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Duane Sharrock

Tissue engineering: Growing new organs, and more - MIT News Office - 0 views

www.mit.edu/...ering-growing-organs-1214.html

tissue engineering growing mit office scaffolding Sangeeta Bhatia regeneration replacement organ skin stem cells

shared by Duane Sharrock on 21 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • This kind of disease modeling could have a great impact in the near term, says MIT professor Sangeeta Bhatia, who is developing liver tissue to study hepatitis C and malaria infection.
  • liver is difficult to grow outside the human body because cells tend to lose their function when they lose contact with neighboring cells. “
  • In a large-scale project recently funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, several MIT faculty members are working on a “human-on-a-chip” system that scientists could use to study up to 10 human tissue types at a time.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Biological and Mechanical Engineering
  • developing regenerative therapies that help promote wound healing.
  • Endothelial cells, normally found lining blood vessels, could help repair damage caused by angioplasty or other surgical interventions; smoke inhalation; and cancer or cardiovascular disease.
  • One of the earliest successes of implantable tissues was the development of artificial skin, which is now commonly used to treat burn victims.
  • Langer is now working on more complex tissues, such as cardiac-tissue scaffolds that include electronic sensors and a synthetic polymer that could restore vocal-cord function in people who have lost their voices through overuse or other types of damage
  • In Bhatia’s lab, where tissue-engineering research is evenly divided between modeling diseases and working toward implantable organs, researchers recently developed 3-D liver tissues that include their own network of blood vessels
  • Duane Sharrock on 21 Dec 12
     
    "MIT News examines research with the potential to reshape medicine and health care through new scientific knowledge, novel treatments and products, better management of medical data, and improvements in health-care delivery. "
  • Duane Sharrock on 21 Dec 12
     
    "MIT News examines research with the potential to reshape medicine and health care through new scientific knowledge, novel treatments and products, better management of medical data, and improvements in health-care delivery. "
Duane Sharrock

Medical devices powered by the ear itself - MIT News Office - 0 views

www.mit.edu/...biological-battery-1107.html

medical devices powered ear mit news battery otolaryngology Focus Center Research Program the National Institute Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Bertarelli Foundation

shared by Duane Sharrock on 09 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Health Sciences and Technology (HST) demonstrate for the first time that this battery could power implantable electronic devices without impairing hearing.
  • The devices could monitor biological activity in the ears of people with hearing or balance impairments, or responses to therapies. Eventually, they might even deliver therapies themselves
  • “In the past, people have thought that the space where the high potential is located is inaccessible for implantable devices, because potentially it’s very dangerous if you encroach on it,” Stankovic says. “We have known for 60 years that this battery exists and that it’s really important for normal hearing, but nobody has attempted to use this battery to power useful electronics.”
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The ear converts a mechanical force — the vibration of the eardrum — into an electrochemical signal that can be processed by the brain; the biological battery is the source of that signal’s current. Located in the part of the ear called the cochlea, the battery chamber is divided by a membrane, some of whose cells are specialized to pump ions. An imbalance of potassium and sodium ions on opposite sides of the membrane, together with the particular arrangement of the pumps, creates an electrical voltage.
  • Low-power chips, however, are precisely the area of expertise of Anantha Chandrakasan’s group at MTL
  • The frequency of the signal was thus itself an indication of the electrochemical properties of the inner ear.
  • in cochlear implants, diagnostics and implantable hearing aids. “The fact that you can generate the power for a low voltage from the cochlea itself raises the possibility of using that as a power source to drive a cochlear implant,” Megerian says. “Imagine if we were able to measure that voltage in various disease states. There would potentially be a diagnostic algorithm for aberrations in that electrical output.”
  • “I’m not ready to say that the present iteration of this technology is ready,” Megerian cautions. But he adds that, “If we could tap into the natural power source of the cochlea, it could potentially be a driver behind the amplification technology of the future.”
  • Duane Sharrock on 09 Nov 12
     
    "For the first time, researchers power an implantable electronic device using an electrical potential - a natural battery - deep in the inner ear."
  • Duane Sharrock on 09 Nov 12
     
    "All of D-Lab's classes assess the needs of people in less-privileged communities around the world, examining innovations in technology, education or communications that might address those needs. The classes then seek ways to spread word of these solutions - and in some cases, to spur the creation of organizations to help disseminate them. Specific projects have focused on improved wheelchairs and prosthetics; water and sanitation systems; and recycling waste to produce useful products, including charcoal fuel made from agricultural waste."
thinkahol *

BBC News - Scientists at MIT replicate brain activity with chip - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...technology-15772240

BBC News - Scientists at MIT replicate brain activity with chip

shared by thinkahol * on 20 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 20 Nov 11
     
    Scientists are getting closer to the dream of creating computer systems that can replicate the brain.
thinkahol *

Dr. Daniel G. Nocera - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

Personalized Energy for 1 (x 6 Billion): A Solution to the Global Challenge Dr. Daniel G. Nocera - YouTube

shared by thinkahol * on 12 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 12 Aug 11
     
    The supply of secure, clean, sustainable energy is arguably the most important scientific and technical challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Rising living standards of a growing world population will cause global energy consumption to double by mid-century and triple by the end of the century. Even in light of unprecedented conservation, the additional energy needed is simply not attainable from long discussed sources these include nuclear, biomass, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric. The global appetite for energy is simply too much. Petroleum-based fuel sources (i.e., coal, oil and gas) could be increased. However, deleterious consequences resulting from external drivers of economy, the environment, and global security dictate that this energy need be met by renewable and sustainable sources. The dramatic increase in global energy need is driven by 3 billion low-energy users in the non-legacy world and by 3 billion people yet to inhabit the planet over the next half century. The capture and storage of solar energy at the individual level personalized solar energy drives inextricably towards the heart of this energy challenge by addressing the triumvirate of secure, carbon neutral and plentiful energy. This talk will place the scale of the global energy issue in perspective and then discuss how personalized energy (especially for the non-legacy world) can provide a path to a solution to the global energy challenge. Daniel G. Nocera is the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director of the Solar Revolutions Project and Director of the Eni Solar Frontiers Center at MIT. His group pioneered studies of the basic mechanisms of energy conversion in biology and chemistry. He has recently accomplished a solar fuels process that captures many of the elements of photosynthesis outside of the leaf. This discovery sets the stage for a storage mechanism for the large scale, distributed, deployment of solar energy. He has b
thinkahol *

New way to store solar energy for use whenever it's needed | KurzweilAI - 0 views

www.kurzweilai.net/gy-for-use-whenever-its-needed

New way to store solar energy for use whenever it's needed | KurzweilAI

shared by thinkahol * on 16 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 16 Jul 11
     
    MIT researchers have developed a new application of carbon nanotubes that shows promise as an innovative approach to storing solar energy for use whenever it's needed. Storing the sun's heat in chemical form - rather than first converting it to electricity or storing the heat itself in a heavily insulated container - has significant advantages: in principle, the chemical material can be stored for long periods of time without losing any of its stored energy. The researchers created carbon nanotubes in combination with a compound called azobenzene. The resulting molecules, produced using nanoscale templates to shape and constrain their physical structure, and the concept that can be applied to many new materials. This material is vastly more efficient at storing energy in a given amount of space - about 10,000 times higher in volumetric energy density, making its energy density comparable to lithium-ion batteries, the researchers said. Ref.: Alexie M. Kolpak, Jeffrey C. Grossman, Azobenzene-Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes As High-Energy Density Solar Thermal Fuels, Nano Letters, 2011; 110705085331088 [DOI: 10.1021/nl201357n]
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