Cell phones and fl ashlights operate by battery without trouble. Yet because of the limited lifespan, battery power is not a feasible option for many applications in the fields of medicine or test engineering, such as implants or probes. Researchers have now developed a process that supplies these systems with power and without the power cord.
For more than 50 years, pacemakers have set the rhythm for many hearts. The engineering of microelectronic implants has since advanced by leaps and bounds: they have become ever-smaller and more technologically sophisticated. The trend is moving toward miniaturized, intelligent systems that will take over therapeutic and diagnostic functions. For example, in the future implantable sensors will measure glucose levels, blood pressure or the oxygen saturation of tumorous tissue, transmitting patient data via telemetry. Meanwhile, medication dosing systems and infusion pumps will be able to deliver a targeted release of pharmaceutical substances in the body, alleviating side effects in the process.
Tissue Engineering is “an interdisciplinary field that incorporates and applies the principles of engineering and life sciences toward the development of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve tissue organ or function” (R. Langer, Science,
260:920-926, 1993)
It can also be explained as “the development and manipulation of laboratory grown molecules, cells, tissues, or organs to replace or support the function of defective or injured body parts” (Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative)
Why Tissue Engineering?
Why we needed Tissue Engineering, Why other Fields were not Good enough?
Alternating current through the tissue creates friction on a molecular level. Increased intracellular temperature generates localized interstitial heating. At temperatures above 60°C, cellular proteins rapidly denature and coagulate, resulting in a lesion.
How it Works
The Cool-tip™ system’s generator feedback algorithm senses tissue impedance and automatically delivers the optimum amount of radiofrequency energy. Our unique patented electrode design minimizes tissue charring and allows for maximum current delivery, resulting in a larger ablation zone in less time.
The Cooling Effect
The electrode’s internal circulation of water cools the tissue adjacent to the exposed electrode, maintaining low impedance during the treatment cycle. Low impedance permits maximum energy deposition for a larger ablation volume.
Description: Testing drugs for the effect on heart muscle contraction in a high-throughput fashion has been hampered so far because human cardiomyocytes are hard to culture. Current methods either use single cells or animal experiments. The aim of this project is to create contractile cardiac tissue by tissue-engineering. Induced pluripotent stem cells will be used to create cardiomyocytes, since these provide a renewable source. Next, these cardiomyocytes can be tissue-engineered in bio-artifial cardiac muscle. Use of such cardiac muscle will open the path to a new way of measuring contractile force and rhythm. This approach opens the path towards a novel platform for (patient-specific) drug screening and can provide insights in cardiac development and function.
Research techniques will encompass (stem) cell culture, tissue engineering, Q-PCR, immunohistochemistry, image analysis and a flavor of biological data intelligence.
The smell of burnt flesh rises in the operating theatre and the smoke from vaporised tissue is sucked away. But these fumes are diverted into a machine that tells the surgeon exactly what is being cut into, guiding the rest of the operation. This is “smart surgery“, and it holds the potential to transform medicine. This is the first NMR spectrometer in the world which does the work of a histologist.who identifies the tissue being cut/taken out.
Cell phones and fl ashlights operate by battery without trouble. Yet because of the limited lifespan, battery power is not a feasible option for many applications in the fields of medicine or test engineering, such as implants or probes. Researchers have now developed a process that supplies these systems with power and without the power cord.
