Smart Tissue-Sensing Needle
If a poke in the eye makes you shudder, how about a needle in the eye? It’s even hard getting enthusiastic about a better way of doing that, but engineers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital do have a better idea—something called an “intelligent-injector for tissue targeting” or “i2T2.” As this piece reports: “Incorporating a standard hypodermic needle and parts from conventional syringes, it utilizes an integrated sensor to detect changes in applied pressure as its tip passes through different types of biological tissue, all of which have differing densities. After initially being “trained” on an organ such as the eye, it can subsequently determine exactly where its tip is within that organ – this is something that poses a challenge for humans, as they sometimes either under- or overshoot the target area.” The developers anticipate this smart device being used to deliver stem cells in regenerative medicine. MORE
Image Credit: Randal McKenzie, NewAtlas.com