CIMIT blog

Tissue Engineering: Growing new organs, and more!

MIT News Office (December 14, 2012) — In the 1970s and 1980s, tissue engineers began working on growing replacement organs for transplantation into patients. While scientists are still targeting that goal, much of the tissue engineering research at MIT is also focused on creating tissue that can be used in the lab to model human disease and test potential new drugs.

This kind of disease modeling could have a great impact in the near term, says MIT professor Sangeeta Bhatia, who is developing liver tissue to study hepatitis C and malaria infection.

Read full article at web.mit.edu >>

Smartphone-enabled Prosthetics Keep Amputees Out of Doctors' Office — +MassDevice.com

+MassDevice.com (January 4, 2013) — A "smart" prosthetic foot and ankle system uses microprocessor technology and a smartphone app that allows the device to adjust to a user's needs by responding to the environment or taking orders directly from the patient.

Orthocare Innovations' Magellan Microprocessor Foot Ankle System, a "smart" prosthetic that uses microprocessor computer control to automatically adjust for various types of activities and terrain, also features a smartphone app that allows users to adjust features of the prosthetic without needing to visit their doctors' offices.

The app also records activity that can then be shared with a physician or care provider monitoring the device, according to the video.

View original post on +MassDevice.com >>

CIMIT Grant Announcements

2013 Student Technology Prize for Primary Care: Pre-proposals for 2013 Student Technology Prize for Primary Care competition due by January 21, 2013. Visit http://primarycareprize.org for complete competition details.  

Objective: Annual national competition designed to encourage students to apply their creative skills to the development of technological innovations with great potential to support the improved delivery of care at the frontlines of medicine.  

Eligibility: Open to graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in accredited engineering programs in the United States.  

Status: Entries invited for 2013 competition, with online submission site opening on December 3, 2012 and pre-proposals due by January 21, 2013.

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2013 CIMIT Young Clinician Awards: Nomination packets from CIMIT Site Miners due January 11, 2013. Visit http://cimit.org/grants-youngclinicians.html for complete details.

Objective: Award recognizes outstanding clinicians early in their careers, who are engaged in the development of novel and transformative healthcare innovations enabled by technology. Focus for 2013 is point-of-care technologies that eliminate unnecessary steps and re-work to increase the efficiency of operations or that are applicable to the home setting for patient self-management.

Eligibility: CIMIT Site Miner nominated clinicians within CIMIT Consortium eligible hospitals—Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston Medical Center, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Newton-Wellesley Hospital and VA Boston Healthcare System—at the academic ranks of Fellows, Instructors, and Assistant Professors.

Award Amount: $50,000 total cost to one individual at each CIMIT Consortium eligible hospital as a 1-year award period.

Status: Nomination packets from CIMIT Site Miners due January 11, 2013.

Taking the Sting Out of Medical Tape — MIT News Office

MIT News Office (October 29, 2012) — Ripping off a Band-Aid may sting for a few seconds, but the pain is usually quickly forgotten. However, for newborns’ sensitive skin, tearing off any kind of adhesive can pose a serious risk.

Newborns lack an epidermis — the tough outermost layer of skin — so medical tape used to secure respirators or monitoring devices critical for the survival of premature babies can wreak havoc: Every year, more than 1.5 million people suffer scarring and skin irritation from medical tape, and the majority of those are infants or elderly people, who also have fragile skin.

“This is just a huge unmet need,” says Jeffrey Karp, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Bryan Laulicht, a postdoc in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer have now joined Karp in developing a new type of medical tape that can be removed without damaging delicate skin. The new tape could be produced by adapting current adhesive-manufacturing systems, according to the researchers.

Although originally designed for infants, the tape could also be useful for elderly patients. The new adhesive is described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers have filed for a patent on the new tape and are now working to secure regulatory approval for safety tests on human adults.

Read full story at web.mit.edu >>

Medical Devices Powered by the Ear Itself — MIT News Office

MIT News Office (November 7, 2012) — Deep in the inner ear of mammals is a natural battery — a chamber filled with ions that produces an electrical potential to drive neural signals. In today’s issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, a team of researchers from MIT, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) demonstrate 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.

