Recent Patents on Biomedical Engineering (Discontinued) - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2011

There is a growing need for hygienic textiles for clothing, wound healing, and medical applications in hospitals and other places where bacteria present a hazard. The reason for this is because some bacterial strains have demonstrated an increasing resistance toward antibiotics. We describe here a patent for preparing antimicrobial fabrics, coated with metal oxide nanoparticles by means of a novel sonochemical method. The Read More

Electronic pacemaker, since its invention over five decades ago, has saved numerous lives and improved the life quality of patients suffering from cardiac arrhythmias. However, it has its own limitations. Over the past decade, rapid progress in the molecular studies of cardiac ion channels and stem cell biology has led to efforts for creating a biological pacemaker to supplement the widely used electronic pacemaker. This patent Read More

Dominating part of the middle ear is the ossicular chain, a pin-jointed assembly of three bones (malleus, incus and stapes). If destroyed by disease or deteriorated by aging, it is fully or partially replaced by an alloplastic implant. A major issue for these devices is the possibility to adapt the implant in length during operation to cope anatomical variations. Several ideas to implement this feature are claimed in patents. Further Read More

Bioprinting is the precise automated robotic layer-by-layer additive fabrication of biomaterials. The future of bioprinting technology depends on a number of essential elements, such as the development of innovative bioprinting apparatus and bioprinting methods. The application of innovative bioprinting technologies will have a tremendous impact on the advancement of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In this re Read More

Implantable medical devices, wearable medical devices and body sensor networks are rapidly developing research areas of recent years. These devices need self-powered uninterruptible power supplies to accomplish their functions properly. One of the most efficient energy harvesting methods for medical applications is thermoelectric generators. Thermoelectric generators use temperature difference between two poi Read More

The requirement for bone tissue grafting exists in a wide range of clinical conditions involving surgical reconstruction, following trauma or other pathological conditions, particularly in the limbs, spine and skull. The amount of bone tissue required for grafting and the destination of the graft material affect the origin of the grafting material. There are serious disadvantages in the use of various grafting sources, such as autogr Read More

Ultrasound is an inexpensive and widely used imaging modality for the diagnosis and staging of many diseases. In the past several decades, it has benefited from major advances in technology and has become an indispensable imaging modality, due to its flexibility and non-invasive character. In the last decade, research investigators and commercial companies have further advanced ultrasound imaging with the development Read More

Intoduction: The aim of the study was to investigate whether chaotic phenomena (chaos theory) affects the process of Gene Expression. Methods: Modeling the genes X, Y and Z-which encode a certain protein P-a set of three first order differential equations has been developed and studied in phase-space (x,y,z). Results: The elementary equilibrium points in three dimensional phase portrait analysis, include attractors, saddles Read More

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by medical imaging, bioinformatics, image processing, biomaterials, pharmaceutical drugs, bioengineering, medical devices, design, biological devices, biomechanics & diagnostic devices related to biomedical engineering.