#Lifehand 2 prosthetic grips and senses like a real hand Roboticists and doctors working in Switzerland
and at the other end to sensors) and an algorithm to convert signals the team has produced a hand that sends information back to the brain that is so detailed that the wearer could even tell the hardness of objects he was given to Hold in a paper published in Science Translational Medicine in Feb. 2014
#Robonaut doctor to practice in space Astronauts all know how important it is to stay healthy in space.
Most astronauts complete medical training which equips them with the skills to perform procedures such as first aid and basic surgery.
But what happens if theres an emergency and no medical expert to assist? NASA came up with the answer recently
Should a medical incident arise in space that human crew members are unable to deal with themselves the robo-doc will be there to save the day.
Once trained the robot doctor should be able to complete basic medical procedures unassisted. For more complicated procedures an earth-based physician could control the robot via telepresence.
and outside the International space station will be able to add medical practices to its resume. Medical training is a complex and lengthy process even for a robot.
Unfortunately there is no super-software that can be uploaded to the robot to make it become an instant medical expert.
when there is no call for medical assistance. In the not too distant future robotic doctors could be beneficial for patients here on earth where they could perform telesurgery in remote areas
or where specialist surgeons are not available. Its also reassuring to know that by the time humans are ready to colonize Mars Robonaut doctors will be there to lend a healing hand d
#Urban vegetable garden system with LED lighting Keystone Technology LED vegetable garden system is a cultivation system for indoor plant factories that uses LED lighting instead of sunlight.
The most defining feature of the system on display at the company showroom in Yokohama is its 3-dimensional use of space. his is tiered a 5 cultivation system.
and his team of researchers from the Department of Systems and Control engineering and the Centre for Biomedical Cybernetics at the University of Malta who have developed a music player that can be controlled by the human brain.
The system was developed originally to improve the quality of life of individuals with severely impaired motor abilities such as those with motor neuron disease or cerebral palsy.
For people who have become paralyzed due to a spinal injury the normal flow of brain signals through the spine
This means that even an individual with complete body paralysis can still move their eyes over images on a screen.
However first jump up tests showed that the stress resulting from a sudden braking of the momentum wheel led to mechanical deformations of the momentum wheels and aluminium frame.
and breaking mechanism to reduce the mechanical stress caused by the jump up. In addition to balancing my colleagues are now investigating the use of controlled manoeuvres of jumping up balancing
DHL and microdrones are testing drones that could be used to deliver urgently needed goods to hard-to-reach places eg medicines to remote sites.
which will promote efficient rehabilitation. e would like to see these robots used for rehabilitation training in hospitals nursing homes and private homes after an injury or for use as a preventive measure prior to injury. i
#Sharp futuristic Health care Support Chair a proactive health care solution Sharp has developed a health care support chair that combines a range of sensors for checking the user health.
Rather than people who are ill going to the doctor our idea is for healthy people to think about how to stay healthy prepare for any emergencies
The mechanical stress of loading and unloading and the corrosive properties of seawater all take their toll on a vessel#structure.
#SEDASYS a robotic anesthesiologist The FDA recently approved a new robotic device which can automate the sedation of healthy patients having colonoscopies.
Ethicon Endo-Surgery a Johnson & johnson subsidiary created SEDASYS a computer-assisted device that administers the prescription drug propofol into the blood stream via intravenous IV infusion.
 â##The technology will empower health care facilities to more effectively use their limited resources to deliver greater value in the increasingly resource-constrained U s. health care environment. â#SEDASYS will cost about $150 per procedure on a fee-peruse plan from J&j
where anesthesiologists generally cost between $600 to $2000. Actively lobbied against for years by the anesthesiologists association the FDA finally approved the device in May.
J&j will begin marketing SEDASYS early next year e
#Ankle assist walking device helps stroke survivors walk more easily Yaskawa Electric has developed an ankle assist walking device to help people whoe had a stroke to walk more easily by encouraging a longer
Next they will run formal clinical trials to confirm the therapeutic effects with the release of a commercial version slated for around 2015
#OAK, a Kinect-based active support system for the severely disabled OAK which stands for bservation and Access with Kinectis a software application for use by people with severe disabilities.
For example if a person has a cervical injury and can only move from the neck up you can put a switch next to their head.
