Archive for Biomedical Engineering

The bionic man named Rex and the man he is modeled after

February 11, 2013 cyberpunk Biomedical Engineering, Bionics, Cyborg / Transhumanism, Robotics No comments

A recent Channel 4 documentary titled How to Build a Bionic Man demonstrated the most advanced synthetic organs, limbs, and blood, through the construction of a 6.5-foot tall bionic man named Rex (short for ‘robotic exoskeleton’).

The program featured the social psychologist Bertolt Meyer and Rex — the first complete bionic man created by Shadow Robot Company’s Richard Walker and Matthew Godden using almost $1 million-worth of cutting edge body parts borrowed from leading laboratories and manufacturers. Rex has camera-equipped glasses, a cochlear implant, a battery-powered artificial heart, pancreas, kidney, spleen, trachea, legs, lungs, and synthetic blood made up of nanoparticles.

Rex the bionic man has fully-functional artificial organs

Bertolt Meyer was born without a left hand and now wears an i-Limb Ultra prosthetic hand. He was also the model for Rex’s face. In an interview with Telegraph, Meyer stated that he freaked out when he first saw Rex and felt awkward seeing his face on the mechanical man.

While assembled by roboticists, Rex is, strictly speaking, not a robot. He’s not a cyborg either. His parts are all man-made but fully-functional — each of them can or soon can replace a human being’s natural body part or internal organ.

Rex is currently on display at London’s Science Museum as part of the free exhibit How Much of You Can Be Rebuilt? until March 11, 2013.

Image and video credit: Channel4News / Youtube

 

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What are stem cells? An easy to understand introduction

February 7, 2013 cyberpunk Biomedical Engineering, Definition of Terms, Stem Cells No comments

introduction to stem cells

Most of us have heard about stem cells. Research in this field is very promising, though the use of stem cells is also plagued by controversy.

What are stem cells anyway?

Basically, stem cells are cells that have the potential to develop into different types of cells (e.g. blood cells, heart cells, brain cells). They also have the ability to divide indefinitely to replace cells that are worn out during the lifetime of the person (or animal) due to diseases, age or injuries. The new cells can remain as stem cells or develop into other types of specialized cells.

The video below offers a short (only three minutes long) and easy to understand primer on stem cells.

Image and video credit: Cure4Cancers, via Youtube

 

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Nobel Prize winner believes human cloning possible within 50 years

January 9, 2013 cyberpunk Biomedical Engineering, Cloning No comments

Human cloning has always been a touchy issue for many, with its multitude of ethical implications. Sir John Gurdon, however, believes that people will be able to overcome their worries about this technology in the near future if the technique (whether therapeutic cloning to create tissues and organs or reproductive cloning to produce offspring) becomes medically useful, with human cloning becoming a reality within 50 years.

In the 60s, Gurdon worked on cloning frogs and his research helped in the successful cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996. In 2012, he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

human cloning babies

With animals, there is less resistance to the idea of making clones. Usually, though, successful cloning is achieved with animals that have well-understood biology, such as cats, dogs, sheep, and cows. Several endangered animals have also been cloned successfully, as well as some extinct ones such as the wild ox (gaur), wild cattle (banteng), and mountain goat (Pyrenean ibex). Brazil is also planning to clone several of the country’s endangered species while researchers have taken and cryogenically frozen tissues from Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island Giant Tortoise, soon after his death, in the hopes of cloning him in the future.

In his interview with BBC Radio 4, Gurdon compared the stigma about human cloning with how people reacted about in-vitro fertilization and how perception changed after the birth of the first test tube baby Louise Brown. In the past, people looked at IVF negatively but nowadays it is already widely accepted.

You can listen to the whole interview with BBC Radio 4 here.

Image courtesy of Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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What experts 100 years ago thought the future would be like

December 30, 2012 cyberpunk Biomedical Engineering, Food, Futurism, Internet No comments

Over a hundred years ago, The Ladies’ Home Journal published what then-futurists thought would happen within the next century. Some of them are spot on, some have not happened yet, and some are outright opposite our current situation.

