMs) because they both convert reciprocal input into continuous rotational motion using the same mechanism, according to the researchers. SWUMs function by employing friction caused by the ultrasonic vibration of a stator, which is designed to perform elliptical motion, to spin a rotor. Through this study, however, the researchers have discovered that the reason for this elliptical motion could be different than originally thought. This insight could, according to the researchers, lead to better motor operation.

“Our work is focused on developing effective microactuation technology—devices and physical understanding of phenomena at the micro- to nanoscale that can be used to deliver controlled and powerful motion for microrobotics, mainly for surgery,” says James Friend, coauthor of the study. “This study’s greatest achievement is that it answers may of the more perplexing questions in how ultrasonic piezoelectric motors actually work: Why does the choice of materials in them not work as expected? Why do they make such unbearably loud noises when improperly designed? Why do the rotors not spin as expected, and so on.”

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Posted in Emerging Technologies, Motors and Motion Control | No Comments »

Good News from the Buckeye State

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Northeast Ohio’s biomedical sector is booming. At least that’s the word from the brand-new edition of the quarterly Cleveland Plus Economic Review, issued by Team Northeast Ohio (Team NEO; Cleveland). According to the review, the gross regional product for the area’s biomedical sector—which includes pharmaceuticals and therapeutics, medical devices and equipment, and R&D—has grown at an annual average rate of 7.4%. Outpacing average biomedical industry growth in the nation as a whole, the region’s biomed field is being fueled by a strong healthcare sector, the area’s long history of skilled manufacturing, and the inflow of venture capital from outside the state. Over the past five years, the region’s biomedical industry has grown more than 37%.

While manufacturing has historically played an important role in the economy of Northeast Ohio, the region’s manufacturing focus has shifted. In the past five years, the medical device and equipment sector has grown 75%. For example, prior to 2003, Astro Manufacturing & Design Inc. (Eastlake, OH), a full-service contract manufacturer that serves the implantable medical device and medical equipment markets, derived more than 50% of its revenue from the automotive industry, remarks Rich Peterson, the company’s vice president of business development. “By the end of 2008, we had evolved our production to the point that more than 60% of our revenue comes from work done for customers in the medical and biomedical markets.”

Since 2005, Ohio has received $783.9 million in new venture capital funding. In 2008, it received nearly $200 million in such funds, in addition to $600 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, MD), making the state the second largest recipient in the Midwest of outside venture capital and biomedical funding. The Cleveland area alone in 2008 received $150 million in venture capital funds and $250 million in NIH grants.

The growth of Northeast Ohio’s biomedical sector has been driven in part by the emergence of new companies. Since 2007, 10 of 22 new companies recruited by Team NEO have been in the biomedical field. Joining Team NEO in the recruitment of new companies—including spin-offs and start-ups—are the state’s Department of Development (Columbus, OH), BioEnterprise (Cleveland), JumpStart (Cleveland), the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland), the BioInnovation Institute (Akron, OH), and the Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center (Cleveland). Even the Cuyahoga County commissioners have jumped into the act, approving a $425 million medical mart project that will encompass a convention center and a shopping center for medical equipment and other healthcare-related products.

At the center of it all is Cleveland. “Cleveland is well known as a research and clinical center,” notes Baiju Shah, president of BioEnterprise. “We’re starting to become known as an innovation center. And then to have the medical mart, it just helps us as we’re trying to position Cleveland as a healthcare city. It’s another signature element.”

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Posted in Industry News, Regional News | No Comments »

Finite-Element Modeling Could Improve Brain Implant Design

Friday, April 24th, 2009
European research group has developed a design strategy that it thinks will enhance brain implant functionality while reducing harmful side effects.

A European research group has developed a design strategy that it thinks will enhance brain implant functionality while reducing harmful side effects.

Used to treat such conditions as Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor, deep brain stimulation (DBS) represents an emerging market poised for significant growth in the next several years. With the hope of improving brain implants, IMEC (Leuven, Belgium), Europe’s largest independent research center focused on nanoelectronics and nanotechnology, presented a new design strategy for the development of brain implants this week at the Design, Automation & Test Europe (DATE) conference.

