Stories about: Devices

Science Seen: New microscope reveals biological life as you’ve never seen it before

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Various images of cells captured by a new microscope reported in Science
A new microscope allows us to see how cells behave in 3D and real time inside living organisms.

Astronomers developed a “guide star” adaptive optics technique to obtain the most crystal-clear and precise telescopic images of distant galaxies, stars and planets. Now a team of scientists, led by Nobel laureate Eric Betzig, PhD, are borrowing the very same trick. They’ve combined it with lattice light-sheet to create a new microscope that’s able to capture real-time, incredibly detailed and accurate images, along with three-dimensional videos of biology on the cellular and sub-cellular level.

The work — a collaboration between researchers at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School —  is detailed in a new paper just published in Science.

“For the first time, we are seeing life itself at all levels inside whole, living organisms,” said Tom Kirchhausen, PhD, co-author on the new study, who is a senior investigator in the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and a professor of cell biology and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School (HMS).

“Every time we’ve done an experiment with this microscope, we’ve observed something novel — and generated new ideas and hypotheses to test,” Kirchhausen said in a news story by HMS. “It can be used to study almost any problem in a biological system or organism I can think of.” …

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Intestine chip models gut function, in disease and in health

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villus-like projections growing in gut chip
Villus-like extensions formed by small intestinal cells from patient biopsies, protruding into the Intestine Chip’s luminal channel. (Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University)

The small intestine is much more than a digestive organ. It’s a major home to our microbiome, it’s a key site where mucosal immunity develops and it provides a protective barrier against a variety of infections. Animal models don’t do justice to the human intestine in all its complexity.

Attempts to better model human intestinal function began with intestinal “organoids,” created from intestinal stem cells. The cells, from human biopsy samples, form hollowed balls or “mini-intestines” bearing all the cell types of the intestinal lining, or epithelium. Recently, intestinal organoids helped reveal how Clostridium difficile causes such devastating gastrointestinal infections.

But while organoids have all the right cells, they don’t fully replicate the environment of a real small intestine. Real intestines are awash in bacteria and nutrients, are fed by blood vessels and are stretched and compressed by peristalsis, the intestines’ cyclical muscular contractions that push nutrients forward.

Efforts to recreate that environment led to the Intestine Chip. An early version, created by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, cultured cells from a human intestinal tumor cell line. …

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Five devices for pediatrics get help in advancing to market

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kids with pediatric devices playing doctor

Medical devices for children tend to have small markets, so development can lag up to a decade behind similar devices for adults. The Boston Pediatric Device Consortium (BPDC), formed through an FDA initiative, aims to change that math.

This month, the BPDC and the Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator at Boston Children’s Hospital announced five winners of a national pediatric device challenge. Each winner will receive a combination of up to $50,000 in funding per grant award and/or in-kind support from leading medical device strategic partners, including Boston Scientific, CryoLife, Edwards Lifesciences, Health Advances, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Medtronic, Smithwise, Ximedica and the Boston Children’s Simulator Program. These organizations will provide mentorship, product manufacturing and design services, simulation testing, business plan development, partnering opportunities and more.

“We have a major unmet need for pediatric medical devices that are specifically designed to address the demands of a growing, active child,” said BPDC leader Pedro del Nido, MD, chief of Cardiac Surgery at Boston Children’s, in a press release. “We are pleased to support these teams as they work toward accelerating their technologies from concept to market.”

The five Challenge winners are: …

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‘Pull’ from an implanted robot could help grow stunted organs

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Surgeons at Boston Children’s Hospital have long sought a better solution for long-gap esophageal atresia, a rare birth defect in which part of the esophagus is missing. The current state-of-the art operation, called the Foker process, uses sutures anchored to children’s backs to gradually pull the unjoined ends of esophagus until they’re long enough to be stitched together. To keep the esophagus from tearing, children must be paralyzed in a medically induced coma, on mechanical ventilation, for one to four weeks. The lengthy ICU care means high costs, and the long period of immobilization can cause complications like bone fractures and blood clots.

Now, a Boston Children’s Hospital team has created an implantable robot that could lengthen the esophagus — and potentially other tubular organs like the intestine — while the child remains awake and mobile. As described today in Science Robotics, the device is attached only to the tissue being lengthened, so wouldn’t impede a child’s movement. …

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Six technologies we backed in 2017

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Boston Children's Hospital technology

Boston Children’s Hospital’s Technology Development Fund (TDF) to designed to transform early-stage academic technologies into validated, high-impact opportunities for licensees and investors. Since 2009, the hospital has committed $7.6 million to support 76 promising technologies, from therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices and vaccines to regenerative medicine and healthcare IT projects. The TDF also assists with strategic planning, intellectual property protection, regulatory requirements and business models. Investigators can access mentors, product development experts and technical support through a network of contract research organizations, development partners and industry advisors.

