The Future Is Here Today...Robots, Genetics, AI, Longevity, Singularity

MIT and Harvard Monitoring Cancer Tumors With an Implant

4 Comments

by Aaron Saenz on August 21st, 2009

Worried about the government spying on you through implants? Well, I don’t know if your dental fillings are secret radios, but MIT and Harvard are definitely trying to keep tabs on your cancer. Their joint Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) has developed and tested a small cylindrical implant that monitors the growth of tumors. Dr. Michael J. Cima and his team believe the implant can help doctors monitor hormones, chemotherapy agents, acidity, and oxygen levels that are key indicators of cancerous growths. No longer will surgeons have to wonder if their excisions are successful.

This tiny implant is able to monitor important chemicals near a tumor.

This tiny implant is able to monitor important chemicals near a tumor.

The little implant works in a really cool way. Only five millimeters long, the cylinder contains magnetic nanoparticles coated with antibodies. These antibodies will bond to whichever chemical the implant is designed to monitor. A semi-permeable membrane keeps the nanoparticles in the implant while still allowing ambient particles in and out. When the antibodies bond to a chemical they form clumps. These clumps are then read using an MRI.

Read More

Catherine Mohr Promises More Robotic Surgery

7 Comments

by Aaron Saenz on July 27th, 2009

No matter how much it begs, never give your robot a knife – it will want to play surgeon. Engineer, medical doctor, and inventor Catherine Mohr is pushing the boundaries of medicine by pioneering new robotically assisted surgery methods and devices. Using a simulator interface and remote controlled instruments, Mohr’s operating room of the future will be more video game than butcher’s slab. By focusing on fewer incisions, more flexibility, and more versatility the robotic surgeons of the future will allow you to heal faster and better. The good doctor described her vision at this year’s TED talks a few months ago. Stay tuned after the break for the video.

Catherine Mohr is on the cutting edge of robotic surgery. Photo by Liz Hafalia

Catherine Mohr is on the cutting edge of robotic surgery. Photo by Liz Hafalia

The wonderful thing about robotic surgery is that it is already here. Thousands of robotically assisted surgeries are performed every year in the U.S. The da Vinci robot, which has been around since 1999, and which Singularity Hub has discussed before, has become the most popular method for conducting prostatectomies. Surgeons are able to use 3D imaging, and intuitive controls to manipulate da Vinci’s pincers and clamps in a way that is more precise than typical manual surgeries. More importantly, they can do these procedures through just a few incisions rather than opening up the entire chest cavity. The combination of precision and minimal invasion allows these robots to sew a blood vessel onto a beating heart.

Read More

The Miracle of Heart Transplants

2 Comments

by Andrew Kessel on June 17th, 2009

Take a moment and think about your heart.  None of that lovey-dovey crap, this muscle is all business, beating over 2.5 billion times in the average person’s life.  It pumps blood an average of 12,000 miles per day, every day, for your entire life.  And when it decides to stop, bad news ensues.  That’s where the heart transplant comes into play.  When all else fails and the heart cannot be saved, doctors don’t give up hope or just say sorry, they replace that bugger with a new one.  The truly miraculous procedure of heart transplantation goes into the center of the body and replaces what was traditionally considered to be the most important organ.

An Average Day

An average day for heart transplant specialists

Modern day heart transplants are normally conducted by donations from recently deceased or brain-dead donors.  The heart is taken out of the donor and given a potassium chloride injection to stop the heart from beating.  It is capable of surviving outside of the body for about 4-6 hours.  In this last year in the United States, there were about 2300 successful heart transplants (3500 worldwide) while 800 U.S. patients died while waiting for a suitable donor.  More than half of U.S. heart transplant patients are between 50 and 70 years old.

The road to successful heart transplants was a bit of a rocky one.  The first heart transplant was conducted in 1964 when a monkey heart was placed in the chest of a dying man.  This, of course, raised a great number of ethical considerations.  Unfortunately, the man’s life was only prolonged for about 90 minutes, but the procedure set the stage for future operations between humans.  The first intra-human operation was performed in 1967 with a heart from a brain-dead donor.  The patient lived only 18 days before succumbing to pneumonia.

Read More

Machine Pumps Dead Hearts for Surgery Practice (Video)

2 Comments

by Drew Halley on May 21st, 2009

Got an experiment in mind? Looking for a lab rat?  Unless you’re trying out a new grilled cheese recipe, humans won’t be your first trial subjects.  Dangerous experiments usually call for live animal testing before human subjects get involved. But why use live organs if you can just reanimate dead ones? Introducing Piglet, the organ donor.

pig-heart

Credit: Andy Richards, NC State U

Normally, testing out cardiac surgery ideas goes something like this: Let’s say Dr. Robotnik thought up a new technique for repairing heart valves. Before it hits the OR, the technique gets tried out on live pigs.  Swine hearts are pretty similar to human hearts, making them the ideal (ahem) guinea pigs. But getting permission for live animal testing is time-consuming and expensive, costing around $2,500 a pop. Perfecting a technique might take a number of trials, which means a number of pigs, more time & money, then PETA gets involved… you get the idea. A real headache. So what’s a surgical innovator to do?

Fake it! A new machine at North Carolina State University takes a dead heart from your local butcher and makes it pump just like the real thing. This way, doctors can test out new tools and techniques for heart surgery without the time and money required for live trials. The machine pumps pressurized saline through the cardiac tissue, making it move in a sort of pig-heart version of Weekend at Bernie’s.  All this is controlled by a computer, and even has live cameras to film the action from inside. Plus, the new technique is recession-proof at a cool $25 bucks per trial. Check out this video of the system in action:

Read More

Robotic Surgery Taking the Industry by Storm

2 Comments

by Keith Kleiner on August 7th, 2008

Intuitive Surgical introduced its Da Vinci robotic surgical system to the world in 1999, converting surgeons into “super surgeons” by giving them eyes with 3D HD vision and digital zoom and giving them hands with ultra precision, motion scaling, and tremor reduction.  Take a look at this beauty:

Early adopters have been promoting the virtues of the Da Vinci for nearly a decade now, but only in the last year or so has the Da Vinci gained the critical mass to leap from fledgling technology to revolutionary game changer. The Da Vinci robot is being massively adopted by hospitals across the nation as its virtues to the patient including faster recovery, less blood loss, less risk of infection, and less pain have become overwhelming. Below is a promotional video from Intuitive Surgical that explains this amazing game changing innovation in the field of human health and medicine:

da Vinci Surgical System

ORlive – online repository of webcasts and videos of live surgeries

No Comments

by Keith Kleiner on July 17th, 2008

I just stumbled upon an incredible site called OR-live.com where you can witness live video of the latest surgical procedures. This is an excellent resource for researching and understanding how the medical field is saving lives and helping people to live longer and healthier. A few of my favorites below (warning: these videos may be hard for some people to watch):

Robotic Hysterectomy for Endometrial Cancer

Cochlear Implant Restores Partial Hearing to Completely Deaf Patient

Video of Real Heart Transplant Procedure

picture of heart transplant in action!