When the evening nurse shows up for his shift at general inpatient ward 2221 at Psychiatric Centre of North Zealand, Denmark, he will have a new routine: Seven patients will get an intelligent patch applied to their upper body or arm before going to bed. Inside the patch is a wireless sensor that measures heart rate and activity during the night.This may have a huge impact: Instead of doing nursing rounds of the private rooms three times a night, the nurse can now do the first two rounds from the office, checking in on the patients remotely via a monitor. For example, a low heart rate may indicate that the patient is sleeping rather than being active in the room. This means that the nurse can avoid waking up the patients, which is very important. The lack of a good night&rsquo;s sleep often triggers a deterioration in their condition.Testing of the patches has just begun at the centre, which is part of the Mental Health Services of the Capital Region. The hope is that the patches will reduce the number of nightly nursing rounds and provide an overview of patient conditions. The next step is using the data to monitor the quality of the patients&rsquo; sleep to find out if any adjustments need to be made in sleep treatment aimed at improving sleep quality, says Chief Nurse Kim Johansson:&ldquo;We see a huge benefit in this project, because it means that we don&rsquo;t have to enter the patients&rsquo; rooms at night. In all the 25 years I&rsquo;ve worked here, sleep has been an important topic. It&rsquo;s a big priority for us to improve our patients&rsquo; sleep quality. Previously, we could only give a rough estimate as to how long they had slept, but now we can get more precise measurements. And that&rsquo;s important in terms of medication and treatment in the long run.&rdquo;<h2>Patients staying at home</h2>Testing at the Psychiatric Centre of North Zealand will run for three months and is just the beginning of the entrepreneurial adventure for medtech startup&nbsp;<a href="https://www.impscandinavia.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IMP Scandinavia</a>. Behind the company are three former DTU students who got the idea three years ago. Now they have a Danish patent and are awaiting approval on an international patent. Furthermore, they have received medical approval and a CE marking, proving that the product meets EU requirements for safety, health, and environmental protection.The first customers are the Foundation for Innovation and Business Promotion (FIERS) in Region Zealand and Nyk&oslash;bing Falster Hospital, which will run a test programme in three different departments later this year. The entrepreneurs plan to begin selling the patch for treatment of hospital-at-home patients in 2024.Although the technology was originally developed to reduce or eliminate the number of mandatory nightly nursing rounds in psychiatric wards, it has become evident that there is a need for patient monitoring across the entire healthcare sector. The aim is to help nurses and doctors improve the treatment of patients and citizens in need of supervision. This can free up time for healthcare professionals and increase the patients&rsquo; quality of life. But the prospects go even further:&ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking at a future where many patient groups will be sent home for hospital-at-home care. So instead of having the doctor measure their blood pressure, many patients will be doing it themselves and then sending the results to the doctor or hospital. Here, the patient&rsquo;s condition will be monitored, and it will be assessed whether further treatment is needed. In this way, diseases can be detected early and hospitalization avoided. This can lead to major socio-economic gains,&rdquo; says Brian Christensen, co-founder of the company.