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Giving Thanks for Biomedical Research

Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins

This Thanksgiving, Americans have an abundance of reasons to be grateful—loving family and good food often come to mind. Here’s one more to add to the list: exciting progress in biomedical research. To check out some of that progress, I encourage you to watch this short video, produced by NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Engineering (NIBIB), that showcases a few cool gadgets and devices now under development.

Among the technological innovations is a wearable ultrasound patch for monitoring blood pressure [1]. The patch was developed by a research team led by Sheng Xu and Chonghe Wang, University of California San Diego, La Jolla. When this small patch is worn on the neck, it measures blood pressure in the central arteries and veins by emitting continuous ultrasound waves.

Other great technologies featured in the video include:

Laser-Powered Glucose Meter. Peter So and Jeon Woong Kang, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, and their collaborators at MIT and University of Missouri, Columbia have developed a laser-powered device that measures glucose through the skin [2]. They report that this device potentially could provide accurate, continuous glucose monitoring for people with diabetes without the painful finger pricks.

15-Second Breast Scanner. Lihong Wang, a researcher at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and colleagues have combined laser light and sound waves to create a rapid, noninvasive, painless breast scan. It can be performed while a woman rests comfortably on a table without the radiation or compression of a standard mammogram [3].

White Blood Cell Counter. Carlos Castro-Gonzalez, then a postdoc at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and colleagues developed a portable, non-invasive home monitor to count white blood cells as they pass through capillaries inside a finger [4]. The test, which takes about 1 minute, can be carried out at home, and will help those undergoing chemotherapy to determine whether their white cell count has dropped too low for the next dose, avoiding risk for treatment-compromising infections.

Neural-Enabled Prosthetic Hand (NEPH). Ranu Jung, a researcher at Florida International University, Miami, and colleagues have developed a prosthetic hand that restores a sense of touch, grip, and finger control for amputees [5]. NEPH is a fully implantable, wirelessly controlled system that directly stimulates nerves. More than two years ago, the FDA approved a first-in-human trial of the NEPH system.

If you want to check out more taxpayer-supported innovations, take a look at NIBIB’s two previous videos from 2013 and 2018 As always, let me offer thanks to you from the NIH family—and from all Americans who care about the future of their health—for your continued support. Happy Thanksgiving!

References:

[1] Monitoring of the central blood pressure waveform via a conformal ultrasonic device. Wang C, Li X, Hu H, Zhang, L, Huang Z, Lin M, Zhang Z, Yun Z, Huang B, Gong H, Bhaskaran S, Gu Y, Makihata M, Guo Y, Lei Y, Chen Y, Wang C, Li Y, Zhang T, Chen Z, Pisano AP, Zhang L, Zhou Q, Xu S. Nature Biomedical Engineering. September 2018, 687-695.

[2] Evaluation of accuracy dependence of Raman spectroscopic models on the ratio of calibration and validation points for non-invasive glucose sensing. Singh SP, Mukherjee S, Galindo LH, So PTC, Dasari RR, Khan UZ, Kannan R, Upendran A, Kang JW. Anal Bioanal Chem. 2018 Oct;410(25):6469-6475.

[3] Single-breath-hold photoacoustic computed tomography of the breast. Lin L, Hu P, Shi J, Appleton CM, Maslov K, Li L, Zhang R, Wang LV. Nat Commun. 2018 Jun 15;9(1):2352.

[4] Non-invasive detection of severe neutropenia in chemotherapy patients by optical imaging of nailfold microcirculation. Bourquard A, Pablo-Trinidad A, Butterworth I, Sánchez-Ferro Á, Cerrato C, Humala K, Fabra Urdiola M, Del Rio C, Valles B, Tucker-Schwartz JM, Lee ES, Vakoc BJ9, Padera TP, Ledesma-Carbayo MJ, Chen YB, Hochberg EP, Gray ML, Castro-González C. Sci Rep. 2018 Mar 28;8(1):5301.

[5] Enhancing Sensorimotor Integration Using a Neural Enabled Prosthetic Hand System

Links:

Sheng Xu Lab (University of California San Diego, La Jolla)

So Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge)

Lihong Wang (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena)

Video: Lihong Wang: Better Cancer Screenings

Carlos Castro-Gonzalez (Madrid-MIT M + Visión Consortium, Cambridge, MA)

Video: Carlos Castro-Gonzalez (YouTube)

Ranu Jung (Florida International University, Miami)

Video: New Prosthetic System Restores Sense of Touch (Florida International)

NIH Support: National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering; National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; National Cancer Institute; Common Fund

3 Comments

  • Pam B. says:

    Dr. Collins our family thanks you for the many ways you identify and work with children with rare diseases. If it wasn’t for NIH we may never have known the disase my granddaughter has. When she was 7 yrs she hated doctors because they just kept saying “We don’t know what is wrong” sometimes they even suggested her mother made her sick but with help from her ID doc she applied to your “Undiagnosed disease program” and Dr. Rao was able to identify her disorder and enroll her in his study on RALD when she turned 8 yrs. Avery fell in love with the employees of NIH and since that day she continues to hope to become a doctor like the ones who have treated her and work at NIH. She will be 16 in June. NIH is a magical place like no other and the Children’s Inn is “A Place BETTER Than Home” Happy Thanksgiving to the NIH family.

  • DR. SAUMYA PANDEY PH.D. says:

    The expert snapshots from Dr. Collins this Thanksgiving elegantly emphasized the emerging trends in “wearable technologies”: blood pressure monitoring sensoring bioengineering devices, breast screenings, glucometer sensors, neuroprosthetics, heart-rhythms/motion-sensors, etc. scanners etc. and provided fascinating avenues for future design of cost-effective, patient-friendly treatment modalities for the competitive American healthcare and patient-care.

    With my Thanksgiving season experiences at States of Texas, New York and Nebraska, USA during my professional scientific endeavors as evident in my lead/first authorships in biomedical research/translational health and public health globally, I was indeed delighted to gain novel insights this year at Thanksgiving by perusing the meticulously-presented summary/highlights!

    American Dollars earned by sincere efforts should be streamlined for general public health good-will as well, and amazing biomedical research-information-technology amalgamation can certainly be strategically achieved by the American Tax-Dollars!

    Looking forward to my next Thanksgiving in the high-quality American world with moure meaningful medical research endeavors, publications and brilliant learning platforms with significant public health impact!

    Happy Thanksgiving to my American contemporaries and senior/veteran US-citizens!!!

  • cfs says:

    Thank you for the great and valuable article, please share more posts. When you or a loved one is battling cancer, you need access to every single weapon available.

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