Microtest Laboratories (Agawam, MA) has increased staffing in an effort to expand its contamination and cleanroom testing services. By assisting manufacturers to identify, assess, and resolve a range of cleanroom and environmental contamination problems, the company assists manufacturers in controlling their environments to ensure regulatory compliance. The company has also purchased an additional MicroSeq microbial identification system in order to double its microbial identification and...

Drug developers are increasingly choosing transdermal delivery for their pain-management drugs because the method has the potential to improve drug compliance among patients, according to a medical market forecast from Applied Data Research (Nashua, NH). The report focuses on factors that are transforming transdermal therapeutics from a niche market into a mainstream healthcare technology. In addition to improving drug therapy compliance, the report suggests that emerging transdermal drug...

Plastic materials information management company IDES Inc. (Laramie, WY) has launched an updated version of its Prospector plastics search engine.  The search engine is designed to provide engineers with a comprehensive plastics resource with which they can efficiently research materials, analyze resins for specific design applications, and buy from reputable plastics suppliers. Although Prospector has always provided material data sheets, the updated version provides more information about...

The Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA; Washington, DC) has announced the agenda for its annual meeting, which will take place June 1–3 in Washington, DC. The event is open to nonmembers of the industry's national trade association and gives industry executives and entrepreneurs an opportunity to network with each other and engage policymakers on Capitol Hill. Focusing on understanding new government standards and industry trends, the event will feature general sessions on...

Cosmetics companies rake in big bucks from their products aimed at reducing fine lines. But fine lines aren't all bad. In fact, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge, MA) are even celebrating their fine lines. With the aid of a novel material that can change from transparent to opaque and vice versa when exposed to specific wavelengths of light, MIT scientists were able to etch extremely fine lines on a microchip. In addition to potentially enhancing microchip...

Biocoat (Horsham, PA), a company that lays claim to offering Hydak, the only hydrophilic medical device coating based on the naturally occurring substance hyaluronic acid, has announced a comarketing agreement with Agion Technologies Inc. (Wakefield, MA), a provider of silver-based antimicrobial solutions. Through the partnership, the two companies will collaborate to develop and promote hyaluronan-based hydrophilic coatings that feature silver-based antimicrobial properties for use on such...

Scientists from the Nano Research Group at the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science (Highfield, Southampton, UK) are developing a biomedical sensor based on silicon nanowires that they hope will eventually be used in portable blood-testing kits. Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's Nano Grand Challenge in Healthcare (Swindon, Wiltshire, UK), the team is using a form of nanotechnology similar to that used in computer and television...

A radio chip from Zarlink Semiconductor is designed for ultra-low-power consumption. Zarlink Semiconductor (Ottawa, Canada) has been keeping pretty busy lately, it seems. The company's UK branch contributed to a research breakthrough recently through its participation in the Self-Energizing Implantable Medical Microsystem (SIMM) project, which designed and clinically tested an in-body microgenerator capable of harvesting energy from a human heartbeat to power cardiac...

A recent study conducted by the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center revealed that close to two-thirds of children undergoing routine interventional cardiology procedures may have received care from use of an off-label device. Between 2005 and 2008, physicians employed an approved device for off-label use in 63% of patients, according to Robert Beekman, a pediatric cardiologist at the center who was involved in the study. The study also found that 99% of pediatric stent implantations...