Browse Topic: Prostheses and implants
Bioelectronics, such as implantable health monitors or devices that stimulate brain cells, are not as soft as the surrounding tissues due to their metal electronic circuits. A team of scientists has developed a soft polymer hydrogel that can conduct electricity as well as metal can. As the material is both flexible and soft, it is more compatible with sensitive tissues. This finding has the potential for a large number of applications, for example, in biocompatible sensors and in wound healing.
Cornell researchers and collaborators have developed a neural implant so small that it can rest on a grain of salt, yet it can wirelessly transmit brain activity data in a living animal for more than a year.
RMIT University Melbourne, Australia
Bruno Boutantin, Extrude Hone
Rice University Houston, TX
Soft robots, medical devices and implants, and next-generation drug delivery methods could soon be guided with magnetism — thanks to a metal-free magnetic gel developed by researchers at the University of Michigan and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany.
In today’s medtech landscape, innovation isn’t just about what a device does — it’s about how reliably and cost-effectively it gets to market. As devices grow smaller, smarter, and more user-centered, materials like liquid silicone rubber (LSR) play a bigger role in enabling performance, comfort, and compliance. From implantables to connected wearables, LSR is helping engineers meet growing design and usability demands. As demand for the material grows, so do the pressures on supply chains, including launch timelines, increased regulatory scrutiny, and rising technical complexity.
A research team at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences has developed a 3D-printed implant to deliver electrical stimulation to injured areas of the spinal cord offering a potential new route to repair nerve damage. Details of the 3D-printed implant and how it performs in lab experiments have been published in the journal Advanced Science.
A research team led by Prof. Jinho Chang from the department of electrical engineering and computer science at DGIST has developed an ultrasound-based wireless charging technology capable of rapidly and efficiently charging the batteries of implantable medical devices. The technology has achieved world-class energy efficiency, fully charging a commercial battery within two hours, even inside the human body.
University of Liège Liège, Belgium
Researchers have developed a soft, thin-film auditory brainstem implant (ABI). The device uses micrometer-scale platinum electrodes embedded in silicone, forming a pliable array just a fraction of a millimeter thick. This novel approach enables better tissue contact, potentially preventing off-target nerve activation and reducing side effects.
Researchers have created a groundbreaking prototype for a new kind of leadless pacemaker designed for both children and adults. The innovative micropacemaker would be the first fully leadless system to be placed in the pericardial space surrounding the heart. That would allow the device to be implanted in a minimally invasive way in children and those with congenital heart disease, while also providing a lower-risk leadless pacemaker option for adults.
When it comes to technology adoption, the healthcare industry is historically risk averse. Despite strict regulations protecting patient data and concerns over medical outcomes, a new report from Mordor Intelligence reports that the global market for wireless portable medical devices is expected to exceed $31.4 billion this year. 1 The same report projects 12.14 percent compound annual growth through 2030 to meet the demands of a burgeoning geriatric population for wearable and implantable devices and in-home vital signs monitoring.
EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland
Biomedical metal implant materials are widely used in clinical applications, including dental implants, hip replacement, bone plates, and screws. However, traditional manufacturing processes face limitations in meeting customized medical needs, internal structural control, and efficient material utilization. For example, when producing complex-shaped titanium alloy parts using conventional methods, the material consumption ratio is as high as 10:1–20:1, leading to significant material waste.
The promise of additive manufacturing (AM) in the medical device industry has always been clear, the ability to create intricate geometries, patient-specific implants, and previously impossible structures. The reality, however, is far less inspiring. Often, manufacturers believe they are designing for AM, but in truth, most have only scratched the surface of what is possible. They are working within the confines of traditional design principles and are often defaulting to software-driven solutions, believing these tools will carry them across the finish line.
An invention that uses microchip technology in implantable devices and other wearable products such as smart watches can be used to improve biomedical devices including those used to monitor people with glaucoma and heart disease.
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Every year, more than 5 million people in the United States are diagnosed with heart valve disease, but this condition has no effective long-term treatment. When a person’s heart valve is severely damaged by a birth defect, lifestyle, or aging, blood flow is disrupted. If left untreated, there can be fatal complications.