<h2>From innovation course to medtech startup</h2>He works in the office behind K.B. Hallen in Frederiksberg with the other two co-founders, Jeppe Damgaard Leth and Oliver Kj&aelig;p Karlsson. The three entrepreneurs met each other at a Business Innovation course on the DTU Ballerup Campus, where students learn to develop technologies to solve some of the challenges in society. When Brian Christensen talked about the challenges in the psychiatric sector, Jeppe Damgaard Leth and Oliver Kj&aelig;p Karlsson got in on the idea, and, together, the three of them set about developing a prototype for a smart patch.On the last day of the course, they pitched the idea in front of a panel of investors with competences in financing, sales, and marketing. They initially thought the project would end there. But investor Peter Beck-Bang saw great prospects in the technology. Shortly after the course ended, he contacted the students and asked if he could be their mentor. It was the beginning of the entrepreneurial dream.IMP Scandinavia has now received DKK 10 million in grants from private investors, the Danish Growth Fund, Innovation Fund Denmark, and Otto Bruun&rsquo;s Fund, among others. The entrepreneurs have participated in several accelerator programmes such as the Danish Tech Challenge, which is a competition for high-tech startups focusing on IT hardware. They have also been part of the Copenhagen Health Innovation partnership, which aims to create a better healthcare system for the benefit of patients. And during that time, the entrepreneurial grew.&ldquo;We quickly realized that we needed someone who could run our company and take care of the business aspect of it. Today, our team consists of students, investors, and co-owners. As engineers, we&rsquo;re trained to develop, refine, and scale production. We use these skills every day to make our products better and better,&rdquo; says Jeppe Damgaard Leth.<h2>Only requires two electrical outlets</h2>The entrepreneurs develop the software for the patch&mdash;which currently measures activity and heart rate&mdash;themselves. The readings are transmitted via wireless beacons, which are little radio transmitters, to a laptop or tablet. From here you can follow the development over time. The sensor holds enough power for approx. 24 hours, is sustainable, and can be removed from the patch and recycled.40 patients have now used the patch. The first version was fully developed and tested at Psychiatric Centre Sct. Hans in 2020. The patch is currently being sold and tested at OK-Fonden&rsquo;s nursing home Bavne Ager in Gilleleje. Here, the staff use the smart patch to minimize disturbances of elderly people who would normally need frequent check-ups. Concurrently with the test projects, the entrepreneurs are developing a version 2.0 of the monitoring patch. The new version will measure both heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, temperature, respiratory rate, and activity level.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re seeing a large market for monitoring, and right now we don&rsquo;t experience any direct competition. There are companies that work with the same needs as us, but no one is developing the same solution. Plus, we&rsquo;re making it smarter and easier. Instead of developing a technology that uses Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, which requires a password and internet connection, we have developed a solution that only requires two sockets&mdash;one for the charger and one for beacons. This means that anyone can use our product,&rdquo; says Brian Christensen.<h2>We are getting older</h2>The vision is to scale up production in Denmark. Initially, the entrepreneurs will expand the use of the technology in hospitals, the psychiatric sector, elderly care, and hospital-at-home care. The next step is the health sector in the Nordic region and Germany, says Jeppe Damgaard Leth:&ldquo;At DTU, we learn that you have to find a need and develop a solution for that instead of coming up with a solution first and then finding a need for it. We saw a need and found a solution to some of the challenges we as a society will face in the future where people get increasingly older. Our dream is to develop a product that can make a big difference for many people.&rdquo;

