Sometimes it's the simplest of medical inventions that save millions of lives. Meet inventors Jane Chen and
Rajan Patel, and their innovative infant warmer.
Every year 20 million babies are born premature. They struggle to survive because they can't regulate their body temperature and they don't have enough fat on their tiny bodies to keep warm.
Approximately 14% of babies born are considered low birth weight, but these babies account for 60-80% of neonatal deaths.
The solution is to keep premature babies warm but an incubator
costs $20,000 and requires electricity which is difficult to find in developing countries particularly in rural areas.
Parents resort to drastic solutions to keep their babies
warm. They attach hot water bottles to them or place them under lightbulbs, which is not only ineffective but unsafe. As a result, 4 million premature babies die each year. Two-thirds of
deaths occur in ten countries and 40% of the those occur in India.
Those that survive endure severe long term health problems (diabetes, heart disease, mental dysfunction) because they're battling hypotherma instead of growing.
To solve this problem Jane and Rajan, graduates of Stanford University, created
an ingeniously simple, portable, reusable infant incubator that requires no electricity and costs less than thirty dollars.
It is safe and intuitive to use. It has no moving parts and can be easily sterilized. It looks like a tiny sleeping bag but it's design is very clever.
It has a pouch that contains a "phase-change wax material" that radiates heat throughout the insulation at a temperature of 37 degrees Celius (98 F) - the temperature critical for the child's survival.
The pouch is removed from the insulated blanket and activated by placing it in hot water for 15 minutes. It's then placed into the blanket.
The phase-change material maintains a constant temperature for 4 hours by absorbing heat if the baby gets too hot, and giving heat if the baby gets too cold.
Sources: embraceglobal.org; ted.com/talks/jane_chen_a_warm_embrace_that_saves_lives.html
Contact Lenses Medicate Eyes
A new medical invention has been created by scientists at Harvard Medical School.
The new invention is a contact lens that can dispense a regular dose of antibiotics to your eye for more than a month.
A biodegradable polymer film is mixed with a medication (antibiotic) and coated with hydrogel, which is the same material used to make contact lenses.
The film slowly releases the medication into the eye at a rate of 134 micrograms each day for 30 days.
Eye drops are used to dispense most
eye medications but they are inefficient. Only about 1 to 7 percent of eye drop medications are absorbed into the eye
because most of it drips out.
Patients find eye drops cumbersome and often forget to take them, which is why scientists believe this new medical invention will dispense eye medication more easily and effectively.
Source: iovs.orgembraceglobal.org; cnn.com/technology
Contact Lenses Measure Glucose
Jin Shang, a professor of biochemical engineering at the University of Western Ontario, has invented a contact lens that changes color when sugar levels change in the blood.
Those suffering from diabetes need
to draw blood to check sugar levels.
Nanoparticles implanted
in contact lenses interact with glucose molecules in tears. This interaction changes the color of the lens to indicate varying sugar levels.
This new medical invention could eliminate the need to draw blood to monitor glucose.
Dr Zhang's research received funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to develop more nanocomposite applications for biomedicine.
Source: eng.uwo.ca/people/jzhang
Sugar Glass Preserves Vaccines
Scientists at Nova Bio-Pharma Technologies and the University of Oxford have
invented a rectangular cartridge that can store vaccines without refrigeration.
Vaccines must be refrigerated between 4 °C to 8 °C to stay effective. This increased cost is between 14 to 20 percent (an average of $200 million for most countries). In developing countries, where refrigeration and electricity are often scarce, vaccination is
non-existent.
This new medical invention seals live vaccine viruses inside sugar. The trapped vaccines can be stored at temperatures of 45 C without any degradation for months.
The process mixes the live viruses with sucrose and trehalose. The solution is then dried on a plastic film that hardens into a sugar-glass cartridge.
The vaccine is immobilized and kept in suspended animation inside the sugar-glass. When needed the cartridge is simply screwed into a standard vaccine syringe for injection.
Sources: novalabs.co.uk;technologyreview.com
Negative Pressure Medical Device
MIT graduate student, Daielle Zurovcik, invented an inexpensive, portable wound-healing device.
After surgery a patient requires care for an amputated limb or the open wounds of a fractured bone. Vacuum pumps speed healing by removing bacteria and fluids that accumulates on, and around the injury.
The cheapest model on the market goes for about $100 a day rental, and weighs about five to 10 pounds, which creates a barrier for utilizing these devices in medical relief efforts sent to disaster zones.
"My experience in Haiti and other major earthquakes is that after the acute medical response, such as amputating limbs and setting fractures, the major disease burden is wounds," says trauma surgeon Robert Riviello.
The pump Zurovcik invented costs about $3 and weighs less than half a pound. Once a wound dressing is sealed to prevent air leaks, her hand pump can be used to create the required vacuum without any external power source.
Traditional pumps require 14 watts of electricity; Zurovcik’s pump needs only 80 microwatts to function..
Source: technologyreview.com Photo: Daniell Zurovcik Posted by: Angelo Carmanico
