Margaret Sheehan isn’t a scientist, but she is 1 of many patient scientists joining an effort to incorporate Parkinson’s patients’ preference into the design of clinical trials for new treatments. Sheehan, a Virginia-based lawyer, has had Parkinson’s disease since 2004. She told Drug Delivery Business News that when the folks at the Medical Device Innovation Consortium presented last spring […]
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Could wireless signals help diagnose diseases?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has developed a wireless device that is the size of a small painting and could help diagnose cognitive decline and cardiac disease – all through wireless signals. The device, deemed WiGait, measures the walking speed of people with 95 to 99% accuracy using wireless […]
Wireless power source could enable ingestible drug delivery devices
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory have developed the means to wirelessly power electronic devices that stay in the digestive tract indefinitely. The team suggests that these devices could be used as sensors in the GI tract or carry drugs to be delivered over […]
Light-propelled water could create better microfluidic devices
Light-propelled water could enable microfluidic diagnostic devices with channels and valves that can be reprogrammed quickly, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers. The system was originally designed to help find a way to separate water and oil to treat the mixture of briny water and crude oil in oil wells. When droplets are small […]
This test can detect tiny ovarian tumors sooner than current tests
Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers have developed a way to detect ovarian tumors that are smaller than 2 mm in diameter, allowing for detection 5 months earlier than existing tests. A synthetic biomarker, which is a nanoparticle that works with tumor proteins to release fragments into the urine for detection, helps the MIT-developed test create […]
Rubbery, implantable fibers used to study the spinal cord
New rubber-like fibers can match the flexibility of the spine as they deliver optical impulses to study spinal cord neurons, thanks to researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Scientists use implantable fibers to study the brain, giving them the opportunity to stimulate specific parts of the brain to monitor electrical responses. Before the rubber fibers, […]
Fibrosis: How to prevent it in medical device implants
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Boston Children’s Hospital researchers have discovered a way to prevent fibrosis from forming around medical device implants by blocking certain cells. The body’s immune system usually attacks implanted medical devices that are used for drug delivery, sensing or tissue regeneration. Defense cells in the body try to isolate the […]
Study: Tethered nanoparticles help trigger cell death in cancerous tumor cells
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a way to amplify certain types of cancer treatment by tethering nanoparticles to cancerous tumor cells. The team’s work was published in Nature Communications. The researchers found that tethered nanoparticles increase the forces exerted on the cells by phenomena such as blood flow, therefore making the cells […]
Mind-controlled robots read your mind to correct errors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Boston University have developed a system that allows humans to direct and correct robots using only their brains. The system uses an electroencephalography (EEG) monitor to record brain activity that the system can detect when the user notices that there was an error […]
New material illuminates when exposed to chemicals on the body
MIT engineers and biologists teamed up and designed a living-cell-injected hydrogel that can illuminate when exposed to certain chemicals. The MIT team made wearable sensors using the hydrogel with living cells that lit up after touching a surface with certain chemicals. The new material has the potential to detect chemicals in the environment and the […]
This ingestible sensor is powered by stomach acid
MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers have announced an ingestible device innovation: a small voltaic cell that can withstand the acidity of fluids in the stomach and still transmit information to a base station. The small device can stay in the gastrointestinal tract for long periods of time and can produce enough power to […]