Carl Zeiss Introduces Interface for Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy

Ultra-thin section of the brain of a zebra finch. Fluorescence labeled vesicle in a neuron, overlaid with scanning electron microscope image.

Carl Zeiss has introduced a hardware/software interface to connect light and scanning electron microscopes for correlative microscopy in the life sciences. The “Shuttle & Find” interface enables users to recall regions of interest in fixed specimens in an electron microscope, which were previously identified in a light microscope and vice versa. The entire process takes only a few seconds. This can open up new dimensions in microscopy, enabling rapid and precise overlay of light and electron microscope images, high-resolution magnification of the details and the merger of functional and structural information. Read more…

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Magnet Nanoparticles Guide Drugs to Targets in the Body

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed magnetic nanoparticles that can be directed to metallic implants such as coronary stents and artificial knee and hip joints. Using this strategy, drugs could be delivered to targeted areas in the body to dissolve blood clots in the arteries or reduce inflammation after metallic joints have been surgically implanted. Potential benefits include improved outcomes for patients with fewer side-effects than conventional drug-delivery methods.

Associate Professor Maria Kempe, her brother and colleague Dr Henrik Kempe and members of staff at Skåne University Hospital have shown that the principle works with metal stents in animal experiments. They succeeded in attaching a clot-dissolving drug to the nanoparticles and, using magnets, directed the particles to a blood clot in a stent to dissolve it, potentially preventing a heart attack in the process.

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AdvanSource Biomaterials Obtains US Patent for Antimicrobial Polyurethane Resins

A range of antimicrobial polyurethane resins developed by AdvanSource Biomaterials is effective against MRSA, pictured here in a scanning electron micrograph.

AdvanSource Biomaterials Corp., a developer of polymer technologies and materials for various medical device applications, has announced that it has received a “Notice of Allowance” from the US Patent and Trademark Office in connection with its antimicrobial patent application filed in June 2007. US Patent No. 7,772,296, which is entitled “Antimicrobial Polyurethane Resins and Products Made Therefrom,” covers a drug-free, antimicrobial technology to eradicate Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) clinical infections associated with medical devices. Read more…

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High Demand for Regulatory and Quality Personnel in Life Sciences

If a latter-day Benjamin Braddock were mapping a career in these economic end times, I would have three words for him: life science outsourcing. That is a conclusion I pull from the ZRG Global Life Science Hiring Index reporting on the second quarter in 2010.

Regulatory, quality and clinical roles were the most in demand globally in Q2, according to ZRG Partners, an executive recruitment firm specialising in talent management in the life science, pharmaceutical and medical device markets. This functional bucket had 27.2% of opportunities, note the authors of the report, adding “there is a fight for talent breaking out, with 63% of the opportunities in regulatory, quality and clinical coming from the outsourcing and service sector.” This signals an interesting shift of demand globally for professionals in this area, according to ZRG Partners. Read more…

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Microneedles Could Aid Skin Cancer Treatment

Hollow microneedles open the door to new techniques for diagnosing and treating a variety of medical conditions, including skin cancer. Image source: Royal Society of Chemistry.

A couple of months ago, we covered a microneedle antimicrobial technology developed by researchers at North Carolina State University. Now, researchers at that university have developed microneedles that can be used to deliver medical nanoscale dyes to the skin. Composed of nanoscale crystals featuring unique light-emission properties, the quantum-dot based dyes are could be used in conjunction with microneedles to diagnose and treat various medical conditions, including skin cancer.

In these tests, the microneedles were created using two-photon polymerisation, an approach pioneered by North Carolina State University and Laser Zentrum Hannover for use in medical device applications. Two-photon polymerisation allowed the researchers to create hollow, plastic microneedles with specific design characteristics. “Our use of this fabrication technology highlights its potential for other small-scale medical device applications,” explains Roger Narayan, a lead reseracher on this project and a professor at the University of North Carolina. Read more…

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“Artificial Nose” Based on DNA Technology Detects Organic Vapours

A new approach to building an “artificial nose” – using fluorescent compounds and DNA – could accelerate the use of sniffing sensors into the realm of mass production and widespread use, say chemists at Stanford University. If their method lives up to its promise, it could one day have a range of applications, detecting everything from incipiently souring milk to high explosives.