You can probably complete an amazing number of tasks with your hands without looking at them. But if you put on gloves that muffle your sense of touch, many of those simple tasks become frustrating. Take away proprioception — your ability to sense your body’s relative position and movement — and you might even end up breaking an object or injuring yourself.
Research engineers are developing smart implants that can both monitor and promote healing in fractured bones. When installed at the fracture site, these implants, which are constructed using shape memory alloys, can stiffen or relax in a continuously controlled manner that optimizes bone healing.
Engineers have developed a pioneering prosthetic hand that can grip plush toys, water bottles, and other everyday objects like a human, carefully conforming and adjusting its grasp to avoid damaging or mishandling whatever it holds.
A team of engineers is on a mission to redefine mobility by providing innovative wearable solutions to physical therapists, orthotic and prosthetic professionals, and individuals experiencing walking impairment and disability. Co-founded by Ray Browning and Zach Lerner, Portland-based startup Biomotum, aims “to empower mobility by energizing every step” through their wearable robotics technology.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and New York’s Columbia University have embedded transistors in a soft, conformable material to create a biocompatible sensor implant that monitors neurological functions through successive phases of a patient’s development.
Researchers are developing soft sensor materials based on ceramics. Such sensors can feel temperature, strain, pressure, or humidity, for instance, which makes them interesting for use in medicine, but also in the field of soft robotics.
The use of platinum-iridium (PtIr) alloys for pins and electrodes in medical devices is growing substantially in applications such as cardio and neuromodulation devices. In this article, pens are defined as those used in feedthroughs for ceramic implants, generally straight wire with specific cutoff features on the ends, and electrodes are defined as those providing direct electrostimulation to tissues, which are essentially wires that have additional features machined into them. The benefits and features discussed herein, using additive manufacturing (AM), also apply to other types of PtIr components, where the end pieces can be fabricated from different preforms besides wires. The ongoing miniaturization of implantable and insertable devices is magnifying the need for controlling the bulk metal material consistency. Cost is always an important issue as well.
In the holiday movie The Grinch, makeup artists are reported to have spent several hours each day encasing Jim Carrey’s face with prosthetics to create the iconic grumpy, green-furred creature. Such elaborate prosthetics, often made possible by materials like silicone rubbers, may have now found an unexpected yet beneficial biomedical engineering application, according to a new study from Texas A&M University.
Two years ago, a medical professional approached scientists at the University of Tabriz in Iran with an interesting problem: Patients were having headaches after pacemaker implants. Working together to investigate, they began to wonder if the underlying issue is the materials used in the pacemakers.
A team led by Emily Davidson has reported that they used a class of widely available polymers called thermoplastic elastomers to create soft 3D printed structures with tunable stiffness. Engineers can design the print path used by the 3D printer to program the plastic’s physical properties so that a device can stretch and flex repeatedly in one direction while remaining rigid in another. Davidson, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, says this approach to engineering soft architected materials could have many uses, such as soft robots, medical devices and prosthetics, strong lightweight helmets, and custom high-performance shoe soles.
Duke University Durham, NC
Whether for vascular catheters or implantable devices, medical tubing must meet tough standards for flexibility, strength, and biocompatibility. That’s why more manufacturers are turning to thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs) that strike the ideal balance between these key properties, making them an excellent choice for high-performance medical tubing. Unlocking the best that TPUs have to offer means optimizing the extrusion process. This article looks at why TPUs are a top pick, the common obstacles in extrusion, and the ways manufacturers can fine-tune their process to get the most out of different grades.
Researchers have shown that twisted carbon nanotubes can store three times more energy per unit mass than advanced lithium-ion batteries. The finding may advance carbon nanotubes as a promising solution for storing energy in devices that need to be lightweight, compact, and safe, such as medical implants and sensors.
Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) have emerged as a promising solution for restoring communication and control to individuals with severe motor impairments. Traditionally, these systems have been bulky, power-intensive, and limited in their practical applications. Researchers at EPFL have developed the first high-performance, miniaturized brain-machine interface (MiBMI), offering an extremely small, low-power, highly accurate, and versatile solution.
