Mind Controlled Helicopter

People with limited mobility could be helped by another new technology that allows devices to be controlled by the mind. A biomedical engineering team at the University of Minnesota developed a noninvasive technology that allows a WIFI-connected quadricopter to be controlled using an EEG headset. This technology has potential for being applied to disabled individuals successfully controlling artificial arms and other assistive devices using their minds. It is similar to the brain-training device I wrote about previously, but instead of interacting with one’s own body, it is interacting with devices.

Quadricopter
Source: University of Minnesota

The researchers intend for this research to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases to regain mobility and independence. This technology uses a brain-computer interface system. Researchers used MRI and EEG imaging to map out what neurons are activated in the brain when thinking of different movements. They used the knowledge of where the signals come from to create the interface that allows for accurate control of the helicopter. They first did research using a computer and a virtual helicopter to gather this information. They have now done studies with people controlling the actual robotic quadricopter and have had large success with ease of use and accuracy. The participants of the study wore an EEG cap fitted with 64 electrodes. The subjects watched the position of the copter via images from the copter’s on board camera. They would merely think of what movement they wanted the copter to make and the EEG cap recorded the brain signals and transmitted them to the copter over WIFI.

Mind controlled devices could be of great use for those with limited mobility. This technology has the potential to be used to allow disabled patients to interact with their environment as well as to help those with Alzheimer’s disease, autism, or who have suffered a stroke by helping to rewire the brain to bypass damaged areas of the brain. I know such technology would benefit my grandmother who suffered a stroke as well as many other people. I am excited to see this technology progress to all different devices to help people with various physical limitations.

Cancer Detection

Biomedical engineers at Texas A&M University recently developed a technique of noninvasive epithelial imaging for the detection of epithelial cancers.

Professors Kristen Maitland and Brian Applegate developed a technique using a chromatic confocal microscope for detecting epithelial carcinoma, the most common ovarian cancer. Over sixty percent of all diagnosed tumors and eighty percent of all malignant tumors are epithelial ovarian tumors. This imaging technique uses broad-spectrum light dispersion penetrating deep enough to produce images that allow for the diagnoses of the cancer without use of typical invasive methods. In a TAMU press release, Maitland said of the technique, “We present the first microstructural images in non-transparent biological tissue with sufficient depth range and axial resolution to resolve cell morphology in the epithelium.”

Dr. Kristen Maitland has taken the confocal microscopy, along with fluorescence lifetime imaging technology, to develop a technique to detect oral cancer sooner and more accurately. This year as many as forty two thousand Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer. Currently to diagnose oral cancer, doctors take biopsies from a few random sites. This is inaccurate because not all biopsies from all areas will test the same. The imaging technology helps to provide images of the whole mouth to detect cancerous or precancerous cells and provide the doctor information on which area is highly diseased and needs to be biopsied. This allows for earlier and more accurate diagnosis.

Fluorescence lifetime imaging detects tissue biochemical changes on the macroscopic scale, and (inset) confocal microscopy is used to characterize size, shape, and spacing of cell nuclei to detect oral precancer and cancer
Source: Texas A&M University

This new imaging technology for detecting epithelial cancer has great potential to make a huge difference in the diagnosing of cancer. Being able to diagnose cancer sooner and more effectively will help save the lives of many.  I am interested to see what other forms of cancer or other diseases this imaging technique can be applied to.

Airway Splint

3D printing is a very useful tool in the field of biomedical engineering. Just recently, doctors used a 3D laser printer to print an airway splint to save a baby boy’s life.

Airway Splint
Source: Associated Press

Kaiba Gionfriddo was born with a defect, called tracheobronchomalacia, where his airway would collapse. His airway first collapsed when he was six weeks old. He was at a restaurant with his family and turned blue. He was rushed to the hospital where even after having a tracheotomy tube inserted and being hooked up to a breathing machine, his airway continued to keep collapsing. Doctors thought it unlikely that he would ever leave the hospital alive. University of Michigan doctors, Glenn Green, M.D. and Scott Hollister, Ph.D., had already been working on airway implants, but were still in experimental phases. They were preparing to go into clinical trials when they heard about Kaiba. Since Kaiba needed something fast, they received special emergency permission from the FDA to create the special tracheal implant and implant it in Kaiba. Doctors printed the splint using the latest 3D printing technology. This bio-part was made from biodegradable polyester. It was sewn around Kaiba’s airway and is designed to support his airway and expand as Kaiba grows, preventing airway collapse and allowing for increase of strength in the airway. Over the course of three years, the implant will dissolve and be absorbed by the body.

Kaiba and his dog
Source: Associated Press

The splint has been in place since he was 3 months old. He is now 19 months old and has not had any more episodes of breathing crisis since the splint was implanted. The 3D printed airway splint saved Kaiba’s life.

