The Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM) in Berlin, Germany has developed an inexpensive microcamera, the size of a large grain of salt, to be used in disposable endoscopes. They were able to minimize the image sensor’s size by reworking the electrical wiring to the individual parts of the sensor to go through the back of the wafer rather than the side. This allowed for such a reduction in size that the sensor can now be mounted right on the endoscope’s tip, rather than the usual location at the base of the endoscope connected by glass fiber to the lens at the tip. The camera still has a limited resolution of 25,000 pixels and measures 0.7 by 0.7 by 1.0 millimeter. The researchers have a prototype disposable endoscopes ready and expect, optimistically, to be able to manufacture them for only a few euros by 2012. Press release: Cameras out of the salt shaker……

A 78-year-old patient with an extensive right bronchopulmonary malignant tumor has received the world’s first artificial bronchus graft at Paris’s Avicenne Hospital. The procedure was carried out in October of 2009, but only published now that the describing article in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery is out. After an upper bilobectomy with lymph node removal, a primary end-to-end bronchial anastomosis was not possible. An artificial bronchus was made out of cryopreserved aortic tissue from a tissue bank and strengthened by a stent. The use of aortic tissue obviates the need of anti-rejection meds, and one year after the operation the patient was doing well with no graft-related complications. News story: World first artificial bronchus graft in France… Article abstract: Human Transplantation of a Biologic Airway Substitute in Conservative Lung Cancer Surgery……

The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA), in association with the Inventors Digest, is hosting its annual Open Minds showcase featuring student teams and their technology prototypes. Any technology is fair game, although this year’s teams include a fair number of health-related technology. Each team has a video posted online that can be voted on by the public until March 14th. The top 3 videos will be featured at the National Museum of American History on March 26th, where the final winner will be determined by a panel of judges. Some of the technology we are interested in include a CPAP ventilation system for infants, a device to prevent stress urinary continence episodes, a disposable continuous glucose monitoring patch with bluetooth, a disposable low cost antenatal screening kit, a low cast longer lasting vaccine storage solution, and a solar sanitation system. Vote on the videos and make or break some young inventors’ dreams here… Visit the competition website here……

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have combined ultrasound and visible light in a novel way that shows great promise in the quest to “see” deeper into the human body. The advantage of light is, of course, that it is in the frequency range at which human eyes can visualize, but unfortunately, the degree to which the photons scatter prevents us from seeing very deep in tissue. Ultrasound, on the other hand, doesn’t suffer as much from the scattering problem, but primarily reveals only density and compressibility, which isn’t always that helpful. Dr. Wang has combined two techniques of biomedical imaging to combine the best attributes of ultrasound and light. The first technique, ultrasound tagging of light, involves passing light through an ultrasound beam, which “tags” certain photons in the area of interest. The other technique, called time reversal, defies easy explanation, but involves sending waves backward along exactly the same path by which they arrived (please see links for a more detailed explanation). Dr. Wang, professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, says "Focusing light into a scattering medium such as tissue has been a dream for years and years, since the beginning of biomedical optics. We couldn’t focus beyond say a millimeter, the width of a hair, and now you can focus wherever you wish without any invasive measure." This technique, coined time-reversed ultrasonically encoded (or TRUE), allows light to be focused in a controllable location within tissue. As you can imagine, this holds vast promise for imaging as well as "phototherapeutics" – we look forward to seeing this technology brought to market for research and clinical use and, as always, will keep you posted. Press release: Guide star lets scientists see deep into human tissue… Abstract in Nature Photonics: Time-reversed ultrasonically encoded optical focusing into scattering media…

In a study sponsored by Humacyte (Morrisville, NC), researchers from Duke University, East Carolina University, Yale University, and Humacyte have shown some promising results with tissue-engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs). TEVGs are bioengineered veins that can be used for coronary artery bypass graft surgery and vascular access for hemodialysis. The veins, with a diameter of 3 to 6 mm, were generated in a bioreactor using human and canine smooth muscle cells, decellularized, and stored up to 12 months in refrigerated conditions. After that the veins were implanted in nine adult male baboons and five mongrel dogs. They showed excellent blood flow and resistance to dilatation, calcification and intimal hyperplasia, meaning less chance of occlusion. With this technique, patients who do not have suitable veins of their own could be helped with donor material. One donor could produce grafts for multiple patients. Being tested on animals, this is still in early development, but the results are hopeful. Results were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Press release: Bioengineered veins offer new hope on horizon for patients lacking healthy veins for coronary bypass surgery or dialysis… Article abstract: Readily Available Tissue-Engineered Vascular Grafts……

Calm down, folks…it’s only a game. True, it may be the Super Bowl, the biggest game of American football of the year. And, it may be the one day of the year where we actually care about the commercials on TV. And perhaps it is true that we consume more aerosol cheese on this day than every other day of the year. But, just because the game of football is dangerous enough that the National Football League will be putting impact sensors on players next year, doesn’t mean that it has to be dangerous to the spectators too. That’s because a new study released by the Heart Institute, Good Samarian Hospital and Keck School of Medicine at USC suggests that a Super Bowl loss increases chances of cardiac death because of the emotional stress experienced by hardcore fans. The study involved analyzing regression models for mortality rates for cardiac causes during the 1980 Los Angeles Super Bowl loss and for the 1984 Los Angeles Super Bowl win. Results showed that the loss in 1980 increased total and cardiac deaths in both men and women and triggered more death in older than younger patients. The 1984 Super Bowl win reduced death more frequently in older people and in women. So, this Sunday, if the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Green Bay Packers start to stress you out, just relax and get away from the TV for a bit. Take a stroll outside. Pull out that terrible towel you’ve been knitting for the past couple weeks. Or point your browser here to Medgadget. We’ll be here. It’s a promise. Abstract in Clinical Cardiology: Role of Age, Sex, and Race on Cardiac and Total Mortality Associated With Super Bowl Wins and Losses Image credit: betykae……

