Medical Devices

When a patient's blood flows through catheters, stents or other medical devices, there's always a risk that harmful clots may form. An experimental new bio-inspired coating could keep that from happening, without the use of blood-thinning drugs.

When someone receives an implant such as an artificial hip, there's a real risk of an infection occurring at the implant site. According to a new study, however, a covering of bacteria-frying gold nanorods could keep that from happening.

Although brain-implanted electrodes do reduce the effects of neurological disorders, implanting and activating those electrodes is a tricky process. That's why scientists are now developing an alternative, in the form of injectable magnetic discs.

If a medical professional has ever had a hard time getting a needle into your veins, you'll welcome this new gizmo from Adison Technology. By effectively turning your skin transparent, it makes needle sticks more accurate and therefore less painful.

Surgical stitches are good for helping wounds heal, but they can pop open with too much movement. Scientists have now turned that weakness into a strength, developing stitches that generate an electric charge when stretched and heal wounds faster.

While topically-applied medications do help alleviate various skin conditions, they'd be even more effective if they could better penetrate the skin's surface. Newly developed nanoceramic "stars" may one day help, by poking tiny holes in the skin.

While a number of groups are developing thought-controlled prosthetic hands, most of the devices require fiddly electrodes to be implanted in the amputee's body. Such is not the case with a new system, however, which works with implanted magnets.

For babies born with a certain heart defect, implantation of a "shunt" is essential to their survival. A new type of shunt can be expanded using light after it's been implanted, potentially eliminating the need for more heart surgeries down the road.

While titanium hip and knee implants do restore mobility to a great many people, they're still subject to failure. A new alloy could help change that, simply by adding a smidge of bendy, bacteria-killing gallium to the mix.

A new surgical technique for below-the-knee amputations retains a person’s ability to receive sensory feedback from remaining muscles. Having a prosthetic leg driven by an amputee’s own nervous system enables them to walk much more naturally, new research has shown.

A mussel protein could one day keep infections from occurring at the site of bone implants such as artificial hips. And while the protein does kill the microbes, it should still limit the development of antibiotic-resistant "superbacteria."

If someone is already suffering from heart failure, they certainly shouldn't have to deal with a serious infection on top of that. A new type of electrical wire, designed for powering implanted heart pumps, could help keep that from happening.

Researchers have created a thin transparent neural implant that can monitor activity on the brain's surface but also account for functions at a deeper level. The hope is that it will lead to an accurate but less invasive brain-computer interface.

Observing a pen full of salmon at a fish farm will only tell you so much about their well-being. That's why Norwegian scientists have developed an implant that measures and records the vital signs of individual fish, who will serve as "sentinels."

If you've ever tried pulling a mussel off a rock, you'll know that they're good at holding on. The secret to their success is a natural adhesive, which has been replicated in a glue that could help keep orthopedic implants attached to bone tissue.