Testing patches at Psychiatric Centre of North Zealand Photo: Magnus Møller.

A DTU startup has developed a new sensor for monitoring patients in an easier, smarter, and better way, with major potential socio-economic benefits.

Smart patch will improve patients' sleep

ETH student Alexander Bayer was inspired to upgrade the traditional white cane by a blind classmate in high school. Together with three other ETH students, he is working in the Student Project House on the &ldquo;NextGuide&rdquo; project, a smart cane for the blind and visually impaired equipped with an integrated camera and the ability to provide haptic feedback. The cane not only indicates the direction in which an individual should walk to avoid obstacles but also communicates via vibrations whether they are standing in front of a door, pedestrian crossing or staircase.&nbsp;

ETH students have developed a smart cane featuring an integrated camera that detects its surroundings and a tactile pointer that helps blind and visually impaired individuals navigate their way safely.

The smart cane for the blind and visually impaired

In the episode, we discuss how smart helmets can prevent head trauma by providing feedback in real time to athletes and coaches. These helmets utilize advanced technology, such as sensors and smart features, to enhance safety during activities like sports. They aim to reduce the risk of head injuries and protect the wearer&#39;s head in case of impact.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/8f7e3c0b-f831-4341-872d-9585846557c6?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(0:50) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/smart-helmets-to-prevent-head-trauma" target="_blank">Smart helmets to prevent head trauma</a><hr>As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.To learn more about this show, please visit our <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published. Be sure to give us a follow and review on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!--The Next Byte Podcast: We&#39;re two engineers on a mission to simplify complex science &amp; technology, making it easy to understand. In each episode of our show, we dive into world-changing tech (such as AI, robotics, 3D printing, IoT, &amp; much more), all while keeping it entertaining &amp; engaging along the way.

In the episode, we discuss how smart helmets can prevent head trauma by providing feedback in real time to athletes and coaches. These helmets utilize advanced technology, such as sensors and smart features, to enhance safety during activities like sports.