The work was funded in part by the Focus Center Research Program, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and the Bertarelli Foundation.

Read full story at web.mit.edu >>

New Device Could Allow Your Heartbeat to Power Pacemaker

sciencedaily.com (November 4, 2012) — An experimental device converted energy from a beating heart to provide enough electricity to power a pacemaker, in a study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2012.

The findings suggest that patients could power their pacemakers -- eliminating the need for replacements when batteries are spent.

Read full story at sciencedaily.com >>

MSSM Presents "SINAInnovations: Launching a New Era of Discovery" on November 12-14, 2012

Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) presents "SINAInnovations: Launching a New Era of Discovery" on November 12-14, 2012 in New York. This unique three-day event celebrates a thriving culture of innovation at MSSM.

CIMIT Chief Operating Officer and Director of Technology Implementation John Collins, PhD, is speaking about CIMIT and CIMIT CoLab™ at the "Blueprints for Innovation in Academia" panel discussion on Monday, November 12 from 9:20-10:30 a.m.

For complete conference information, visit the SINAInnovations website.

1st Annual IEEE Healthcare Innovation Conference: Translational Engineering in Health & Medicine

The 1st Annual IEEE Healthcare Innovation Conference, sponsored by the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), will be held in Houston, Texas from November 7-9, 2012 at the Methodist Hospital Research Institute.

The conference is devoted to the exploration of the intersection of engineering, medicine, and health. Emphasis will be placed on novel innovations that have a foreseeable impact on human health and disease. Specific areas of interest include Imaging; Nano Medicine; Data Mining and the Use of Large Datasets; Remote Sensing; Applied Metabolomics; Aerospace and Harsh Environments; Ideation and Commercialization; and Global Health.

CIMIT Representation: Michael K. Dempsey, Entrepreneur in Residence and Accelerator Program Leader, is speaking at the Commercialization Keynote Panel to discuss the future of healthcare commercialization on Friday, November 9 from 2:15-3:45 p.m.

Schedule: The conference will be inaugurated by a keynote lecture and evening reception on Wednesday, November 7. The following two days will feature plenary, break-out sessions and poster presentations focusing on Translational Engienering in Health & Medicine. The theme is Translational Engineering in Health & Medicine: the intersection of the lab, the clinic and the community. Some of the tracks will be: Imaging Nano Medicine Data Mining Applied Metabolomics Global Health Aerospace Ideation and Commercialization Harsh Environments. View the complete schedule with detailed information for all poster and track sessions »

Location, Directions and Parking: The conference will be held at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute (TMHRI) in the Texas Medical Center, just southwest of downtown Houston.

» Directions to TMHRI from major airports and city freeways
» TMHRI building map with nearby parking garages (PDF)
» TMHRI event parking information

More Information: For complete conference details and information, visit the conference website. For questions or concerns, email emb-conferences@ieee.org.

Mobile Devices 'On Call' in Hospitals

nytimes.com/science (October 8, 2012) — At hospitals around the country, mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet computers, are becoming critical to efficient and precise patient care.

View original post at http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/10/08/health/100000001824071/mobile-devices-on-call-in-hospitals.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto >>

Automatic Building Mapping Could Help Emergency Responders: A prototype sensor array that can be worn on the chest automatically maps the wearer’s environment, recognizing movement between floors

MIT News Office (September 24, 2012) — MIT researchers have built a wearable sensor system that automatically creates a digital map of the environment through which the wearer is moving. The prototype system, described in a paper slated for the Intelligent Robots and Systems conference in Portugal next month, is envisioned as a tool to help emergency responders coordinate disaster response.



In experiments conducted on the MIT campus, a graduate student wearing the sensor system wandered the halls, and the sensors wirelessly relayed data to a laptop in a distant conference room. Observers in the conference room were able to track the student’s progress on a map that sprang into being as he moved.

Connected to the array of sensors is a handheld pushbutton device that the wearer can use to annotate the map. In the prototype system, depressing the button simply designates a particular location as a point of interest. But the researchers envision that emergency responders could use a similar system to add voice or text tags to the map — indicating, say, structural damage or a toxic spill.

Read full story at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/automatic-building-mapping-0924.html >>