Current DBS probes employ millimeter-size electrodes that stimulate the brain in an unfocused way and may have unwanted side effects, according to IMEC. Precise, targeted stimulation and fewer side effects could be enabled, IMEC suggests, through much-smaller electrodes. “To have a more-precise stimulation and recording, we need electrodes that are as small as individual brain cells,” comments Wolfgang Eberle, senior scientist and project manager at IMEC’s bioelectronics research group. “Such small electrodes can be made with semiconductor process technology, appropriate design tools, and advanced electronic signal processing. At DATE, we want to bring this message to the design community, showing the huge opportunities that the healthcare sector offers.”

Using finite-element modeling of the electrical field distribution around the brain probe, the group was able to develop prototype probes featuring 10-µm electrodes with various topologies. IMEC believes that this strategy could be the key to better brain implants.

Finite-element modeling was performed using COMSOL multiphysics simulation software, which allowed the researchers to examine the mechanical properties of the probe during surgical insertion as well as to evaluate the effects of temperature on the device. The scientists found that by adapting the penetration depth and field symmetry, the electrical field could be steered around the probe, consequently delivering high-precision stimulation. To realize closed-loop systems, the researchers developed a mixed-signal compensation scheme that allowed for multielectrode probes equipped to provide dual functionality by way of stimulation and recording.

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Provider of Cleanroom and Contamination Testing Services Expands

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Microtest Laboratories (Agawam, MA) has increased staffing in an effort to expand its contamination and cleanroom testing services. By assisting manufacturers to identify, assess, and resolve a range of cleanroom and environmental contamination problems, the company assists manufacturers in controlling their environments to ensure regulatory compliance.

The company has also purchased an additional MicroSeq microbial identification system in order to double its microbial identification and analysis services. A DNA-sequence-based system that enables technicians to identify bacteria isolates that are not viable or easily identified, MicroSeq systems are beneficial for identifying microbes in medical device manufacturing applications.

Microtest’s environmental services group is composed of microbiologists with experience in applying testing technologies in cleanroom and other controlled environments. Their work meets or exceeds ISO, EU, and FDA cleanroom testing requirements.

The company’s services include ISO certification and cleanroom validation to any ISO Class required for all controlled environments; HEPA filter repair, replacement, and installation for all controlled environments; and viable sampling to evaluate contamination by aerobic and anaerobic microorganisms. In addition to surface testing and analysis and active and passive air sampling, it performs nonviable air particulate sampling and testing to ISO 14644 guidelines, the EU Annex, or both standards. Disinfection validation, gowning validation, DNA-sequence-based microbial identification using in-house identification systems, and compressed-air and gas testing are also part of the company’s offerings.

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NPE Goes Green with Bioplastics

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

 

These color sample plaques, superimposed on a typical film application, show some of the colors developed by Teknor Color Co. unit, an NPE exhibitor, specifically for use with bioplastics. The carrier resin used in the color concentrates is itself a bioplastic.

These color sample plaques, superimposed on a typical film application, show some of the colors developed by Teknor Color Co. unit, an NPE exhibitor, specifically for use with bioplastics. The carrier resin used in the color concentrates is itself a bioplastic.

Medtech Pulse is celebrating Earth Day by giving you some ecofriendly information: Bioplastics will be a prominent part of this year’s NPE show, according to The Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. (SPI), which produces the event every three years. NPE2009 will be held June 22–26, 2009, at McCormick Place in Chicago.

Sustainability has become an increasing focus of a variety of industries, and the plastics industry is certainly no exception. Frequently cited among the main ecological offenders, plastics are undergoing a green redesign with the development of bioplastics.

NPE2009 will showcase a variety of emerging bioplastics made from such renewable and biodegradable natural resources as corn, castor beans, soybeans, potatoes, and tapioca, among others. In addition to the 16 companies whose booths will be at least partially dedicated to bioplastics, a number of other exhibitors on the show floor will be introducing additives and processing equipment for use with these emerging materials. NPE organizers also report that three raw materials companies will be discussing their bioplastics manufacturing endeavors while 39 different companies, agencies, and consortia will be giving conference presentations on bioplastics technology and business tactics. Bioplastics will also be one of four technology focuses in the Emerging Technologies Pavilion.

“At the last NPE in 2006, bioplastics were still something of a curiosity, but at NPE2009 literally dozens of organizations will have something important about bioplastics to say or demonstrate,” says Melissa Hockstad, SPI vice president in charge of the Materials Suppliers Council and the Bioplastics Council. “There will be implications for every major plastics market, from appliances and automotive, to electronics and medical, to sporting goods and packaging.”

