Longevity science

New “blood pressure watch” relies on a wristband made from piezo-resistive fibers developed at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA). These fibers measure the contact pressure of the device on the skin to overcome the problem of the device slipping on the wrist or muscle tension that can affect the measurements.

Imagine if you could treat pain the same way you treat a cut: throw a bandage on it and let it heal. Thimble Bioelectronics is working on a patch based on Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) that's designed to provide this type of portable pain relief.

TENS is a type of treatment that uses low voltage electrical stimulation to alleviate certain types of pain. The treatment is typically performed via a small machine, but Thimble Bioelectronics is busy designing a wearable application of the technology designed to adhere to the problem area and provide TENS treatment for the pain.

The equipment needed to hack a transmitter used to cost tens of thousands of dollars; last year a researcher hacked his insulin pump using an Arduino module that cost less than $20.

Barnaby Jack, a security researcher at McAfee, in April demonstrated a system that could scan for and compromise insulin pumps that communicate wirelessly. With a push of a button on his laptop, he could have any pump within 300 feet dump its entire contents, without even needing to know the devices’ identification numbers.

At a different conference, Jack showed how he reverse engineered a pacemaker and could deliver an 830-volt shock to a person’s device from 50 feet away – which he likened to an “anonymous assassination.”

A magnetic capsule robot may replace endoscopy thanks to work being done at Carnegie Mellon University's Nanorobotics lab.

The lab has received funding to develop a squishy robotic capsule that can be controlled while inside the body. The capsule could replace invasive endoscopes by performing camera imaging, drug injection, tissue sampling, and more.

FDA-approved pill cameras have been in use since 2001, but they can only perform imaging, and move through the body naturally. Robotic devices would have the ability to to stop, back up, deliver drugs, or perform biopsies.

Research using a prototype piezoelectric energy-harvesting device developed by the University of Michigan suggests that the human heart provides more than enough energy to power a pacemaker, according to a statement released by the American Heart Association.

The research has led to fresh speculation that piezoelectricity, electricity converted from mechanical stresses undergone by a generator, may one day provide an alternative to battery-powered pacemakers that need to be surgically replaced as often as every five years.

At least 25-30 million people worldwide have age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the leading causes of blindness in middle-aged and older adults.

Israeli start-up Nano Retina has announced its new Bio-Retina, a tiny array of photodetectors which can be implanted directly on the retinal surface. Ready to enter clinical trials in 2013, the Bio-Retina restores vision to AMD sufferers almost immediately following the simple implantation process.

"Electrical engineer Ada Poon has developed a tiny, wirelessly powered, self-propelled medical device capable of controlled motion through the bloodstream.

Poon, an assistant professor at the Stanford School of Engineering, is developing a new class of medical devices that can be implanted or injected into the human body and powered wirelessly using radio waves. No batteries to wear out. No cables to provide power...."

Imagine the apps that we could load into this little device. You could check your blood sugar, monitor your cholesterol, watch your weight, even do routine maintenance to the arteries and organs. You'd never forget to take a pill again.

Check out the video at KurzweilAI

No matter what sort of wondrous implantable medical devices are created, they’re not going to do anyone much good if the recipient's body simply rejects them. With that in mind, scientists at the University of Washington have developed a synthetic biomaterial that they claim is “exceptional” at keeping implanted materials from being attacked by the immune system.

AliveCor’s smartphone Heart Monitor has received FDA approval and will go on sale to healthcare professionals in the United States in January 2013. The AliveCor Heart Monitor allows the recording, display, storing, transferring, and evaluation of single-channel electrocardiogram (ECG) rhythms using an iPhone 4 or 4S.

The Class II medical device consists of a self-powered case that attaches to the back of an iPhone, which is running the associated heart monitor app. The phone and case communicate with one another wirelessly, though the phone doesn't need to be paired to the device.

One of the challenges to medical implants is the power source. When you need to change the batteries, having another surgery is not necessarily what you want, right?

A team of researchers from MIT, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) have demonstrated for the first time that this battery could power implantable electronic devices without impairing hearing.

The devices could monitor biological activity in the ears of people with hearing or balance impairments, or responses to therapies. Eventually, they might even deliver therapies themselves.

How do you power an implant? Surgical battery replacement is undesirable...

Ada Poon, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, and doctoral candidates Sanghoek Kim and John Ho have demonstrated that it’s possible to construct a super-small implantable cardiac device the size of a 1.6 millimeter-wide cube.

The device uses gigahertz-frequency radio waves that can power extremely small devices five centimeters (1.96 in) inside the chest on the surface of the heart – a depth once thought impossible.

Although it’s known to kill bacteria, selenium has never been tried as an antibacterial coating for implanted medical devices ... until now, that is.

Engineers from Rhode Island’s Brown University have applied coatings of selenium nanoparticles to pieces of polycarbonate – the material used for things like catheters and endotracheal tubes – and then exposed those samples to Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. In some cases, populations of the bacteria were subsequently reduced by up to 90 percent.

The researchers started by growing separate batches of both large and small selenium nanoparticles, then coating polycarbonate samples with them – some samples were coated with only large nanoparticles, while others were coated with only small ones. Within each of those groups, they then applied tape to some samples, then ripped it off. This was done both to test how durable the coatings were, and to see how effective less-dense coatings would perform as compared to ones that were left intact.