It is amazing how engineers and doctors can use 3D printers to create parts to save people’s lives. This technology has great potential to help people with all types of different ailments, diseases, and injuries.

Brain Training Device

When I was in sixth grade, my grandmother suffered a stroke. As a result of the stroke, she cannot use her left hand and has limited use of her left leg. She has to be in a wheelchair and requires assistance with even most basic tasks. Within the last couple of years, researchers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Interdisciplinary Department of Biomedical Engineering have developed a brain training device that may be helpful for stroke patients who have motor disability.

The Brain Training Device detects brain waves and can allow patients to have control over a paralyzed limb. The Brain Training Device uses an algorithm that uses electroencephalography (EEG), or brainwaves, and electromyography (EMG), or muscle activities to determine voluntary movements. The device can be used for rehabilitation of stroke patients to help them to use the device to reconnect with their paralyzed limb. The device can allow for a greater recovery of stroke patients, though much relies on having a rehabilitation program set up as early as possible and practicing the use of limbs as much as possible.

Source: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

The Brain Training system looks like a bicycle helmet and uses specific EEG electrode locations for each specific stroke patient. The researchers performed a study that found that the treatment requires 32 electrodes on average to treat patients with a maintained ninety percent accuracy. The researchers have filed a patent for the device in both China and the United States. In the future, the researchers plan for the device will be portable and easy to use for rehabilitation in both the home and the hospital.

This device has great potential for helping individuals who have suffered a stroke. I wish this technology had been available when my grandmother had her stroke. If it had been, perhaps she would have regained use of both her hand and leg, and would now be able to get around and do things on her own.

Heart Patch

A group of biomedical engineers and scientists at Duke University has developed a living heart patch. Researchers developed the 3D patch using embryonic stem cells. The embryonic stem cells were stimulated appropriately to trigger them to form cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells. The researchers were able to create an optimal 3-D environment to make the cells reach greater levels of maturation so that, unlike previous attempts at creating similar patches, this patch conducts electricity and is able to contract much like actual healthy heart tissue. Typically, it takes nine months for embryonic cells to mature, and even longer for them to mature to adult cells; researchers were able to grow the patch in such a way as to expedite the process of the tissue maturing so that it currently takes about six weeks to grow the cells to adult maturity.

This living patch has great potential for being able to repair hearts damaged by a heart attack. When a heart attack occurs, tissue dies; the hope is that the 3D patch could be implanted as soon as possible at the site of injury. These cells could also be implanted into a diseased heart prior to a heart attack in the hopes of repairing it. Since the patches are human tissue, they are obviously more biocompatible than other devices and thus have less risk of rejection or related complications. The researchers hope that in the future they can develop patches from the patient’s own cells so that when implanted the risk of rejection would be virtually nonexistent. Aside from the treatment of damaged hearts and diseased hearts, the living patch also provides an excellent means of testing pharmaceuticals. Using the 3D tissue patch as opposed to just a 2D sheet of tissue would provide more accurate data on how real heart tissue would respond to the given substance or treatments.

I am interested in focusing on tissue engineering, especially tissue engineering surrounding products for hearts, so this recent advancement is highly relevant to my future goals.

Sunburn Prevention Patch

With the summer approaching, sun exposure is a prevalent problem. The ultraviolet light from the sun damages the skin causing sunburn and skin cancer. Below is a graph of the amount of UV exposure required to cause the skin to turn red based on skin type.

Source: Author

A senior design team at Michigan Tech has come up with a new, simple design for a UV exposure monitor. Their design is a skin patch that tells you when it is time to get out of the sun. The patch is nickel sized with a happy face on it. As the wearer is exposed to UV rays, the patch darkens. When the happy face is no longer visible, that means it is time to get out of the sun. The team made the patch out of a UV-sensitive film bonded to a special tape with medical-grade adhesive. This allows it to withstand getting in and out of the swimming pool and other activities of a summer day. The patch is calibrated based on skin type and the team currently has created prototypes of the patch for three main skin types. The patch also senses whether the wearer has applied sunscreen or is in the shade and darkens accordingly.

The Michigan Tech team has filed a provisional patent for their patch design. There are other personal UV monitors available, however this design is simpler and less expensive. The prototypes cost only 13 cents apiece in materials, so they would be able to sell the patch for a fraction of the cost of currently available monitors.

Most of my relatives sunburn very easily and several of my relatives have had skin cancer so I think this device is a wonderful idea. I am very interested in trying this patch out myself and recommending it to others when it becomes available on the market.

Cooling Cure

Many biomedical engineering advances use the most high tech options available. However, more high tech solutions are not always the best option, especially when designing products for developing countries. A biomedical engineering design team at Johns Hopkins University has developed a low tech and affordable device, called the Cooling Cure, to be used in developing countries to treat infants who have been oxygen deprived prior to birth.