#Medical robotic systems market to reach $13. 6 billion by 2018 The global medical robotic systems market was worth $5. 48 billion in 2011
Surgical robots are expected to enjoy the largest revenue share. The global market for medical robotic systems is driven by factors such as technological advancement in the automation of the healthcare industry increase in elderly population noninvasive surgical techniques and high prevalence of motion
-restricting medical conditions. Medical robotic systems include: surgical robots noninvasive radiosurgery robotic systems prosthetics and exoskeletons assistive and rehabilitation robots non-medical robotics in hospitals and emergency response robotic systems and hold
high growth potential in the global market. Source: Transparency Market research h
#This robotic prosthetic hand can be made for just $1000 Theâ Dextrus hand is a robotic hand that can be put together for well under £650 ($1000) and offers much of the functionality of a human hand.
 Existing prosthetic hands are magnificent devices capable of providing a large amount of dexterity using a simple control system.
The problem is that they cost somewhere between £7000-£70000 ($11000-$110000) far too much for most people to afford especially in developing countries.
Nursing care robots are designed to fulfill functions which help patients live independently and reduce the burden on caretakers.
and (4) Monitoring dementia patients. Once standards are in place it will give a boost to full-scale production of nursing-care robots from all over the world but particularly from Japan n
#IBIS pneumatic keyhole surgery robot potentially 1/10 the cost of Da vinci This is a robot system for keyhole surgery consisting of a master unit operated by the surgeon
and that information is sent to the surgeon master robot. So it can be fed back to the surgeon hand.
Alternatively a large force can be produced by a very lightweight compact unit. An advantage of this system is the robot overall can be made extremely compact.?
So depending on the medical staff and the situation the parameters can be varied to make the system easier to use on the spot.?
Currently we aim to build this system for one-third to one-tenth the cost of the Da vinci surgical system.
Right now wee working with surgeons who are actually using this system and giving us feedback on how to improve it.
A Baxter robot has been deployed at the Rodon Group a Hatfield PA injection molder and is among the first plastics processors to deploy a Baxter robot.
tailor-made therapy to become widespread. his is the chip wee actually developed. As you can see, it less than half the size of a business card.
whether genetically transmitted diseases are present, evaluate future risks, and identify genes related to illness. y investigating SNPS,
we can determine that this drug will work for this person, or this drug will have severe side-effects on that person.
Investigating SNPS enables tailor-made therapy. But with the current method, it has to be done in a specialized lab,
as a personal mobile device for intravenous equipment at a hospital, or topped with a telepresence device and acting as a museum tour guide.
but PSS aims to create an environment where genetic testing devices can be used at more medium-sized hospitals emergency testing hospitals and even small clinics.
Under the concepts of companion diagnostics and personalized medicine that have recently become popular topics in the US as well as Japan the idea is to use medicine suited to the patient and conduct genetic testing for that purpose.
so that patients can safely take their medicine. PSS which is searching for a way to roll out the Genelead globally including through OEM sales is
announced that the RP-VITA Remote Presence Robot has received 510 (k) clearance by the U s. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in hospitals.
and mobility technologies developed by irobot with state-of-the-art telemedicine and electronic health record integration developed by Intouch Health.
RP-VITA allows remote doctor-to-patient consults ensuring that the physician is in the right place at the right time
a doctor can visit a patient, and communicate with hospital staff and patients with a single click, regardless of their location.
perioperative and post-surgical settings, including cardiovascular, neurological, prenatal, psychological and critical care assessments and examinations.
#Revolutionary implant enables broken spinal cord to function again A team from EPFL and NCCR Robotics lead by Profs Stéphanie Lacour Grégoire Courtine and Silvestro Micera published an article in Science today describing their e-dura implant that could revolutionise how we think about
and treat paralysis. Until now implants placed beneath the dura mater of the spinal cord have caused significant tissue damage
Previous work by the team have enabled animals paralysed by spinal cord injury (SCI) to voluntarily walk again using both chemical and electrical stimulation.
and biomedicine there are a number of issues with moving this highly successful laboratory experiment to every day human life as previous iterations used wire electrodes
Drug delivery was via an intraperitoneal injection i e. an injection into the body cavity. While the results were outstanding more work needed to be done before this solution could be taken out of a lab situation and into a real world one.