Podcast: Preventing Head Trauma With Smart Helmets

Newly developed &ldquo;smart&rdquo; coatings for surgical orthopedic implants can monitor strain on the devices to provide early warning of implant failures while killing infection-causing bacteria, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers report. The coatings integrate flexible sensors with a nanostructured antibacterial surface inspired by the wings of dragonflies and cicadas.In a new <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg7397" target="_blank">study</a> in the journal Science Advances, a multidisciplinary team of researchers found the coatings prevented infection in live mice and mapped strain in commercial implants applied to sheep spines to warn of various implant or healing failures.&nbsp;&ldquo;This is a combination of bio-inspired nanomaterial design with flexible electronics to battle a complicated, long-term biomedical problem,&rdquo; said study leader <a href="https://matse.illinois.edu/people/profile/qingcao2" target="_blank">Qing Cao</a>, a U. of I. professor of materials science and engineering.Both infection and device failure are major problems with orthopedic implants, each affecting up to 10% of patients, Cao said. Several approaches to fighting infection have been attempted, but all have severe limitations, he said: Biofilms can still form on water-repelling surfaces, and coatings laden with antibiotic chemicals or drugs run out in a span of months and have toxic effects on the surrounding tissue with little efficacy against drug-resistant strains of bacterial pathogens.&nbsp;Taking inspiration from the naturally antibacterial wings of cicadas and dragonflies, the Illinois team created a thin foil patterned with nanoscale pillars like those found on the insects&rsquo; wings. When a bacterial cell attempts to bind to the foil, the pillars puncture the cell wall, killing it.&nbsp;&ldquo;Using a mechanical approach to killing bacteria allowed us to bypass a lot of the problems with chemical approaches, while still giving us the flexibility needed to apply the coating to implant surfaces,&rdquo; said pathobiology professor <a href="https://vetmed.illinois.edu/directory/profile/?id=geelau" target="_blank">Gee Lau</a>, a coauthor of the study.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1684137823087-214845.jpg" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The devices combine insect-inspired nanostructured foils with highly sensitive flexible electronics. Here the device prototypes are applied to commercially available spinal implants and displayed on a spine model. Photo by Yi ZhangOn the back side of the nanostructured foil, where it contacts the implant device, the researchers integrated arrays of highly sensitive, flexible electronic sensors to monitor strain. This could help physicians watch the healing progress of individual patients, guide their rehabilitation to shorten the recovery time and minimize risks, and repair or replace devices before they hit the point of failure, the researchers said.The engineering group then teamed up with veterinary clinical medicine professor&nbsp;<a href="https://vetmed.illinois.edu/directory/profile/?id=mccoya" target="_blank">Annette McCoy</a> to test their prototype devices. They implanted the foils in live mice and monitored them for any sign of infection, even when bacteria were introduced. They also applied the coatings to commercially available spinal implants and monitored strain to the implants in sheep spines under normal load for device failure diagnosis. The coatings performed both functions well.&nbsp;The prototype electronics required wires, but the researchers next plan to develop wireless power and data communications interfaces for their coatings, a crucial step for clinical application, Cao said. They also are working to develop large-scale production of the nanopillar-textured bacteria-killing foil.&nbsp;&ldquo;These types of antibacterial coatings have a lot of potential applications, and since ours uses a mechanical mechanism, it has potential for places where chemicals or heavy metal ions &ndash; as are used in commercial antimicrobial coatings now &ndash; would be detrimental,&rdquo; Cao said.The National Science Foundation and the U.S. Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs supported this work.&nbsp;<hr>The paper &ldquo;A smart coating with integrated physical-antimicrobial and strain-mapping functionalities for orthopedic implants&rdquo; is available&nbsp;<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg7397" target="_blank">online</a>.&nbsp;DOI:&nbsp;<a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adg7397" target="_blank">10.1126/sciadv.adg7397</a>

Smart coatings on orthopedic implants, developed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have bacteria-killing nanopillars on one side and strain-mapping flexible electronics on the other. This could help physicians guide patient rehabilitation and repair or replace devices before they fail.  Image by Beckman Imaging Technology Group

Newly developed “smart” coatings for surgical orthopedic implants can monitor strain on the devices to provide early warning of implant failures while killing infection-causing bacteria, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers report.