Oxygen deprivation triggers a condition called hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, which may be fatal or lead to brain damage or disorders, including cerebral palsy. It is possible to prevent damage by a therapeutic hypothermia treatment where the infant has their body temperature lowered to around 92 degrees Fahrenheit and maintained there for three days before being gradually warmed back up by 0.9 degrees an hour until their body temperature reaches 97.7. The high tech equipment currently used in hospitals for this treatment costs thousands of dollars and requires medical specialists, which is impractical for use in impoverished nations.  The Cooling Cure costs only forty dollars and is user friendly.

Prototype of Cooling Cure Device
Source: Johns Hopkins Uniiversity

The Cooling Cure uses a clay pot and a plastic lined basket separated by sand and urea-based instant cold powder. The caregiver adds water to activate the sand and powder mix. This causes a chemical reaction that pulls heat from the upper basket containing the child. When it is time, the caregiver places a block in the clay pot under the baby to bring the temperature of the infant back up. The system is monitored by a microprocessor and sensors powered only by two AAA batteries. It includes two sets of LED lights. One set of LEDs is located on the side of the pot corresponding to the heights at which the basket may be elevated. The caregiver may raise of lower the basket to achieve the best rate of cooling or warming. The other set of LEDs, connected to sensors that the caregiver attaches to the infant, provides information on the temperature of the infant and the ideal range of temperatures that the body temperature should be within during cooling and warming. Based on the temperature reading, the nurse or family member can add water if the infant is too warm or pick the infant up if the temperature is too low.

The team has tested the Cooling Cure using piglets and the facilities and guidance available at Johns Hopkins. They are currently moving the product through the various levels of testing required in the hopes of getting the device on the market as soon as possible. This device has the potential to make a huge impact on the death and disease rate of infants in developing nations.

I look forward to news of the impact that this device will make as well as news of other devices that can fill the needs of impoverished countries, as well as those who are impoverished here in the United States.

Artificial Bone

Years before I was born, my mother shattered her wrist bone in a bicycle crash. The doctors implanted a metal plate to replace the bone that had shattered. To this day that metal plate sets off metal detectors at amusement parks and airports, and when the weather is rainy or she tries to do too much with that wrist the metal plate causes aching in her wrist. A new artificial bone currently headed into human clinical testing could provide an excellent, less problematic, alternative for future injuries of this kind, as well as for bone degeneration from aging or various diseases.

A new artificial bone has been developed by the Universities of Edinburgh and Southampton; it uses plastic and bone stem cells. After a great deal of testing and researching different combinations of materials, the researchers found a combination of three plastics that is light weight and strong. The plastic implant has a honeycomb structure that allows blood to flow though, this permits stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow to attach to the implant and new bone to form. The material of the implant has been designed so it will dissolve as new bone grows back.

This artificial bone is far more ideal than current metal or ceramic artificial bone implants because it is only temporary. Rather than being in the patient’s body permanently it merely provides a placeholder until new bone forms and takes the place of the original bone that was shattered. Researchers are also looking to use this to help replace bone that has dwindled in older individuals or in individuals with a bone degenerating disease.

This new plastic artificial bone implant has been successful in the laboratory and animal stages of testing. It is currently going into the human testing stage. I look forward to the results of the clinical testing and hope that this new development will prove beneficial for all varieties of bone injury and loss.

Pencil Beam Scanning

Pencil beam scanning is currently one of the most advanced and precise tools available for the treatment of cancerous tumors. This tool has been around for the past few years, but is now becoming more widespread.  Pencil beam scanning is a type of proton therapy, but it uses a smaller beam than traditional proton therapy tools and so can more accurately target a tumor. Proton therapy is better than traditional radiation treatment because it causes less damage. Conventional radiation treatment uses x-ray therapy and is done in such a way that not just cancerous cells are hit but healthy cells as well, causing a multitude of side effects. Pencil beam scanning allows for more radiation to hit the cancerous cells while minimalizing both the damage to healthy tissue and the side effects of the radiation. Pencil beam scanning equipment is electronically guided and so can be programmed specific to each patient and each tumor. This allows for the treatment to be more efficient, saving time and doing less damage. There is some room for improvement in making it so that the equipment can adjust to the breathing of the patient so that the radiation delivery is always even across the tumor.

Pencil beam scanning equipment is a significant tool coming out of the biomedical engineering industry. This technology is very important in the fight against cancer. Most people know someone who either has or has had cancer and so it is easy to see how advancements such as this can directly or indirectly benefit most everyone. Minimizing the exposure of healthy tissue to radiation is a big deal. My older sister had cancer in high school and she still notices the residual effects of being exposed to so much radiation. I find this advancement to be very exciting and hope it continues to become more widely available to cancer patients as a better treatment option.