What is presented in the Science paper is a soft and stretchable implant which can be placed directly beneath the dura mater the nervous system protective casing and onto the spinal cord for months at a time a length of time
which would result in significant tissue damage with all previous surface implants. The e-dura is designed also to carry electrical impulses and chemicals.
The 200nm thick implant is made predominantly of silicone covered with 35nm thick microcracked gold conducting tracks
The electrodes contained within the implant are made of a unique mix of silicone and platinum microbeads allowing the implant to function
and conduct electricity when moved in any orientation this combination of the flexible electrodes and conducting tracks mean that electrical impulses can be delivered to the spinal cord.
E-dura is implanted over the lumbosacral segments below the site of injury and engages with the#dormant#lumbar locomotor circuits.
thus ensuring that it does not rub against the spinal cord causing the issues seen in alternative implants.
To create an implant to be so soft and flexible but that is also capable of electrical stimulation and local drug delivery and this over several weeks in vivo was no small task
and involved a team comprising experts in materials science electronics neuroscience medicine and algorithm programming. Co-author Prof.
Grégoire Courtine says of the implant that it the first neuronal surface implant designed from the start for long-term application
#Kubi telemedicine device gets HIPAA clearance for streaming medical data Revolve Robotics and Swymed have collaborated to create a HIPAA compliant telepresence device called Kubi that can stream medical data.
This compliance is a big deal: no longer do MDS have to rely only upon what they see,
to make a diagnosis; they can use data streaming directly to the app to help make decisions.
In smaller rural hospitals or even in ambulances, where a specialist cannot be physically there,
HIPAA compliance means that medical data can be streamed. A simple MD telepresence consult, which is similar to a telephone call,
many hospitals cannot afford or implement such a full blown solution. I did a test drive back
While there are other telemedicine apps out there that provide consultations, like Teledoc or Doctor on Demand,
#A new weapon in the fight against cancer Cancer happens when cells in the body start growing uncontrollably.
But what if the tissue surrounding a tumour could be enlisted to stop the cancer spreading?
Many cancer researchers believe that targeting the spread of cancer to other organs, otherwise known as metastasis, holds the key to successfully treating the disease
because metastasis is the cause of death for 90%of those who die of cancer.
In the past, many treatments aimed at preventing metastasis have been targeted at tumour cells themselves, for example with chemotherapy,
but after a while the tumour cells can become resistant to the treatment and the cancer then spreads.
recruiting their help in creating a micro-environment with suitable conditions for the cancer to spread.
A large proportion of the cells found in the tumour micro-environment are associated cancer fibroblasts (CAFS.
and helps heal wounds. However in cancer, fibroblasts are coopted into re-sculpting and stiffening the surrounding matrix.
This helps the tumour to grow larger by encouraging cells to divide and allows cancer cells to escape into the bloodstream from where they can then spread to other parts of the body.
and help bring the cancer-associated fibroblast cells back on side against the cancer. Further experiments found that the CAFSCHANGE in behaviour was caused by a protein that is involved in sensing the amount of oxygen available to the cells.
The team then used a drug in the mice with cancer that fools this oxygen sensor into behaving
They found that the cancer was then less likely to spread in those mice that had been treated with the drug than in those that hadn.
However, it is an exciting development in the way we think about how cancer can be treated.
One of the great challenges in cancer treatment is that tumour cells are genetically unstable
As our understanding of the complex relationship between cancer and our bodies evolves, we will find new ways to target
and combat the disease. It is very likely that the chemotherapies of the future will exploit these interactions
business and economic growth does need not to happen at the cost of the environment and public health and safety.
#US ARMY Turns to Computer Software for Medic Training Technology already has pushed medical and emergency responder training well beyond the days of mock wounds and static mannequins.
Combat Medic, developed for the service by Applied Research Associates, places trainees in a 3-D collaborative world where they learn to treat the three injuries most associated with preventable battlefield deaths hemorrhage, blocked
a new ARA software program funded in part by the Army intends to significantly advance that training via a downloadable hysiology enginethat allows medical personnel see how their actions affect every other aspect of their patient physiology.
Physiology serves as the foundation for any medical simulation you have said out there Matthew Hackett, science and technology manager with the Army Research Laboratory.
