MMT 2009 Volume: 13 Issue: 7 (October)
Army Simulators
Sarasota, Fla.-based METI received a $1.8 million contract from the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation to provide a total of 41 new simulators to 13 medical simulation training centers by the end of the year. METI’s Emergency Care Simulators, as the products are called, include airway, pulmonary and cardiovascular systems.
Chuck Rineer:
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TBI Detector
Fayetteville, Ark.-based SFC Fluidics received a $5 million contract from the Congressionally Directed Research Program to develop a handheld device that can quickly diagnose traumatic brain injury. The device would use a pinprick sample of blood to conduct an analysis within a single sealed, disposable chip of what the company said in a press release are specific “biomarkers released by the brain when injured,” with a screen readout characterizing the degree of injury: none, mild, moderate or severe.
Trials for approval by the FDA of the planned device, which could be operated by first responders without any specific training, are planned in mid-2013.
Wound Dressings
St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Smith and Nephew said its Acticoat Flex 3 and Flex 7 products, which help protect against infection of wounds in awkward places such as faces and hands, have been approved by the FDA for use in the United States. The products use “nanocrystalline silver” technology to conform to and comfortably stretch over wounds. Dr. Sarvesh Logsetty, an associate professor of plastic and general surgery at the University of Manitoba, said in a press release that use of the Flex dressings cause minimal trauma to wounds when removed and also allow exudate to pass through.
Judye Reed:
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Catheter Disinfection
Neptune, N.J.-based Excelsior Medical, a manufacturer of pre-filled catheter flush syringes and syringe pump systems, introduced a new luer access valve disinfection cap called the SwabCap, which the company said passively disinfects the valve top and threads while providing a physical barrier to contamination for up to 96 hours.
The cap bathes valve threads and tops with 70 percent isopropyl alcohol, which is contained within a foam cap inside and released as the cap is twisted onto the threads.
Tony Saia:
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Physiological Design
Johnstown, Pa.-based KDH Defense Systems is directing a U.S. Air Force project to test a new technology that maps out weight and placement of body armor. Using technology called Tactilus, which was developed by Madison, N.J.-based Sensor Products, the project aims to help designers and engineers create new body armor vests and carriage systems that place less strain on soldiers’ necks, shoulders and backs.
“The Tactilus pressure mapping system … shows us any pressure points that develop, not just when soldiers stand in place but also when they perform ballistic motions, such as jumping, running quickly, turning, crouching or crawling on their bellies,” said one of the project leaders, Dr. Evan Goldman, a professor of gross anatomy and physiology at Philadelphia University. “By viewing images and statistics from sensors located beneath their vests, we can see how these pressure points move with the body in real time as they perform their maneuvers.”
Will Wennberg:
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Vaccine Development
The Space Shuttle Discovery STS-128 was expected to carry a scientific payload from Austin, Texas-based Astrogenetix that employs microgravity to study Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella microbes, which cause hundreds of thousands of infections annually worldwide. Astrogenetix said that its vaccine processing platform uses microgravity to elicit “unique interactions in biological systems that do not occur in terrestrial laboratories.” Samples created during the flight will be included in the company’s database of “biomarker research,” with the ultimate aim of creating new drug candidates.
Wireless Device Testing
The United Kingdom’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) recently used a “sensor lab” at Queen Mary University of London to test a wireless communications system that collects data on medical devices such as pacemakers and sends it to doctors via Internet or phone. The types of antennas built into medical devices to transmit data are designed to emit limited radiation toward wearers, but have the side effect of creating interferences in coaxial cables that would otherwise be used to test data transmitted wirelessly.
But by connecting the antennas to an optical fiber instead of a coaxial cable using Queen Mary’s Body-Centric Wireless Sensor Lab, measurement errors were decreased by as much as 18 decibels, researchers said.
Martin Alexander, NPL’s principal research scientist, said the lab testing was aided through a partnership with optical communications company Seikoh-giken. “Together we developed a very small RF-optical converter that reproduces the RF signal in full and has a minimal effect on the antenna performance,” Alexander said. “A miniature RF-optical transducer enables an optical fiber connection to the antenna, thereby eliminating the large distortion associated with the unwanted radiation from a coaxial cable.” ♦