A new "smart materials" process developed by researchers in the Centre for Advanced Materials Joining based in the department of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) promises to remember a range of shapes, not just one. Known as multiple memory material technology, the process promises to revolutionize the manufacture of diverse products, including a range of medical devices such as stents and hearing aids, according to the scientists.

Traditional memory materials remember one shape at one temperature and a second shape at a different temperature. Until now such materials have been limited to changing shape at one temperature only. In contrast, the Waterloo technology can remember multiple memories, each with a different shape. It is hoped that the breakthrough technology will provide engineers with more freedom and creativity by enabling greater functionality to be incorporated into medical devices than is currently possible.

"This ground-breaking technology makes smart materials even smarter," remarks Ibraheem Khan, a research engineer and graduate student working with Norman Zhou, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at Waterloo. "We have developed a technology that embeds several memories in a monolithic smart material. In essence, a single material can be programmed to remember more shapes, making it smarter than previous technologies."

The patent-pending technology, which is available for licensing, allows virtually any memory material to be quickly and easily embedded with additional local memories. The transition-zone area can be as small as a few microns in width with multiple zones, each having a discrete transition temperature. As the processed shape-memory material is subjected to changing temperatures, each treated zone changes shape at its respective transition temperature. The transition zones created side by side allow for a unique and smooth shape change in response to changing temperatures.

Several prototypes have been developed to demonstrate this technology. One mimics a transformer robot. The robot's limbs transform with increasing temperature, whereas in conventional shape-memory technology, this transformation is limited to only one transformation temperature. A video demonstrating the miniature robot can be seen below.

On Thursday, September 9, 11:00 am PST/2:00 pm EST, Medical Product Manufacturing News will host a free Webcast, “Emerging Trends in Cardiovascular Implantable Technologies.” Cardiovascular implantable devices have come a long way since the first pacemaker was implanted in a patient in 1958. Today, with an estimated 81,100,000 American adults suffering from a variety of cardiovascular diseases, cardiac catheterization, pacemakers, and ICDs have become a way of life for many.

What are the key enabling technologies driving cardiovascular implants? What does the future hold for the development of cardiovascular implant electronics, materials, and coatings?

Featuring panelists specializing in power management systems, coating innovations, and material structures for next-generation cardiovascular implants, the event is cosponsored by Biomedical Structures LLC. BMS is a contract medical device manufacturer that uses resorbable and nonresorbable fibers to manufacture braids, knits, and woven and nonwoven structures for medical implant applications.

Geared toward R&D personnel, design and product engineers, corporate management, and anyone else interested in learning about cardiovascular implantable technologies and their role in the future of the medical device industry, the Webcast will feature three speakers:

• Tom Zemites, strategic marketing manager, implantable medical and high-reliability products, Hi-Rel Group, Microsemi, "Next-Generation Power Management Technologies for Cardiovascular Implants"
• Lisa Jennings, tenured professor of medicine, director of vascular biology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, "Emerging Coating Technologies for Cardiovascular Grafts, Pacemakers, and Other Implants"
• Emily Barnes, cardiovascular market specialist, Zeus Inc., "Novel Materials for Present and Future Cardiovascular Implant Applications"

Register now for this free event!

A heat-activated pump helps microneedle-based systems deliver drugs through the skin.

Providing a pain-free alternative to the traditional hypodermic needle, transdermal drug delivery has a fairly successful track record in effectively delivering pharmaceutical agents—perhaps best represented by the nicotine patch that helps smokers kick their addiction. But expansion of the pain-free patch method is hindered by its inability to deliver large-molecule drugs through the skin. A novel pump created by researchers at Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN), however, could help to overcome this obstacle.

As researchers worldwide explore the use of microneedle arrays as the driver of drug-delivery patches, the problem persists as to how to effectively deliver the drugs through the skin. Pumps are required; however, existing pumps on the market are not suited for use on patches, according to Babak Ziaie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering at Purdue. "You need a relatively large force, a few pounds per square inch, to push medications through the microneedles and into the skin," he says. "It's very difficult to find a miniature pump that can provide that much force."

