Are Hemoglobin Blood Substitutes Coming To The End Of The Road?

Blood substitutes have been part of artificial organ research for a number of years.  They came in many forms.  Some of the early blood substitutes were fluorocarbon based.  Many were hemoglobin based as are all of the major contenders today.  I started working on blood substitutes around 1978 at Michael Reese as a Research Assistant [...]

Research: Silk Substrate Bioabsorbable Electronics Forge Ahead

Bioabsorbable electronics engineering research continues to advance with a range of new research results.  A trio of researchers have produced recent results which highlight the possibilities of silk as a substrate.  John Rogers, Fiorenzo Omenetto and David Kaplan have all published in this field. Working independently and cooperatively they are moving this field forward [...]

Multitasking Not Necessarily The Smartest Way To Work

There is a growing body of evidence that indicates heavy multitasking or loading employees with a large number of tasks reduces their efficiency.  It appears that while technology can help to organize work the brain has  a limited capacity to work efficiently on more than one task at a time.   This is at odds with [...]

Technology: Algal Film May Advance Battery Technology

Cladophora algae is a pest unless you want to make a better battery.  Typically gunking up the Baltic Sea this organisms nanostructure has been found to increase charge density significantly for cellulose-polymer batteries.  At 25 and 33 mAh /gm this technology appears to be within striking distance of NiCD and NiMH. Unfortunately it appears [...]

New Approval:REPEL-CV Bioresorbable Adhesion Barrier

Creating an implantable device is a challenging engineering problem which, with time, usually yields to the engineer’s and scientist’s efforts. Getting one of these product on the market under time constraints can lead to trade offs and is always a delicate balance between the improvement of medical care and the profit motive. Finally [...]