The current options for amputees are a diverse range of prosthetics--incorporating many new forms of technology to help them feel real--or transplants,
In the case of transplants the limiting factor is need the for lifelong immunosuppressive drugs to stop a recipient's immune system from attacking their new limb.
Suppressing immunity in this way opens up the risk of new infections and certain cancers. Ott's ambitious technique therefore has an ambitious goal--to one day provide amputees with fully functional limbs that can be transplanted
Doctors in China save man's severed hand by grafting it to his legott's success with a rat's arm was the first bio-limb to ever be created.
But the success of human hand transplants in achieving this connection gives Ott some hope."
"We've learned from the transplant community, "he says.""We need to show we can apply this process to limbs of human scale,
Beyond inspiring curiosity, Prakash hopes Foldscopes can help health care workers quickly, cheaply and safely diagnose blood-borne illnesses in the field."
"I wanted to make the best possible disease-detection instrument that we could almost distribute for free.
"However), in situations where people have spinal cord injury, so they are quadriplegic...you probably couldn't give them sensation back through the nerves,
said Dr. Paul S. Cederna, professor of plastic surgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan.
The big benefit of Sanchez's approach is being able to use prostheses for people with spinal cord injuries,
The 28-year-old man in the current demonstration has been paralyzed for more than a decade because of a spinal cord injury.
food and medical assistance to Nepalis following the quake. Patients Wheeled Out of Hospitalon Tuesday at the main hospital in Kathmandu
patients injured in last month's quake were being wheeled out in wheelchairs. People could be seen frantically calling their families as medical attendants rushed to set up tents in the parking lot.
The capital was filled with the sound of car horns as desperate residents rushed to get back home to check on loved ones.
but Kallistem plans to conduct preclinical trials next year. If these trials are successful, the company will remove a sample of immature spermatogonia from a man
#Artificial Octopus Arm Performs Surgery About 10 years ago, the Pentagon funded a science project to build an entire eight-armed artificial octopus,
but strong, device say it eventually will be able to inch itself into the body during surgery
In this case we tried to get inspiration from the octopus and put it in the surgeon suite.
or perform the same surgery with a smaller entrance. The device, developed by a consortium of European universities including King's college,
and saying that here is something we can build for surgery. i
#Google Self-driving cars Ready for Public roads Google announced Friday its self-driving prototype cars were ready to leave the test track
"arguing that descendants of cloned animals showed no health problems while a complete ban might be difficult to sustain in law w
#Implant Captures Wandering Cancer cells Scientists in the United states say they have created a tiny implant which, in mice for now, captures cancer cells spreading through the body.
Cells moving from the original cancer site to infect other organs in a stealthy process called metastasis are detected usually too late to save a patient's life.
The early detection of circulating tumor cells, or CTCS, in the bloodstream can speed up diagnosis and lifesaving treatment.
But these wandering cancer cells travel in very small numbers, often for long periods of time,
The study, published in the journal Nature Communication, suggests that capturing CTCS would prevent their spread and help halt disease progression."
"Animals receiving an implant had reduced a significantly burden of disease in their lungs relative to animals that did not have an implant,
The implant--which used immune cells as bait--also contained a scanner to detect the presence of trapped cells."
"The combined systems can enable the early detection of metastatic disease, "Shea said by email."
which therapies may be effective.""As a bonus, the implant collected metastasized cancer cells for analysis, making it easier to identify the best treatment.
There was no reason to believe the results achieved in lab mice could not be replicated in humans,
we think we can build that into the design of our implant.""Shea said he hoped clinical trials with human cancer sufferers could begin soon n
#Robotic Limb System Learns From Its Mistakes The science of brain-machine interface, or BMI, has made enormous leaps in the last few decades.
and said only that he had suffered a spinal cord injury.""By wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain,
#Smart Mirror Diagnoses Health problems Mirror, mirror on the wall, what my cholesterol level? The Wize Mirror, developed by 11 European research groups,
and to actually displaying information about your health from your cholesterol levels to indicators for diabetes.
which are substances that have been linked with diabetes and other diseases. The mirror can also assess nutrition and physical activity.