Seeking a solution, the Purdue researchers developed a simple, heat-activated pump that responds to human touch. Because it contains a liquid that boils at body temperature, the simple act of touching the pump with one’s finger induces vaporization of the liquid. This action, in turn, generates enough pressure to push the drugs through the microneedles and out to the desired target. From touch to delivery takes 20 to 30 seconds, the scientists state, and batteries are not required for use.

Stay tuned for my upcoming September editor’s column focused on microneedle-based drug-delivery technologies for more thoughts and information on this topic.
 

Missed connections happen all the time—just consult Craigslist. When it comes to making the wrong tubing connections, however, the results are dire.

Although not a new concern for hospital personnel, mixing up tubing connections is a problem that has persisted in healthcare environments and unnecessarily endangered many patients. Addressing this seemingly fixable problem, a recent article from the New York Times, "U.S. Inaction Lets Look-Alike Tubes Kill Patients," examines the issue of tubing connection mishaps, ultimately drawing it out from talks in the industry trades to the mainstream.

The issue at hand is that of tubing misconnections, which can occur when a nurse or other healthcare worker accidentally confuses tubing that delivers oxygen, food, or IV fluids, for example. The consequences of such an action can be deadly. For example, the article cites a fatal tubing misconnection that occurred when a nurse unintentionally connected IV fluids to oxygen-delivery tubes, resulting in suffocation.

In an editorial I wrote several years ago, I addressed this troublesome issue and how, at the core of it, is the use of standardized luers and connectors for tubing sets. Because these components are standardized, they permit nurses to make mistakes. “This is a deadly design failure in healthcare,” Debora Simmons, a registered nurse at the University of Texas Health Science Center who studies medical errors told the Times. “Everybody has put out alerts about this, but nothing has happened from a regulatory standpoint."

Standards are being developed and suppliers of tubing connectors are taking initiative to offer products that may prevent these mishaps. But ultimately, it's up to OEMs to send safer products to market. What are you going to do about it, and what's the hold up? Let us know in the comments section.

Check out the article from the New York Times and my editorial to get more background on this subject.

Modified Polymer Components Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA), a developer and manufacturer of custom plastic components for medical device OEMs, has announced the completion of its development and manufacturing facilities expansion from 23,000 to 49,600 sq ft. The expansion more than doubles the company's previous operational capacity. The ISO 9001:2008– and ISO 13485:2003–certified company supports inventors, startups, and OEMs by manufacturing custom components and assemblies. Providing in-house design and development capabilities, it performs small- and large-scale manufacturing operations, including micromolding, electrical assembly, and tube bending. It can also fabricate reinforced shafts, introducers, obturators, and wire-reinforced tubing.

The company's engineering team works in collaboration with customers to design and produce pilot projects in preparation for manufacturing. Prototypes are tested for compliance with customer production standards and component specifications.

The company can modify custom and off-the-shelf plastic components with flaring, flanging, joining, tipping, coating, cutting, drilling, skiving, and bending. It is also experienced in thermoplastic geometries and can micromold parts to tolerances as low as ±0.0005. Working with a range of polymer materials, it can tip and flare any thermoplastic, including LDPE, HDPE, PVC, nylon, Pebax, Pellethane, polycarbonate, FEP, PFA, PTFE, PEEK, ULTEM, and composites.

What does this light-up apparel—worn by Kanye West at the 2008 Grammy Awards—have to do with medical devices? A lot, actually. The company behind those flashy lighted jackets could contribute to next-generation medical products through the advancement of flexible displays.

Over the years, flexible displays have captured the interest and imagination of a number of researchers and organizations. Chief among them is The FlexTech Alliance (San Jose, CA), which claims to being the sole organization in North America exclusively dedicated to "fostering the growth, profitability, and success of the electronic display and the flexible, printed electronics supply chain." To further this goal, FlexTech recently announced a partnership with Nyx Illuminated Clothing Co. (Los Angeles) to create a foldable display fabricated from a panel of multiple e-paper screens.

"To enable this unique technology to work, our engineers will develop circuitry to simultaneously drive six separate e-paper screens as one single display," says John Bell, project manager for Nyx. "The screen panels will be able to be folded up into the area of a single panel or unfolded to the full six panel area on demand."

