Medical tools

Have HPV-related oral cancer? The robot will see you now

With oral sex on the rise, oral cancer is also up, and by as much as 25 percent in the past few years alone--particularly among otherwise healthy 30- to 50-year-old nonsmokers, according to Mayo Clinic researchers. That's the bad news.

The goods news is that this rise is largely attributed to types of oral cancer caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which tend to be less aggressive and more responsive to treatment than the oral cancers traditionally seen in older patients who have been smoking and/or drinking for decades. What's more, the most common, called oropharyngeal cancer, … Read more

Lab on a chip puts the pressure on a parasite

Researchers in Canada say they've built a device that will help them study changes in red blood cells caused by the most common species of malaria parasites, plasmodium falciparum, which causes the most lethal form of a disease that claims almost a million lives every year.

The microfluidic device, which is just 1 x 2 inches, is not a diagnostic tool but rather a way to test potential treatments--a crucial step in the fight against malaria, which is constantly evolving to develop resistance to drugs.

Typically, human red blood cells squeeze through capillaries that are narrower than the cells … Read more

Singing gloves give new meaning to jazz hands

Hand gestures can add a lot to a conversation. They can convey excitement and help you describe a scene or object. And, of course, the simple act of lifting a certain finger can quickly let someone know you're not too happy with them. In all, gestures are an effective form of communication, and now, researchers in Vancouver have found a way to take them to the next level.

A team of engineers from the University of British Columbia has developed a pair of gloves that read hand gestures and convert them to speech and song, potentially giving those with speech and/or hearing disabilities another way to communicate.

The project, called Digital Ventriloquized Actor (DIVA) and led by UBC professor of electrical and computer engineering Sidney Fels, tries to replicate the movements of real vocal cords through the use of hand gestures read by a system of sensors. … Read more

Hot nanotubes blast chemo-resistant cancer cells into oblivion

When it comes to cancer cells, a particularly confounding breed called cancer stem cells have proven difficult to kill. Because they divide so slowly, chemo drugs do them little harm, and they appear resistant to heat therapies that are generally good at killing most cells. Some cancer drugs even appear to promote the growth of cancer stem cells.

Now, three years after they found that the heat from 30-second laser blasts can kill kidney cancer stem cells, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center say the same treatment works to kill breast cancer stem cells as well.

Torti's team … Read more

Nifty stem-cell engineering sheds light on Parkinson's disease

Researchers at the University at Buffalo may have taken a significant step toward unraveling the way Parkinson's disease assails the human nervous system--thanks in part to a nifty bit of stem-cell engineering.

Scientists led by physiologist Jian Feng took skin cells from healthy control subjects and people with a particular type of Parkinson's disease and transformed them into a type of primordial cell--technically, an "induced pluripotent stem cell." Such iPS cells, as they're known, can be coaxed into developing as almost any type of cell in the body.

Here, they turned into brain cells. … Read more

Portable device to detect pathogens in 30 minutes

Engineers at Cornell are building a handheld pathogen detector that will help health care workers around the world test for pathogens such as tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and HIV and get results in as little as 30 minutes, instead of waiting days.

Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering, has been using synthetic DNA to amplify tiny samples of pathogen DNA, RNA, or proteins. Because of $25 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenge to 12 teams developing point-of-care diagnostics, Luo will be combining forces with Edwin Kan, a Cornell professor of electrical and computer engineering, who has built a computer chip that can respond quickly to those amplified samples.

The engineers describe their novel device as something akin to a molecular-level Lego builder.… Read more

Crab dinner inspires cancer-removing robot

They say you can find inspiration anywhere, so why not a crab dinner?

Inspired by our crustacean friends, researchers in Singapore have created a mini robot that can be used to remove early-stage stomach cancer in a far less invasive way than other procedures. The robot has the ability to crawl down a patient's throat and features a pincer and hook that can remove cancerous tissue.

The idea first came up in 2004 when Lawrence Ho, an enterologist at Singapore's National University Hospital, and Louis Phee, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological Institute's School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, had dinner with Hong Kong surgeon Sydney Chung, who is well-known for his fight against SARS.

While dining on Singapore's signature chili crab dish, Chung suggested the two use the crab as a prototype, making note of the strength of a crab's pincers and its ability to pick up sand. … Read more

Tiny monitor tracks vital signs sans skin contact

Scientists and engineers have built a monitor that tracks heart rate, respiration, and movement--without requiring direct contact with skin.

The "life and activity" monitor, developed at Oregon State University, is wearable and non-invasive. The team worked with researchers at the University of California at San Diego to develop a noncontact sensor that is essentially an electric field sensor for tracking the heart rate through materials such as clothing.

The sensor also includes a 5-axis inertial measurement unit that allows for ongoing and simultaneous monitoring of movement, heart rate, and respiration. Imagine adhering such a device to your pants … Read more

Bass-heavy rap powers implantable medical sensors

To get in the mood for this one, I've put on an old favorite, a deep bass track by Dead Prez. It turns out the song's title, and main refrain--"It's Bigger Than Hip Hop"--applies to the power of music in a very literal sense as well.

The acoustical vibrations that are particularly pervasive in the heavy bass lines of hip-hop penetrate our bodies and can then be captured and stored as electricity to power implanted medical devices. Researchers out of Purdue have built a device, which they are unveiling at the IEEE MEMS conference in Paris … Read more