3D Printing Human Tissue And Smart Bandages

3D Printing Human Tissue And Smart Bandages

3d printing human tissue and smart bandages

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Today we are reporting on our visit with the amazing people at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the latest advances they have developed in medicine. With subjects like 3D Printing tissue! Tomorrow we will be reporting on the second part of our visit, from The Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, or CSAIL for short, Which is the largest research lab here at MIT, and it is also the weirdest looking!

CSAIL Building

The Smart Band-Aid

The institute is looking at how smart we can get with our own health. We have been to the lab that's creating the technology that could replace a visit to the doctor.
Inside the HST lab, jointly funded by MIT and Harvard, they are researching possible advancements for the humble bandage. The goal is to have a smart band-aid that can monitor the wound environment. You place multiple sensors on the Band-Aids that can monitor the wound in temperature, pH, oxygen, and then interfere if something goes wrong. They've put particles on the back here which contain the treatment, and those shrink when they're heated up by the heating filament in the back.

Smart band-aid

So when the plaster says it's time to deliver the treatment, it gets warm, the particles shrink and the treatment is delivered straight onto the wound. The band-aid will send a signal to a remote device that the doctor can monitor, and if there's a problem, depending on the type of problem, if the pH is high maybe or there is a bacterial infection, he can press a button to live a more drugs to combat the problem..pretty cool eh??

3D Printing Human Tissue

3D Human Tissue Printer

This machine prints human tissue. This 3D blood vessel structure could be patched into a damaged organ, say a heart for example, to speed recovery. The advantage of this system is that the tissue can be custom-made for each patient, so it's much more likely to work. Eventually, they hope that this system could be used to produce whole organs. This technique has already created 3D tissues that have been successfully patched into the heart of mice.
A few years ago there were even papers released regarding, the possibilities of 3D printing brain tissue!!

Gene Radar

Gene Radar

Perhaps the most immediate effects of medical research led by the alumni of MIT is in diagnosis. Anita Goel has won an X Prize Foundation Challenge worth half a million dollars by creating a box that will tell you if you've got Aids, Ebola or just common garden flu. Tests that in the past could take months can be done by the Gene Radar in under an hour, and with just a drop of blood.This is the first time they have allowed cameras in to film the real thing in action. Diagnosing disease is the first step to managing the disease. And a correct diagnosis. And what we are providing with Gene Radar is a tool and a system to democratise access to health care systems, and empowering people to take ownership of their own health. Its inventor has studied the nature of DNA for most of her working life. The Gene Radar doesn't just save time, it could cut costs Its size means it could deployed quickly and in remote areas, helping to stop epidemics and offer certainty to someone's condition even if they don't show symptoms.

Article Written By Restore Solutions : August 13rd, 2015.