Smart surgical implant coatings provide early failure warning while preventing infection

The world is aging; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the population over 60 will double from 12 percent to 22 percent.While nothing can stop us from getting older, technology can offer a means of maintaining our independence, keeping us out of hospital or aged care as the years tick by. And along with pet ownership, a good circle of friends and exercise, independent living is recognized as very positive for seniors&#39; well-being and mental health.More than that, using technology to monitor the elderly in their homes&mdash;or at least help residential aged care facilities provide more effective care&mdash;takes pressure off the stretched budgets of healthcare services. This is something that the authorities began to appreciate years ago and something that accelerated during the pandemic. However, there is a challenge slowing widespread adoption: many older adults distrust or simply don&rsquo;t understand technology. The good news is that solutions are afoot.<h2>Cellular IoT - technology for the elderly</h2>One answer to slow tech uptake is ensuring that smart devices don&#39;t require much technical knowledge to operate. There is progress in this direction because 61 percent of U.S. people over 65 can use a smartphone, according to a recent study by Pew Research.Unfortunately, the picture could be more rosy when it comes to <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Applications/Wearables?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wearable</a> healthcare technology. Demonstrating this is the fact that only 15 percent of device users are over the age of 65, according to the Journal of Medical Internet Research. The solution, says the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), is to simplify technology to suit the needs of this population group &ndash; making it easy to use by anyone.<h2>Streamlining connectivity with cellular IoT</h2>Cellular IoT meets some of these needs because it eliminates the need for a smartphone or other gateway device to send data to the cloud. This is good news for older people, as it removes the complication of pairing devices, remembering passwords, and logging onto Wi-Fi networks.Reassuringly, LTE-M and NB-IoT low power cellular IoT provides the gold standard for secure and reliable data transmission &ndash; something that&rsquo;s especially important when medical data is transferred. Moreover, the technology relies on infrastructure that&rsquo;s widely deployed in the shape of the existing cellular networks.Additional security can also be applied at the chip level. For example, Nordic Semiconductor&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/nRF9160?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nRF9160</a> low-power SIP makes use of technology which increases Internet-level encryption and boosts application protection.<h2>Keeping caregivers informed</h2>A commercial example of cellular IoT wearables for older people comes from Californian tech firm SalusWear Corp. Last year, the company launched a wrist-worn solution designed to track and monitor individuals suffering from Alzheimer&rsquo;s, dementia, or autism. The solution can be used by individuals living independently as well as those living in aged care facilities.The <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2022/09/SalusWear-employs-nRF9160-SiP?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">SalusWear</a> device integrates Nordic&rsquo;s nRF9160 SiP to provide LTE-M connectivity and GNSS. It reports the wearer&rsquo;s location to family, friends, or caregivers in the event they go missing, and includes an accelerometer to detect a fall. The wearable responds directly to specific SMS commands from preapproved phone numbers, without the need for a smartphone app or wearer interaction. For example, a caregiver can text &ldquo;LOCATE&rdquo; to the device&rsquo;s dedicated phone number to receive a map link to the wearer&rsquo;s location, or &ldquo;TRACK&rdquo; to receive a map link with a location update every minute.<h2>Keeping on top of health metrics</h2>Another set of wearables aimed at enhancing the independence and wellbeing of older people has been launched by August International. This pair of <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2022/06/August-International?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">smartwatches</a> continually monitor and record a range of key health metrics, and again employ the cellular IoT connectivity of Nordic&rsquo;s nRF9160 SiP to send data directly to the cloud.For those requiring urgent care, the smartwatches include an SOS button which calls for assistance and transmits the user&rsquo;s location to emergency services, as well as sending a prerecorded message alert and position notification to third parties. The nRF9160 SiP combines cellular network location data with GPS trilateration for precise position monitoring in case of any SOS alerts.<h2>Combining Bluetooth and cellular connectivity</h2>Hong Kong-based microelectronics company Dayton Industrial has gone further, integrating cellular IoT and Bluetooth LE connectivity into its new healthcare wearable. The <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2022/10/Dayton-Industrials-Link2Care-Smartwatch-DA13700-uses-nRF52832-SoC-and-nRF9160-SiP?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Link2Care Smartwatch</a> DA13700 can act as both a remote healthcare/telecare solution as well as a conventional smartwatch.This device features a 3D motion sensor to record activity and sleep data, and detect any potential falls. The user can activate an alert message with their health information and location by pressing the&#39; SOS&#39; key. Further information, including wellness data, can be uploaded to the Cloud and a customer service center via Nordic cellular IoT connectivity. Nordic&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/nRF52833?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nRF52832</a> SoC provides Bluetooth LE connectivity, enabling call and notification relaying from the seniors&rsquo; smartphone if they own one.<h3>The future of aged care</h3>The WHO estimates that by 2050 the world&rsquo;s population of those aged 60 years and older will reach 2.1 billion. That will put unprecedented levels of demand on aged care and healthcare facilities. Today the pressure is already being felt &ndash; but sophisticated yet easy-to-use wireless technology promises to help.That technology will provide continuous and precise information not only on a wearer&#39;s location but also on factors such as orientation, temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and more. And machine learning (ML) at the edge performed on powerful application processors like the Arm Cortex-M33 device on the nRF9160 SiP, together with Cloud servers, will sort and analyze that data to help remote physicians make quick and informed healthcare decisions.The result will be a large proportion of an aging population enjoying their twilight years while being independent, safe, healthy and happy.<hr>This article was first published on Nordic&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" id="isPasted"></a><a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Get Connected Blog</a>. &nbsp;