By sticking fluorescent compounds onto short strands of the molecules that form the backbone of DNA, the researchers have produced tiny sensor molecules that change color when they detect certain substances. The sensors were made using existing technology for synthesising DNA, and are viewed with a fluorescence microscope. Read more…

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UK Technology Board Rewards Businesses Developing Enabling Technologies

Do you have a winning idea for a technology that could spur economic growth in the United Kingdom? The Technology Strategy Board would like to hear about it. The governmental body invites businesses across the country to compete for support to develop innovative technologies that could create new growth areas for the UK economy.

The competition will seek to identify and award up to £18 million funding to the most innovative businesses, in order to keep the UK at the forefront of modern technology and enhance quality of life, notes a press release issued this week. Collaborative applications are sought from organisations operating in a range of technology areas where the UK has considerable strengths: advanced materials, biosciences, electronics, photonics and electrical systems, high-value manufacturing, information and communications technology and nanotechnology. (Previously, the board announced that it will invest several million pounds to support research and development of new regenerative medicine products, tools and technologies.) Read more…

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DSM Biomedical Announces New License Agreements with Global Medical Device Manufacturers

DSM Biomedical and its Berkeley-based operation, DSM PTG, yesterday announced that the company has entered into six multi-year licensing agreements with global medical device manufacturers in the orthopaedic, cardiovascular, vascular and urology fields. The new agreements allow DSM to work in conjunction with leading medical device manufacturers throughout the various phases of development, prototyping, manufacturing and processing of product commercialisation. Specifically, these medical device companies will be in a position to leverage the track record of DSM Biomedical’s advanced biomedical materials, including BionatePCU, CarboSil TSPCU and ComfortCoat medical coatings in applications such as total disk replacement, spinal stabilisation, continuous glucose monitoring, cardiac rhythm management, neurostimulation, catheters and heart assist devices. Read more…

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3-D Ultrasound Technique Fuses Data from Multiple Sources

A team of Oxford University biomedical engineers and cardiologists has developed a way of merging 3-D data from ultrasound transducers placed in different positions on a patient’s body. The researchers recently reported in the journal JACC Cardiovascular Imaging that, in a pilot study of 32 people, this boosted the quality of good/intermediate quality images of the heart from 70% with existing methods to more than 96%.

“For the first time we’ve shown in a detailed clinical study how fusion of 3-D data from different positions can improve the quality and completeness of the final image,” says Alison Noble of Oxford University’s Department of Engineering Science, a co-author of the report. Read more…

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Using Ultrasound Technology to Improve Device Reliability

An article recently published on www.emdt.co.uk expains how acoustic micro imaging technology can identify latent defects in products during development and manufacture and prevent field failures. When a medical device fails during active use, the failure is often preceded by a latent defect of some type. If the failure is not electrical in nature—or even if it is—the latent defect often turns out to have been a structural flaw such as an internal crack, delamination or void. Given time, vibration and thermal stresses, these are the types of latent defects that can cause field failures in a variety of medical devices. Read more…

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Switzerland Launches New Medical Device Platform

Switzerland has a new platform for the medical device industry: Medtech Switzerland. The Swiss Medical Cluster co-founded the platform on 9 August 2010 together with OSEC, Switzerland’s official promotion agency for foreign trade. The aim of the platform is to provide manufacturers, suppliers and service providers with information about the most important target markets, offer exchange forums and facilitate entry into new sales markets with specific support. To accomplish this, Medtech Switzerland will establish a network of national and international experts and organise country-specific workshops as well as work groups to support the exchange of knowledge and experience within the Swiss medtech industry.

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Bioengineers Design Device to Help Detect Diseases Quickly

Researchers at Arizona State University have demonstrated a way to simplify testing patients for infectious diseases and unhealthy protein levels. New testing instrumentation developed by professors Antonia Garcia and John Schneider could make the procedure less costly and produce results in less time.

Current testing is slow and expensive because of the complications of working with blood, saliva, urine and other biological fluids, says Garcia. Such samples “are complex mixtures that require sophisticated instruments capable of mixing a sample with antibodies or other biological reactants to produce an accurate positive or negative reaction,” Garcia says. Read more…

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