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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,329

How Will 3D Printing Organs Emerge To Be A Billion Dollar Industry In the Next 10 Years?

3D printing technology is changing and will change pretty much everything. Besides printing the intermittent novelty project at home with a desktop printer, additive manufacturing or 3D printing technology is being used in a large group of businesses changing the manner in which we design, build, create, and even eat.

NASA is planning to use 3D printing technology to construct housing on Mars for future colonies while organizations like byFlow are using the emerging technology to create food and intricate edible tableware. The uses and applications appear to be both limitless and exciting, yet this is only the beginning. Things being what they are, what sort of changes can we expect to see in the medical industry?

Artificial neurons which could replace lost brain cells in Alzheimer’s, developed by scientists

Artificial neurons which could be implanted in the brain to repair the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease or other neurodegenerative conditions, have been invented by scientists.

The electronic cells, developed by teams at the University of Bath and a team of international collaborators, sit on a silicon chip and mimic the responses of biological neurons when triggered by the nervous system.

Neurons are specialised cells which transmit nerve impulses, allowing parts of the body to communicate, and are the core components of the brain, spinal cord and nervous system. They are also present around the heart.

World first as artificial neurons developed to cure chronic diseases

Artificial neurons on silicon chips that behave just like the real thing have been invented by scientists—a first-of-its-kind achievement with enormous scope for medical devices to cure chronic diseases, such as heart failure, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases of neuronal degeneration.

Critically the artificial not only behave just like biological neurons but only need one billionth the power of a microprocessor, making them ideally suited for use in medical implants and other bio-electronic devices.

The research team, led by the University of Bath and including researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Zurich and Auckland, describe the artificial neurons in a study published in Nature Communications.

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