Technologies search results
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Customizable scaffolds for faster, higher-quality T cell production
Immunotherapy, or tweaking the body’s own immune system to treat disease, is attracting significant attention in the medical field for its potential to offer long-lasting cures with fewer side effects than chemotherapy or other drugs. One type of immunotherapy involves isolating T cells (a type of white blood cell) from a patient’s body, sometimes modifying... -
Human Organs-on-Chips
Clinical studies take years to complete and testing a single compound can cost more than $2 billion. Meanwhile, innumerable animal lives are lost, and the process often fails to predict human responses because traditional animal models often do not accurately mimic human pathophysiology. For these reasons, there is a broad need for alternative ways to... -
JetValve for heart regeneration
The human heart beats approximately 35 million times every year, pumping blood into the circulation via four different heart valves. In more than four million people each year, heart valves fail for different reasons, including birth defects, age-related deteriorations and infections. At present, clinicians use either artificial prostheses or fixed animal and cadaver-sourced tissue to... -
T cell traps
T cells, a subtype of white blood cells, play key roles in cell-mediated immunity, be it to fight infections and cancer or, when corrupted, to react against the body’s own cells in more than 80 autoimmune diseases, including type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and others. However, isolating disease-related T cells from the body... -
Sports Genomics
Elite athletes possess extraordinary physical abilities enabling them to reach peak performances and recover quickly. The question is, can we extract information from their biology and use it to boost the performance level and speed up recovery of every-day-athletes? Research in different laboratories over the past years has discovered potential connections between the composition of... -
Project Abbie
Over 15 million Americans are at risk of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction triggered by exposure to certain foods, materials, medications, and insect bites. Every three minutes, a food reaction sends someone to the emergency room. In most individuals, anaphylactic shock can be prevented by administering the counteracting drug epinephrine, as soon as an attack... -
Improving Balance and Gait Control
Balance in humans relies on complex feedback from the senses that govern the body’s mechanical stability. Wyss Institute and Boston University researchers have discovered that random vibrations, too gentle to be felt, can improve the sensory feedback system and may restore stability through a mechanism known as “stochastic resonance”. By incorporating vibrating elements in insoles... -
Preventing Infant Apnea
Clinicians and engineers at the Wyss Institute and the University of Massachusetts Medical School have developed a unique and proprietary system that reduces the onset of neonatal apnea in low birth-weight infants in a clinical trial at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The system makes use of the concept of Stochastic Resonance to reset the... -
Microfluidic Hemostasis Monitor
The body’s ability to stop bleeding, also known as hemostasis, is critical for survival. For patients with blood clotting disorders, medical conditions requiring the use of anticoagulation or antiplatelet drugs, or who require treatment with extracorporeal devices that circulate their blood outside of the body, it is essential that care providers can rapidly monitor their... -
Soft Robotic Glove
The majority of patients with partial or total loss of hand motor abilities, including those suffering from debilitating disorders like muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and incomplete spinal cord injury, experience greatly reduced quality of life due to their inability to perform many daily activities. Tasks often taken for granted by the able-bodied become... -
“Flexi-mitts” for tracking neurodevelopment in very low birth weight premature infants
Advances in medical care have improved the survival of very low birth weight premature infants but at the same time have also led to an increased number of surviving infants with reduced cerebral growth and long-term neurodevelopmental motor, cognitive, and social morbidities. These complications are met by a lack of early assessment tools for diagnosing...