American scientists have made a breakthrough in building synthetic polymers that could create new or improved biological functions not found in nature, which could produce new biomedical applications. The innovation involves building the synthetic polymers by using DNA as a template. DNA gives scientists the power of natural selection by creating synthetic polymers in much [...]
Development of Shrinking Medical Devices Grows Larger
December 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed protein hydrogels made with plastics that can be injected into a human body and can deliver drugs, prevent blood loss, accelerate wound healing, and protect against infections. This technology seems to be catching on as other researchers have developed similar innovations. Harvard scientists created collapsible [...]
Polymer Scaffolds Heal Damaged Tissue
December 11, 2012 By 1 Comment
Say, you’ve got some damaged or wounded tissue inside of your body. How is it going to heal? Scientists at Harvard University have developed a method that could speed up your body’s natural healing ability. The method is minimally invasive, and delivers structure and drugs to the damaged area. The structure is made up of [...]
Robot Made From Polymers Moves, Hides Like Octopus
September 17, 2012 By 2 Comments
Scientists at Harvard University have invented a flexible robot, using polymers, that mimics the motion — and even the camouflage — of an octopus. The inventors say the robot has several applications: from helping scientists understand how camouflage is used in nature, helping doctors plan complex surgeries, to acting as a visual marker to help [...]
It’s Alive! Polymers Help Create Jellyfish
July 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Researchers from Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have combined inanimate silicon polymers with living cardiac muscle cells to form freely swimming “jellyfish.” The research has shown that successful reverse engineering of a variety of muscular organs and simple life forms is possible. And in a research environment that has focused on [...]
Polymer Nanoparticles Prohibit Growth of Tumor Cells
June 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Researchers have developed a method using polymer nanoparticles that that can prohibit the growth of tumor cells. The scientists at Harvard University coated the polymer nanoparticles with therapeutic antibodies that interfere with the body’s ability to produce what is called the extracellular matrix, a structural scaffolding of proteins and polysaccharides that gives tumor cells a [...]
Finding a Voice With a Polymer Gel
August 1, 2011 By 1 Comment
A team of researchers from Harvard and MIT have developed polymer-based artificial vocal cords. The work, recently reported by the MIT News Office’s Anne Trafton, can help people like Julie Andrews and Steve Tyler who have damaged their vocal cords. Indeed, the actress and singer Andrews had lost her singing voice following surgery to remove [...]
Polymer Microarray for Drug Screening
May 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
High-throughput screening is an important method in the pharmaceutical industry to study thousands of drug candidates in one shot. But the technique demands expensive and sophisticated facilities and robots which limits its use to only those companies that can afford it. Now researchers have come up with a simple and cheap polymer-based platform that can [...]
