Vidcast: https://youtu.be/MHMadmBr0q8
Today’s medical discoveries that point to future therapy.
New developments for:
4D Printing Spinal Scaffolds
Ultrasound Neuromodulation
Needle-Free Blood Glucose Testing s
Electrical Glue For Blood Vessels
Micro Ultrasound
Speedy Wound Healing
All this on Medicine of the Future.
Spinal fusion is a common procedure, but when a bone autograft is unavailable or fails, an artificial scaffold is needed. Enter 4D printing using collagen-hydroxyapatite ink that permits natural bony ingrowth and vascularization. A South Korean team is perfecting this process that not may not only work with bone but also with other tubular structures including muscle, tendons, and nerve. By the way, what’s the 4th dimension after width, length, and height. It’s TIME as the 3D printed prosthesis evolves with the entry of living cells.
A key to treatment of neurologic disorders including Parkinson’s is neuromodulation, the precise delivery of a stimulus to affected nerves using electricity, magnetism, and pharmaceuticals. Researchers at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie-Mellon University now add focused ultrasound to these other modalities. This non-invasive technique targets and selectively but reversibly transforms cell subpopulations more effectively than the other methods. It may also have broad applications for treatment of many neuropsychiatric disorders.
Determining blood glucose without needles is closer to reality with the report from UC-San Diego announcing development of a skin sensor capable of measuring the sugar content of sweat. An individualized calculation then accurately determines a person’s blood sugar level with 95% accuracy. A large-scale study is still ahead, but this technique could provide continuous glucose monitoring with only monthly pinpricks for recalibration.
Patching blood vessels without surgery may now be possible with an electrically-activated bioadhesive or glue developed in Singapore by nanobiologists and perfected with the help of MIT and Harvard scientists. The aptly-named Voltaglue patch is delivered to the damaged blood vessel zone via a balloon catheter and then activated in minutes by a micro-current. Voltaglue would also work to patch other tissue tears without open surgery.
A hair-thin ultrasound probe can be introduced via catheters into blood vessels and body cavities to examine and study human disease at the cellular level. Developed at the UK’s University of Nottingham, this phonon probe technique permits clinicians to study living cells at a magnification level conventionally only possible under a microscope with fixed cells on a slide.
Wound healing is often slow. Now Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered a platelet-derived purified exosomal product, PEP for short, that turbocharges the healing process of wounds that develop due to an insufficient blood supply. This compound promises to revolutionize healing in diabetics, heart attack victims, those with peripheral arterial disease, trauma victims, and those und