The world is aging; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the population over 60 will double from 12 percent to 22 percent.

How cellular IoT can help seniors maintain their independence

<section id="isPasted">Researchers in <a href="https://bme.columbia.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Biomedical Engineering</a> Professor <a href="http://daninolab.nyc/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tal Danino&rsquo;s lab</a> were brainstorming several years ago about how they could engineer and apply naturally-pattern-forming bacteria. There are many bacteria species, such as Proteus mirabilis (P. mirabilis), that self-organize into defined patterns on solid surfaces that are visible to the naked eye. These bacteria can sense several stimuli in nature and respond to these cues by &ldquo;swarming&rdquo;&mdash;a highly coordinated and rapid movement of bacteria powered by their flagella, a long, tail-like structure that causes a whip-like motion to help propel them.&nbsp;For inspiration, Danino&rsquo;s team at <a href="http://engineering.columbia.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Columbia Engineering</a>, which has a good deal of experience using synthetic biology methods to manipulate <a href="https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/news/bacteria-cloaking-cancer-therapy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">bacteria</a>, discussed where else they might find similar patterns in nature and what their functions might be. They noted how tree rings record tree age and climate history, and that sparked their idea of applying P. mirabilis rings as a recording system. They had also been interested in applying AI to characterize the distinct features of bacterial colony patterns, an approach that they realized could then be used to decode an engineered pattern.&nbsp;&ldquo;This seemed to us to be an untapped opportunity to create a natural recording system for specific cues,&rdquo; said Danino, a member of Columbia&rsquo;s <a href="https://datascience.columbia.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Data Science Institute</a> (DSI).In a<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-023-01325-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">&nbsp;new study, published May 4 in Nature Chemical Biology</a>, the researchers worked with P. mirabilis, commonly found in the soil and water and occasionally the human gut, known for its bullseye-appearing colony patterns. When the bacteria are grown on a Petri dish of a solid growth media, they alternate between phases of bacterial growth, which make visible dense circles, and bacterial movement, called &ldquo;swarming&rdquo; movement, which expands the colony outwards.</section><section><h2>Engineering bacteria to sense, respond, and change swarming</h2><section id="isPasted">The team engineered the bacteria by adding what synthetic biologists call &ldquo;genetic circuits&rdquo;&mdash;systems of genetic parts, logically compiled to make the bacteria behave in a desired way. The engineered bacteria sensed the presence of the researchers&rsquo; chosen input&mdash;ranging from temperature to sugar molecules to heavy metals such as mercury and copper&mdash;and responded by changing their swarming ability, which visibly changed the output pattern.&nbsp;</section><section><h2>Using AI to decode swarming pattern</h2><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1683770506252-engineered-p-mirabillis-strain.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">One of the engineered P. mirabilis strains, the &ldquo;pLac-lrp&rdquo; strain; when grown on a Petri dish with the molecule IPTG present in the growth medium, as shown here, the strain responds by changing its ring pattern into a pattern of spikes. Credit: Danino Lab/Columbia Engineering&nbsp;Working with <a href="https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/faculty/andrew-laine" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Andrew Laine</a>, Percy K. and Vida L. W. Hudson Professor of <a href="https://www.bme.columbia.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Biomedical Engineering</a> and a DSI member and <a href="https://mr.research.columbia.edu/content/jia-guo" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jia Guo</a>, assistant professor of neurobiology (in psychiatry) at the <a href="https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Columbia University Irving Medical Center</a> the researchers then applied deep learning&ndash;a state-of-the-art AI technique&ndash;to decode the environment from the pattern, in the same way scientists look at the rings in a tree trunk to understand the history of its environment. They used models that can classify patterns holistically to predict, for example, sugar concentration in a sample, and models that can delineate or &ldquo;segment&rdquo; edges within a pattern to predict, for example, the number of times the temperature changed while the colony grew.An advantage of working with P. mirabilis is that, compared to many of the typical engineered bacterial patterns, the native P. mirabilis pattern is visible to the naked eye without costly visualization technology and forms on a durable, easy-to-work-with solid agar medium. These properties increase the potential to apply the system as a sensor readout in a variety of settings. Using deep learning to interpret the patterns can enable researchers to extract information about input molecule concentrations from even complex patterns.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1683770526977-copper-sensing-p-mirabilis.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The engineered copper sensing strain, grown with samples of water containing high copper (50 mM) which were added as drops onto the left side of the Petri dish. The copper is sensed by the bacteria, which respond by changing their swarming and thus the ring pattern, such that the invisible presence of copper becomes visible to the naked eye. The pattern on the right side of the plate, with no sample, can be used as a baseline to which the left side&rsquo;s pattern can be compared. Credit: Danino Lab/Columbia Engineering&nbsp;<section id="isPasted">&ldquo;Our goal is to develop this system as a low-cost detection and recording system for conditions such as pollutants and toxic compounds in the environment,&rdquo; said Anjali Doshi, the study&rsquo;s lead author and a recent PhD graduate from Danino&rsquo;s lab. &ldquo;To our knowledge, this work is the first study where a naturally pattern-forming bacterial species has been engineered by synthetic biologists to modify its native swarming ability and function as a sensor.&rdquo;</section><section><h2>New approach will advance biotechnology</h2>Such work can help researchers better understand how the native patterns form, and beyond that, can contribute to other areas of biotechnology beyond the area of sensors. Being able to control bacteria as a group rather than as individuals, and control their movement and organization in a colony, could help researchers build living materials at larger scales, and help with the Danino lab&#39;s parallel goal of engineering bacteria to be living &quot;smart&quot; therapeutics, by enabling better control of bacterial behaviors in the body.&nbsp;This work is a new approach for building macroscale bacterial recorders, expanding the framework for engineering emergent microbial behaviors. The team next plans to build on their system by engineering the bacteria to detect a wider range of pollutants and toxins and moving the system to safe &quot;probiotic&quot; bacteria. Ultimately, they aim to develop a device to apply the recording system outside of the lab.</section></section></section>

Petri dishes of engineered and native Proteus mirabilis patterns, here stained with colored dyes used for the lab's bacterial art. Credit: Soonhee Moon, Danino Lab/Columbia Engineering

Columbia synthetic biologists first to engineer bacterial swarm patterns to visibly record environment, use deep learning to decode patterns; applications could range from monitoring environmental pollution to building living materials

New Method Uses Engineered Bacteria and AI to Sense and Record Environmental Signals