Researchers have now developed the first hydrogel implant designed for use in fallopian tubes. This innovation performs two functions: one is to act as a contraceptive, the other is to prevent the recipient from developing endometriosis in the first place or to halt the spread if they do.
Small wearable or implantable electronics could help monitor our health, diagnose diseases, and provide opportunities for improved, autonomous treatments. But to do this without aggravating or damaging the cells around them, these electronics will need to not only bend and stretch with our tissues as they move, but also be soft enough that they will not scratch and damage tissues.
A research team at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences has developed a new implant that conveys electrical signals and may have the potential to encourage nerve cell (neuron) repair after spinal cord injury.
Borophene is more conductive, thinner, lighter, stronger, and more flexible than graphene, the 2D version of carbon. Now, researchers have made the material potentially more useful by imparting chirality — or handedness — on it, which could make for advanced sensors and implantable medical devices. The chirality, induced via a method never before used on borophene, enables the material to interact in unique ways with different biological units such as cells and protein precursors.
For engineers working on soft robotics or wearable devices, keeping things light is a constant challenge: heavier materials require more energy to move around, and — in the case of wearables or prostheses — cause discomfort. Elastomers are synthetic polymers that can be manufactured with a range of mechanical properties, from stiff to stretchy, making them a popular material for such applications. But manufacturing elastomers that can be shaped into complex 3D structures that go from rigid to rubbery has been unfeasible until now.
Implants that steadily release the right dose of a drug directly to the target part of the body have been a major advance in drug delivery. However, they still face some key challenges, such as ensuring that the drug is released at a constant rate from the moment it is implanted and ensuring that the implant is soft and flexible enough to avoid tissue damage but tough enough not to rupture. One particular challenge is to avoid triggering the foreign body response, which is when the patient’s body encloses the implant in a tight capsule of tough connective tissue which can slow the drug’s release or prevent it from diffusing out.
A new device platform allows for smaller wireless light sources to be placed within the human body. Research indicates that such light sources will enable novel, minimally invasive means of treating and better understanding diseases which currently require the implantation of bulky devices.
Chalmers University of Technology Gothenburg, Sweden
Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology Daegu, Republic of Korea
As medical devices in today’s modern medicine continue to advance, they require power supplies that allow them to perform an ever-widening roles. These lightweight, wearable — and even implantable — medical devices comprise everything from activity/exercise watches, hearing aids, and medical call buttons to pacemakers, insulin pump monitors, and neuro- or gastric stimulators, as well as implantable cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators (ICDs). The rechargeable batteries used in these devices must provide for such vital functions as monitoring, signal processing, collecting and transmitting data, and providing specialized electronic pulses when needed to stimulate cardiac output and other physiological activity.
Recent advances in technology have opened many possibilities for using wearable and implantable sensors to monitor various indicators of patient health. Wearable pressure sensors are designed to respond to very small changes in bodily pressure, so that physical functions such as pulse rate, blood pressure, breathing rates, and even subtle changes in vocal cord vibrations can be monitored in real time with a high degree of sensitivity.
Robotics, prostheses that react to touch, and health monitoring are three fields in which scientists are working to develop electronic skin. Researchers have developed a sensor that, similar to human skin, can sense temperature variation that originates from the touch of a warm object as well as the heat from solar radiation. The sensor combines pyroelectric and thermoelectric effects with a nano-optical phenomenon.
In the intricate world of orthopedic device manufacturing, precision quality isn’t just a requirement, it’s the cornerstone of life-changing patient outcomes. SpiTrex Orthopedics, a global leader in medical device contract manufacturing, specializes in implants for the spine, trauma, and extremity markets (Spi.Tr.Ex.), including spinal rods, cross connectors, hooks, and a variety of stateof-the-art screws, nails, and plates. The company has a multi-site smart factory manufacturing footprint across North America and Europe.
Washington State University Pullman, WA
A neural implant provides information about activity deep inside the brain while sitting on its surface. The implant is made up of a thin, transparent, and flexible polymer strip that is packed with a dense array of graphene electrodes. The technology, tested in transgenic mice, brings the researchers a step closer to building a minimally invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) that provides high-resolution data about deep neural activity by using recordings from the brain surface.
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