Futurism

What they got right

1. Population of the USA: “There will probably be 350M-500M people in America and its possessions.”

2. Heaters and air conditioners: “Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house.”

3. Fast food and food delivery: “Ready cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries…Food will be served hot or cold to private homes in pneumatic tubes or automotive wagons.”

4. Digital cameras, TV, and the Internet: “Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance.” “Man will see around the world.” “Telephones will span the world.”

5. Fast trains

6. Automobiles replacing horse vehicles.

7. Aerial warships and forts on wheels

8. Medical photography: A physician can see a living heart inside the chest and magnify and photograph any part of it using invisible light.

 

What they got wrong

1. Wild animals and pests: “There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated.” “No mosquitoes or flies.”

2. The alphabet: “There will be no C, X or Q in our everyday alphabet.”

3. Coal: “Coal will not be used for heating or cooking.”

4. City house: “The city house will probably be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.”

5. People’s walking: “A man or woman unable to walk 10 miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.”

6. Air transportation: “There will be airships but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic.”

7. Cars in cities: “There will be no street cars in our large cities.”

8. Some plants: They expected strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries would be as large as apples, peas as large as beets, and roses as large as cabbage heads.

9. Drug delivery: They predicted that most drugs would be applied through the skin and flesh, with only a few needed to be swallowed.

Image credit: psd | CC-BY-2.0, via Flickr

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Pacemakers can be powered by heartbeat but can also be hacked

November 5, 2012 cyberpunk Biomedical Engineering No comments

First, the good news.

A study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2012 discussed an experimental device that can harness the energy from a beating heart to power a pacemaker. The device uses piezoelectricity generated from the motion of the heart. The lead author of the study is M. Amin Karami, Ph.D., a research fellow in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

 

Currently, those who use pacemakers have to undergo surgery every 5-7 years to replace their pacemakers once the batteries run out. With the device being developed by Karami and his group, such surgeries are eliminated.

The use of piezoelectricity is promising since pacemakers only need small amounts of power to operate. Piezoelectricity can also possibly be used for other low-powered implantable cardiac devices such as defibrillators.

The energy harvester prototype developed by Karami’s team can generate more than 10 times the required power and accommodate heart rate changes. It is also not affected by cell phones, microwave ovens, and other similar devices.

Now, the bad news….

According to Jack Barnaby, director of embedded device security of IOActive, pacemakers sold since 2006 can be hacked due to software flaws of the wireless transmitters used to instruct these pacemakers. Through this vulnerability, the hacker can remotely deliver a fatal 830-volt shock to the victim. Worse, a malware can be introduced to the servers to infect multiple devices.

Barnaby did not identify any specific medical vendors but he has notified them of the problem. I hope this vulnerability gets fixed real soon since in the USA alone, more than four million pacemakers were sold in 2006-2011.

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Woman loses legs, turns herself into a real-life mermaid

October 25, 2012 cyberpunk Biomedical Engineering, Bionics, Cyborg / Transhumanism No comments

Losing their limbs is one of the biggest fears for many people. Such a tragedy would reduce some folks into life-long bitterness and anger. But not Nadya Vessey! This sporty Auckland lady is living life to the fullest.

A medical condition prevented Vessey’s legs from developing normally. At age 7, one of her legs had to be amputated. She began swimming nonetheless and went on to swim competitively in high school, even when her other leg had to be cut off when she was 16.

When a kid asked about her prosthetic legs while she was at a pool one day, she jokingly said that she was a mermaid and from that got the idea to approach Weta Workshop’s prosthetic department to have a mermaid tail made for her.

mermaid tail prosthesis

Source: Weta

Weta Workshop worked on special effects for the movies The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. The group also created the mermaid tails used in Peter Pan, so creating mermaid tails was nothing new for them. Still, creating fish tails worn by two-legged actors was different, since such prostheses were worn for a short time only and the emphasis could be put on the aesthetics, while Vessey’s mermaid tail had to not only be beautiful but comfortable and fully functional as well.

You can find more information on how Weta created this mermaid tail on the video above and on Weta’s site.

 

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