Tomorrow is Today

Despite Claims, Nanoparticles Can’t Penetrate Skin

Research by scientists at the Univ. of Bath is challenging claims that nanoparticles in medicated and cosmetic creams are able to transport and deliver active ingredients deep inside the skin.

Nanoparticles, which are tiny particles that are less than one hundredth of the thickness of a human hair, are used in sunscreens and some cosmetic and pharmaceutical creams. The Bath study discovered that even the tiniest of nanoparticles did not penetrate the skin’s surface.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/10/despite-claims-nanoparticles-can%E2%80%99t-penetrate-skin

ht laboratoryequipment:

“Cyborg Tissue”: Lab-Grown Human Tissue With Embedded Nanoscale Wires

Harvard scientists have created a type of “cyborg” tissue for the first time by embedding a three-dimensional network of functional, biocompatible, nanoscale wires into engineered human tissues.

As described in a paper published in the journal Nature Materials, a research team led by Charles Lieber, a professor of chemistry at Harvard, and Daniel Kohane, a Harvard Medical School professor in the Department of Anesthesia at Children’s Hospital Boston, developed a system for creating nanoscale “scaffolds” that can be seeded with cells that grow into tissue.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/08/researchers-develop-first-ever-artificial-cyborg-tissue

(ht laboratoryequipment)

Cochlear Implant Uses Accelerometer as Microphone, Can Be Embedded Inside the Ear

Hearing aids aren’t the most discreet cybernetic creations, because the need for a clog-free microphone means that they generally need an external component. Engineers at the University of Utah and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland aim to change everything with a much smaller mic that uses an accelerometer to detect sound vibrations — so it requires no opening and can be inserted right into the ear. The only exterior hardware is the charger — worn exclusively at night.

Clinical trials in living humans begin approximately three years from now, and if you’re looking forward to using this new device, removal of the incus (or anvil bone) in the middle-ear must first take place to optimize effectiveness of the new implant. We never said it’d be pretty.

(via Accelerometer mic could change the way we look at cochlear implants — Engadget)

Harvard Researchers Create Device to Harvest Cancer Cells from the Bloodstream

Blood flows through polymer-based channels designed to minimize mechanical stresses that could damage the cells’ or alter their biochemistry. Magnetic beads coated to selectively stick to the CTCs separate them from other blood cells. In their lab experiment on mice with breast cancer, the team’s device was able to capture more than 90 percent of CTCs and keep those tumor cells intact and alive — and then grow them in culture.

While the device was only tested for capturing and culturing breast cancer cells, it might be applied to other types of tumors as well. It could have uses well beyond cancer — for instance, for collecting stem cells from blood samples that could be grown for use in organ repair.

(via Plucking cancer cells from blood via microfluidics | Cutting Edge - CNET News)

Tissue Engineering by self-assembly

Cytograft has developed novel technologies that utilize the cell’s own biological processes to produce versatile tissues with remarkable mechanical strength that are free from synthetic scaffolds or exogenous biomaterials.

These robust biogenic tissues can be used as building blocks to support the construction of complex three-dimensional structures to restore function to diseased tissues and organs. 

from ScienceDaily:

Cytograft, which L’Heureux and Todd McAllister co-founded in 2000, has indeed developed vessels that are “completely biological, completely human and living, which is the Cadillac of treatments … and it seems to work really well,” L’Heureux says.

First the team created blood vessels from patients’ own skin cells. Then, in June, the company announced that three dialysis patients had received the world’s first lab-grown blood vessels made from skin cells from donors, which eliminates the long lead time needed for making vessels from a patient’s own cells. And now Cytograft has developed a new technique for making human textiles that promises to reduce the production cost of these vessels by half. […]

[read more] [Cytograft] [via]

(Via futurescope)

BBC Asks: Can you build a human body?

Technology has always strived to match the incredible sophistication of the human body. Now electronics and hi-tech materials are replacing whole limbs and organs in a merger of machine and man.

Later this year a team of researchers will try out the first bionic eye implant in the UK hoping to help a blind patient see for the first time. It is one of the extraordinary medical breakthroughs in the field, which are extending life by years and providing near-natural movement for those who have lost limbs.

Over the coming weeks, BBC News will explore the field of bionics in a series of features. We start with a selection of the latest scientific developments.

The Bionic Bodies series on the BBC News website will be looking at how bionics can transform people’s lives. We will meet a woman deciding whether to have her hand cut off for a bionic replacement and analyse the potential to take the technology even further, enhancing the body to superhuman levels. The series continues on Wednesday with a look at some of the earliest prosthetics from ancient Egypt.

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(Source: futurescope)

Implantable Pharmacy Dispenses Drugs From Within the Body, Remotely Controlled via Wireless

In the future, implantable computerized dispensaries will replace trips to the pharmacy or doctor’s office, automatically leaching drugs into the blood from medical devices embedded in our bodies.

These small wireless chips promise to reduce pain and inconvenience, and they’ll ensure that patients get exactly the amount of drugs they need, all at the push of a button.

In a new study involving women with osteoporosis, a wirelessly controlled implantable microchip successfully delivered a daily drug regimen, working just as well, if not better, than a daily injection.

It could be an elegant solution for countless people on long-term prescription medicines, researchers say. Patients won’t have to remember to take their medicine, and doctors will be able to adjust doses with a simple phone call or computer command.

Pharmacies-on-a-chip could someday dispense a whole suite of drugs, at pre-programmed doses and at specific times, said Robert Langer, the Institute Professor at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, who is a co-author on the study.

“It really depends on how potent the drugs are,” he said. “There are a number of drugs for things like multiple sclerosis, cancer, and some vaccines that would be potent enough.”

(via A Wirelessly Controlled Pharmacy Dispenses Drugs From Within Your Abdomen | Popular Science)