as well as the possibility of using gene-editing to engineer a disease-free human. The finding reported this week by Harvard university researchers in the journal Science Express uses a technology known as CRISPR/Cas-9,
I do have Huntingtons or Tay-sachs or some other miserable disease,?, said Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at New york University. omeone will say let try to engineer embryos to see
Church also is cofounder of the biotech firm Editas Medicine. He said he expects the company will enter clinical trials next year on a gene-editing process for humans e
and an injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) after they had been ormedas adults. LPS is a noninfectious component of bacteria that trips the immune system alarm,
Rats without worm protection will have an overreactive immune response to the initial E coli infection, which increases levels of a specific type of signaling molecule in the brain called interleukin-1 ß (IL-1ß).(
if a second infection occurs, in this case, LPS. To test the effects on the brain, specifically memory,
the rats got an LPS injection. The following day, researchers placed them back in the box
and infection-free, suggesting that the worms had protected somehow the rats against memory loss after the infections.
Pups born to wormy moms showed no increase in IL-1ß after the E coli infection,
The theory suggests immune systems that evolve without enough exposure to infections (like the wormless rats) overreact
when exposed to even milder forms of infection (like E coli or the LPS injections). Following that theory,
I think it has a lot of therapeutic potential. h
#Tiny ant takes on pesticide industry Few people like antshey bite and overrun kitchen counters.
or Prepo all people at ubstantial riskof infection. Currently, only 15 million HIV-infected people are receiving antiretrovirals.
But in rich countries, it's becoming more and more common to start therapy early, before a patient's CD4 cells have had significant declines.
The Joint United nations Programme on HIV/AIDS earlier called for a ast-trackapproach to end the world AIDS epidemic by 2030 that would increase the necessary annual investmentsow at $21. 7 billiony $12 billion.
Doing so will require more domestic spending by low-income countries that are hardest hit by the epidemic as well as larger contributions from wealthy nations.
a HIV cure researcher who directs the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne,
was conducted by a team from the Vaccine Research center at the U s. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland.
Both groups designed artificial versions of antibodies, the Y-shaped molecules made by the immune system to target pathogens.
director of NIAID Vaccine Research center and head of the group reporting the Nature Communications study.
says draining a reservoir ultimately may require combining bispecific antibodies with other latency reversing approaches and immune system stimulators like anti-HIV vaccines.
He further points out that two cancer bispecific antibodies on the market both have anti-CD3 arms. he key is to find the right balance between CD3 activation and toxicity,
and doctors to demonstrate applications that until now, were impossible to explore. And that exactly what Drinkwater and Asier Marzo, first author and computational engineer at the University of Bristol, hope to do next. y main target for the future is in vivo levitation,
and a member of MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, is the paper senior author.
The research was funded by the U s army Research Office, the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology,
#Researchers identify new target for anti-malaria drugs A new target for drug development in the fight against the deadly disease malaria has been discovered by researchers at MIT.
which causes toxoplasmosis, and Plasmodium, which causes malaria, access vital nutrients from their host cells.
Around one-third of the world deadly infectious diseases, including malaria and tuberculosis, are caused by pathogens that spend a large portion of their life inside specially built compartments within their host cells.
These compartments known as arasitophorous vacuoles, separate the host cytoplasm and the parasite by a membrane,
and thereby protect the parasites from the host cell defenses. They also provide an environment tailored to their needs, according to Dan Gold,
This makes it more difficult for the parasite to release proteins involved in the transformation of the host cell beyond the membrane in order to spread the disease
and for the pathogen to gain access to vital nutrients, Gold says. ltimately what defines a parasite is that they require certain key nutrients from their host,
Similar research into how the related Plasmodium pathogen performs this trick had identified a so-called rotein export complexthat transports encoded proteins from the parasite into its host red blood cell,
which transforms these red blood cells in a way that is vital to the spread of malaria. he clinical symptoms of malaria are dependent on this process
they could be used as a drug target against the diseases they cause, including malaria, he says. his very strongly suggests that you could find small-molecule drugs to target these pores,
which would be very damaging to these parasites, but likely wouldn have any interaction with any human molecules,
he says. o I think this is a really strong potential drug target for restricting the access of these parasites to a set of nutrients. n addition to malaria,
a professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard School of Public health who was involved not in the research. trikingly,
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