Tag Archives: Bacteria

DNA Based Medical Device inserted into bacterial cell

Scientists hope that one day in the distant future, miniature, medically-savvy computers will roam our bodies, detecting early-stage diseases and treating them on the spot by releasing a suitable drug, without any outside help. To make this vision a reality, computers must be sufficiently small to fit into body cells. Moreover, they must be able to “talk” to various cellular systems. These challenges can be best addressed by creating computers based on biological molecules such as DNA or proteins. The idea is far from outrageous; after all, biological organisms are capable of receiving and processing information, and of responding accordingly, in a way that resembles a computer.

Biomedical Engineering Simulates Life @ Small Scale

Biomedical engineering research has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years, but the field still falls short of most other types of engineering in one key respect: engineers’ ability to model their work.

With the enormous complexity involved in even the simplest of living organisms, developed over billions of years of evolution, true models tend to fall well short of the wide array of interactions taking place within an organism, making it much more difficult to rely on computers to expedite engineering research and development.

World’s smallest Bio-powered Fuel cell Made @CMU

Carnegie Mellon University’s Kelvin B. Gregory and Philip R. LeDuc have created the world’s smallest fuel cell powered by bacteria. Future versions of the biology-powered fuel cell could be used for self-powered sensing devices in remote locations where batteries are impractical, such as deep ocean or geological environments.

“We have developed a biological fuel cell which uses microbial electricity generation enabled by microfluidic flow control to produce power,” said Gregory, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon.

WHAT IS PLASMA?…. USE OF PLASMA IN BIOMEDICAL DEVICE

Plasma is the fourth state of matter. Many places teach that there are three states of matter; solid, liquid and gas, but there are actually four. The fourth is plasma. To put it very simply, a plasma is an ionized gas, a gas into which sufficient energy is provided to free electrons from atoms or molecules and to allow both species, ions and electrons, to coexist.