Eight startup companies have spun out since TDF’s creation, receiving $82.4 million in seed funding. They include Affinivax, a vaccine company started with $4 million from the Gates Foundation, and Epidemico, a population health-tracking company acquired by Booz Allen Hamilton. TDF has also launched more than 20 partnerships, received $26 million in follow-on government and foundation funding and generated $4.45 million in licensing revenue.

Here are the projects TDF awarded in 2017, with grants totaling $650,000: …

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Science and medicine in 2018: What’s the forecast?

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2018 predictions for biomedicine

Vector consulted its many informants to find out which way the wind will blow in 2018. Here are their predictions for what to expect in genetics, stem cell research, immunology and more.

GENETICS

Gene-based therapies mature

We will continue to see successes in 2018 reflecting the maturation of gene therapy as a viable, generalizable platform for curing many rare diseases. Also, we will see exciting new applications of other maturing platforms, like CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and oligonucleotide therapies for neurologic diseases, building on the success of nusinersen for spinal muscular atrophy. …

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2017 pediatric biomedical advances at Boston Children’s Hospital: Our top 10 picks

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New tools and technologies fueled biomedicine to great heights in 2017. Here are just a few of our top picks. All are great examples of research informing better care for children (and adults).

1. Gene therapy arrives

(Katherine C. Cohen)

In 2017, gene therapy solidly shed the stigma of Jesse Gelsinger’s 1999 death with the development of safer protocols and delivery vectors. Though each disease must navigate its own technical and regulatory path to gene therapy, the number of clinical trials is mounting worldwide, with seven gene therapy trials now recruiting at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. In August, the first gene therapy won FDA approval: CAR T-cell therapy for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. …

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A “half-hearted” solution to one-sided heart failure

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Illustration showing how the system supports a failing right ventricle
Illustration showing sectional view of a heart with the soft robotic system helping to draw blood into (left) and pump blood out (right) of the heart’s right ventricle.

Soft robotic actuators, which are pneumatic artificial muscles designed and programmed to perform lifelike motions, have recently emerged as an attractive alternative to more rigid components that have conventionally been used in biomedical devices. In fact, earlier this year, a Boston Children’s Hospital team revealed a proof-of-concept soft robotic sleeve that could support the function of a failing heart.

Despite this promising innovation, the team recognized that many pediatric heart patients have more one-sided congenital heart conditions. These patients are not experiencing failure of the entire heart — instead, congenital conditions have caused disease in either the heart’s right or left ventricle, but not both.

Read our Vector story on the soft robotic heart sleeve that mimics cardiac muscles.

“We set out to develop new technology that would help one diseased ventricle, when the patient is in isolated left or right heart failure, pull blood into the chamber and then effectively pump it into the circulatory system,” says Nikolay Vasilyev, MD, a researcher in cardiac surgery at Boston Children’s.

Now, Vasilyev and his collaborators — researchers from Boston Children’s, the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University — have revealed their soft robotic solution. They describe their system in a paper published online in Science Robotics today. …

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Shunt-flushing device for hydrocephalus gets FDA clearance; could help patients avoid extra surgery

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A new shunt-flushing device flushes out shunt blockages noninvasively.
Brain shunts frequently clog up, requiring surgical repair or replacement. A new device flushes out the blockages with the press of a button. (Wikimedia/Adobe Images)

Children with hydrocephalus often have shunts implanted to drain the excess cerebrospinal fluid that builds up inside their brain. Unfortunately, shunts have a tendency to plug up. This potentially life-threatening event necessitates emergency surgery to correct or replace the shunt.

“If you have a shunt, you are always worried about what might happen in the future,” says Joseph Madsen, MD, a neurosurgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Close to half of shunts will have a revision within the first year of implantation. About 80 percent will require a revision within 10 years.”

Last week, the FDA cleared a device originally conceived by Madsen that can potentially flush out a clogged shunt noninvasively, avoiding the need for surgery in both children and adults. The neurosurgeon or other trained healthcare professional could simply press a button at the back of the patient’s head, just under the skin, in an office setting, Madsen says. …

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Making breastfeeding a breeze: Cleft lip/palate and beyond

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Breast Breeze
Breast Breeze developers Olivia Oppel (left) and Janet Conneely (Photos: Katherine C. Cohen)

Janet Conneely, BSN, RN, CPN, was visiting a new mother in the hospital who had just delivered a baby with a cleft palate to let her know about Boston Children’s Hospital’s Cleft Lip and Palate Program. The mother was trying, without success, to breastfeed, but because of cleft palate, her baby didn’t have an intact hard surface on the roof of her mouth, so couldn’t create enough suction to draw milk.

“I was new to seeing these moms,” Conneely recalls. “This mother was in tears, pleading for ‘some way to be able to breastfeed my baby!’” She adamantly did not want to be shown the specialty bottle typically used for babies with cleft palate.

Conneely tapped her colleague, Olivia Oppel, BSN, RN, CPN, CLC, and together, they reviewed existing breastfeeding products. The few that were available — nipple shields, bottle attachments and a sling that holds the bottle against the breast — were either awkward to use or didn’t really allow for skin-to-skin contact. …

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