A press release from FlexTech describes the aim of the partnership as follows: "This research will demonstrate the capability to reliably fold and unfold multiple e-paper screens, allowing broadsheet screen sizes to be condensed to a 5 x 10-in. size. The final design for this project is intended to allow much of the display production to be manufactured on a roll-to-roll process with its associated high throughput and low cost. The foldable display will go through rigorous reliability testing for shock, vibration, and dynamic flexing by folding the arrangement up to 10,000 cycles."

Nyx specializes in incorporating flexible display technology into jackets designed for clubbers, entertainers, and sales representatives that wish to draw attention and convey brand messaging. However, the company recognizes the technology's potential in other areas, hence its partnership with FlexTech. The firm is also currently working with NASA, for example, to apply its display technology to the development of wearable health monitors for astronauts, according to its Web site. Potential use for storing large amounts of information or data on a foldable or compact display could be advantageous to many medical applications and is a target application area.

Read more about flexible display technology from MPMN's archive. Are you excited about the long-awaited prospect of flexible electronics and the potential they hold for next-generation medical devices? Or are you too distracted by Nyx's signature snazzy jackets? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

YouTube's got just about everything, from old TV shows and concert footage to funny cat videos and political messages. But now it's offering something more—the YouTube Channel Video Library featuring clips about motors and motion control technologies.

That's right: Electromate (Woodbridge, ON, Canada) has just launched the new channel, which is populated with more than 80 product videos, training webinars, and other offerings from a plethora of motion control manufacturers, including Galil Motion Control (Rocklin, CA), Advanced Motion Controls (Camarillo, CA), Maxon Motors (Fall River, MA), Harmonic Drive (Peabody, MA), Tolomatic (Hamel, MN), Macron Dynamics (Croydon, PA), Nippon Pulse (Radford, VA), Intelligent Actuator (Torrance, CA), Haydon Kerk Motion Solutions (Waterbury, CT), and Zaber Technologies (Vancouver, BC, Canada).

So tune in today to Electromate's YouTube Channel Video Library.

Hollow microneedles, used to deliver quantum dots, could foster new techniques for diagnosing and treating a variety of medical conditions, including skin cancer. (Image courtesy of the Royal Society of Chemistry)

Researchers from North Carolina State University (Raleigh) have developed extremely small microneedles that can be used to deliver medically relevant nanoscale dyes to the skin. Known as quantum dots, these dyes are composed of nanoscale crystals featuring unique light-emission properties. This advance, according to the scientists, could open the door to new techniques for diagnosing and treating a variety of medical conditions, including skin cancer. A paper describing the study, “Multiphoton Microscopy of Transdermal Quantum Dot Delivery Using Two Photon Polymerization-Fabricated Polymer Microneedles,” will be published in Faraday Discussions.

Microneedles are very small needles in which at least one dimension, such as length, is less than one millimeter. In these tests, the microneedles were created using two-photon polymerization, an approach pioneered by NC State and Laser Zentrum Hannover (Germany) for use in medical device applications. Two-photon polymerization allowed the NC researchers to create hollow, plastic microneedles with specific design characteristics. “Our use of this fabrication technology highlights its potential for other small-scale medical device applications,” explains Roger Narayan, a lead reseracher on this project and a professor in the joint biomedical engineering department of NC State’s College of Engineering and the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill).

After creating the plastic microneedles, the researchers tested them using pig skin, which has characteristics closely resembling those of human skin. Using a water-based solution containing quantum dots, the researchers were able to capture images of the quantum dots entering the skin using multiphoton microscopy. These images show the mechanism by which the quantum dots enter the layers of skin, allowing the researchers to verify the effectiveness of the microneedles as a delivery mechanism for these nanoscale dyes.

“We were able to fabricate hollow, plastic microneedles using a laser-based rapid prototyping approach and found that we could deliver a solution containing quantum dots using these microneedles,” Narayan says. “The motivation for the study was to see whether we could use microneedles to deliver quantum dots into the skin. Our findings are significant, in part, because this technology will potentially enable researchers to deliver quantum dots, suspended in solution, to deeper layers of skin. That could be useful for the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancers, among other conditions.”

The study is also significant because it shows that a laser-based rapid prototyping approach allows for the creation of microneedles of varying lengths and shapes. This will allow medical device manufacturers to create microneedles that are customized for treatment of specific...