If you’re looking to learn more about sustainable materials and manufacturing for medical devices, visit our related archives. Also, check back with MPMN in July for a special feature on green packaging for medical devices.

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Posted in Materials | No Comments »

Transdermal Drug Delivery Options Increasing

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Drug developers are increasingly choosing transdermal delivery for their pain-management drugs because the method has the potential to improve drug compliance among patients, according to a medical market forecast from Applied Data Research (Nashua, NH). The report focuses on factors that are transforming transdermal therapeutics from a niche market into a mainstream healthcare technology.

In addition to improving drug therapy compliance, the report suggests that emerging transdermal drug products could improve patient quality of life because of their user-friendliness. To successfully address this market segment, however, it says transdermal drug developers and their supply-chain partners need to focus on understanding the concerns, preferences, and limitations of targeted patient groups regarding self-medication and traditional pain-medication methods.

The report also indicates that the transdermal market has been hindered by recent problems related to patch manufacturing quality. Costly product recalls have interrupted the market momentum, it says. In a separate report on active transdermal drug delivery, the organization assesses that the growth of transdermal delivery also has been restricted by the need to limit candidate drugs to molecules small enough to pass through the outermost layer of the epidermis. This limitation excludes passive transdermal patches as a viable option for the growing number of protein and peptide terapeutic compounds that represent an increasing share of future new chemical entities, according to the report. To expand the molecular size limits and capabilities of transdermal drug delivery, developers are employing such energy sources as ultrasound, heat, and electrical current to affect active transport through the skin. Another approach being researched is the modification or removal of surface skin layers. Known as microporation, this method can be used alone or in conjunction with energy-enabled devices to expand the size and type of drug molecules capable of transdermal delivery.

The research firm based its market analyses on the results of surveys of the pain-management drug-delivery sector of the medical device and healthcare industries.

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Fingerprinting Proteins to Treat Cancer

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Researchers at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) have developed an imaging technique that they hope will give doctors a better look at the inside of a cell. Using tiny dye-containing particles to fingerprint proteins in a cell, the technique may help doctors diagnose and treat cancer.

“Different types of cells are active in cancer,” remarks Cathy Shachaf, a researcher on the project. “What we tried to do is develop technology to be able to look at the proteins active in a single cell to be able to define and distinguish different types of cancer cells from each other.” 

Current cell imaging technology known as flow cytometry uses antibodies tagged with fluorescent dye to detect proteins, which light up when they flow through a beam of light. However, the images can become muddy if too many overlapping colors are present, limiting the number of proteins that can be imaged at one time to about 20.

In contrast to flow cytometry, the new imaging method uses nanoparticle probes created by Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) that give off distinct signals. “Instead of giving us a very broad, smooth spectrum, they give us sharp fingerprints,” Shachaf states. “What we’ve done is show we can use these particles to detect specific proteins in a single cell.”

Shachaf’s team has used the technology to detect two cancer proteins simultaneously, but it has imaged as many as nine. Eventually, it hopes to be able to image as many as 100 distinct features inside a cell. Shachaf and her colleagues think that if the technique succeeds on a larger scale than at present, it could improve the ability not only to diagnose cancers but also to determine how aggressive a tumor is and how likely it is to respond to therapy.

“We could use it for diagnosis and maybe to help plan an appropriate treatment for a specific indication,” Shachaf concludes.

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Posted in Emerging Technologies, Nanotechnology | No Comments »

Plastics Resource Has Helpful New Features

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Plastic materials information management company IDES Inc. (Laramie, WY) has launched an updated version of its Prospector plastics search engine.  The search engine is designed to provide engineers with a comprehensive plastics resource with which they can efficiently research materials, analyze resins for specific design applications, and buy from reputable plastics suppliers.

Although Prospector has always provided material data sheets, the updated version provides more information about each plastic grade with links to supplemental material such as processing guides, regulatory documents, material safety notes, and chemical resistance data. Furthermore, users can now export property information from data sheets or directly from search result tables into a spreadsheet for analysis. Each data sheet also supplies manufacturer and distributor contact information. In addition, data sheets identify the plastics that are available for purchase through the company’s online platform, The Plastics Marketplace, which connects buyers and sellers of plastics and lists more than 24 million pounds of resin.

“While this update to Prospector includes several new enhancements, we continually improve the search engine through suggestions from our customers,” says Mike Kmetz, president of IDES. “We’re already working on several more improvements that will be released during the next several months.”

Free registration is required to use the resource.

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