Following from the somewhat common sense idea that women who were less stressed during in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer had better outcomes, the journal Fertility and Sterility published a study out of Israel that claims "medical clowning" improved pregnancy rates compared to a group not exposed to a clown on the day of implantation. From the abstract: This experimental prospective quasi-randomized study examining the impact of a medical clowning encounter after ET after IVF found that the pregnancy rate in the intervention group was 36.4%, compared with 20.2% in the control group (adjusted odds ratio, 2.67; 95% confidence interval, 1.36–5.24). Medical clowning as an adjunct to IVF-ET may have a beneficial effect on pregnancy rates and deserves further investigation. In the methods section the researchers describe the study design. For the intervention group (n=110) a "professional medical clown" visited the patient immediately after the procedure for about 15 minutes and performed the same routine including "jokes, tricks, and magic" while dressed as a chef. While the study itself only uses one routine, presumably similar effects could be experienced by a patient bringing in a personal media device and watching something they know will amuse them right after their own procedure. Hopefully, no need to bring your own clown if the office won’t provide one for you. This looks like a serious study, even though it uses clowns. Previous studies testing the stress reduction idea used a more expensive and involved training program. This study could show that all that is needed is a 15 minute visit from someone who makes the patient laugh during what is probably a very stressful and expensive moment in a hopeful mother’s experience. Here’s video of the clown used in the study, Shlomi Algussi: Abstract: The effect of medical clowningnext term on pregnancy rates after in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET) Flashback: Patch Adams on Medical Technology (via Gawker)…

Jost Haas, a German, seems to be the last glass eye maker in Britain blowing his eyes by hand. Here he is showing off his craft for the camera. Flasbhack: Kim Erickson’s artificial eyes… (hat tip: Engadget)…

Not one, but two studies in this month’s Nature Methods describe ways to control the brain and muscles of tiny organisms, including freely moving worms, using simple LCD projectors. This is part of the upcoming field of optogenetics, in which optical and genetic techniques are used together to directly influence brain circuits. They use this to study the brain’s pathways in live animals under controlled conditions. Here’s from a Georgia Tech press release about worms controlled by an LCD projector: The illumination system includes a modified off-the-shelf LCD projector, which is used to cast a multi-color pattern of light onto an animal. The independent red, green and blue channels allow researchers to activate excitable cells sensitive to specific colors, while simultaneously silencing others. By connecting the illumination system to a microscope and combining it with video tracking, the researchers are able to track and record the behavior of freely moving animals, while maintaining the lighting in the intended anatomical position. When the animal moves, changes to the light’s location, intensity and color can be updated in less than 40 milliseconds. Once Lu and her team built the prototype system, they used it to explore the “touch” circuit of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans by exciting and inhibiting its mechano-sensory and locomotion neurons. Alexander Gottschalk, a professor in the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt Institute of Biochemistry in Frankfurt, Germany, and his team provided the light-sensitive optogenetic reagents for the Georgia Tech experiments. For their first experiment, the researchers illuminated the head of a worm at regular intervals while the animal moved forward. This produced a coiling effect in the head and caused the worm to crawl in a triangular pattern. In another experiment, the team scanned light along the bodies of worms from head to tail, which resulted in backward movement when neurons near the head were stimulated and forward movement when neurons near the tail were stimulated. Additional experiments showed that the intensity of the light affected a worm’s behavior and that several optogenetic reagents excited at different wavelengths could be combined in one experiment to understand circuit functions. The researchers were able to examine a large number of animals under a variety of conditions, demonstrating that the technique’s results were both robust and repeatable. The movies show coiling of the worm’s head in response to light leading to specific movement patters. Some pretty creepy stuff if you ask us….

While the realism in today’s video games might create the impression that electronic characters are alive, a team of researchers at Stanford University has taken it a step further by creating “biotic games” which allow the player to actually interact with living organisms by controlling biological processes. The team has currently developed eight games similar to simple 1980s arcade titles which allow the player to control paramecium. While these biotic games are currently in the proof-of-concept stage, the researchers hope that eventually even people with little or no knowledge about biology will be able to participate in biomedical research just by playing more complex biotic entertainments. In a paper published in Lab on a Chip Stanford investigators mention that they hope to have "significant conceptual and cost-reducing effects on biotechnology and eventually healthcare; enable volunteers to participate in crowd-sourcing to support medical research; and educate society at large to support personal medical decisions and the public discourse on bio-related issues." From Stanford Report: The basic design of the games involving paramecia – the single-celled organisms used in countless biology experiments from grade school classes to university research labs – consists of a small fluid chamber within which the paramecia can roam freely. A camera sends live images to a video screen, with the "game board" superimposed on the image of the paramecia. A microprocessor tracks the movements of the paramecia and keeps score. The player attempts to control the paramecia using a controller that is much like a typical video game controller. In some games, such as PAC-mecium, the player controls the polarity of a mild electrical field applied across the fluid chamber, which influences the direction the paramecia move. In Biotic Pinball, the player injects occasional whiffs of a chemical into the fluid, causing the paramecia to swim one direction or another. Full text of the paper in Lab on a Chip: Design, engineering and utility of biotic games… Stanford Report coverage: Stanford researcher uses living cells to create ‘biotic’ video games (hat tip: Kotaku)…