An artificial intelligence system enables robots to conduct autonomous scientific experiments&mdash;as many as 10,000 per day&mdash;potentially driving a drastic leap forward in the pace of discovery in areas from medicine to agriculture to environmental science.&nbsp;Reported today in Nature Microbiology, the team was led by a professor now at the University of Michigan.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sLQipJBgjNQ?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>That artificial intelligence platform, dubbed BacterAI, mapped the metabolism of two microbes associated with oral health&mdash;with no baseline information to start with. Bacteria consume some combination of the 20 amino acids needed to support life, but each species requires specific nutrients to grow. The U-M team wanted to know what amino acids are needed by the beneficial microbes in our mouths so they can promote their growth.&ldquo;We know almost nothing about most of the bacteria that influence our health. Understanding how bacteria grow is the first step toward reengineering our microbiome,&rdquo; said <a href="http://jensenlab.net/" target="_blank">Paul Jensen</a>, U-M assistant professor of biomedical engineering who was at the University of Illinois when the project started.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1683466300780-BacterAI-content3.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Professor Paul Jensen (second to the right) and graduate students (from left) Deepthi Suresh, Noelle Toong, and Benjamin David examine their robot performing automated experiments. Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Michigan Engineering&nbsp;Figuring out the combination of amino acids that bacteria like is tricky, however. Those 20 amino acids yield more than a million possible combinations, just based on whether each amino acid is present or not. Yet BacterAI was able to discover the amino acid requirements for the growth of both Streptococcus gordonii and Streptococcus sanguinis.&nbsp;To find the right formula for each species, BacterAI tested hundreds of combinations of amino acids per day, honing its focus and changing combinations each morning based on the previous day&rsquo;s results. Within nine days, it was producing accurate predictions 90% of the time.&nbsp;Unlike conventional approaches that feed labeled data sets into a machine-learning model, BacterAI creates its own data set through a series of experiments. By analyzing the results of previous trials, it comes up with predictions of what new experiments might give it the most information. As a result, it figured out most of the rules for feeding bacteria with fewer than 4,000 experiments.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1683466322924-BacterAI-content1-500x342.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Graduate student Deepthi Suresh conducting an experiment in Paul Jensen&rsquo;s lab. Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Michigan Engineering&nbsp;&ldquo;When a child learns to walk, they don&rsquo;t just watch adults walk and then say &lsquo;Ok, I got it,&rsquo; stand up, and start walking. They fumble around and do some trial and error first,&rdquo; Jensen said.&ldquo;We wanted our AI agent to take steps and fall down, to come up with its own ideas and make mistakes. Every day, it gets a little better, a little smarter.&rdquo;Little to no research has been conducted on roughly 90% of bacteria, and the amount of time and resources needed to learn even basic scientific information about them using conventional methods is daunting. Automated experimentation can drastically speed up these discoveries. The team ran up to 10,000 experiments in a single day.But the applications go beyond microbiology. Researchers in any field can set up questions as puzzles for AI to solve through this kind of trial and error.&ldquo;With the recent explosion of mainstream AI over the last several months, many people are uncertain about what it will bring in the future, both positive and negative,&rdquo; said Adam Dama, a former engineer in the Jensen Lab and lead author of the study. &ldquo;But to me, it&rsquo;s very clear that focused applications of AI like our project will accelerate everyday research.&rdquo;The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health with support from NVIDIA.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1683466346048-BacterAI-content2.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Paul Jensen&rsquo;s graduate students working in the lab. Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Michigan Engineering&nbsp;

Automation uncovers combinations of amino acids that feed two bacterial species and could tell us much more about the 90% of bacteria that humans have hardly studied.

AI could run a million microbial experiments per year

This article was first published on&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2023/wearable-patch-can-painlessly-deliver-drugs-through-skin-0419" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MIT News</a>. &nbsp;<hr>The skin is an appealing route for drug delivery because it allows drugs to go directly to the site where they&rsquo;re needed, which could be useful for wound healing, pain relief, or other medical and cosmetic applications. However, delivering drugs through the skin is difficult because the tough outer layer of the skin prevents most small molecules from passing through it.In hopes of making it easier to deliver drugs through the skin, MIT researchers have developed a wearable patch that applies painless ultrasonic waves to the skin, creating tiny channels that drugs can pass through. This approach could lend itself to delivery of treatments for a variety of skin conditions, and could also be adapted to deliver hormones, muscle relaxants, and other drugs, the researchers say.&ldquo;The ease-of-use and high-repeatability offered by this system provides a game-changing alternative to patients and consumers suffering from skin conditions and premature skin aging,&rdquo; says Canan Dagdeviren, an associate professor in MIT&rsquo;s Media Lab and the senior author of the study. &ldquo;Delivering drugs this way could offer less systemic toxicity and is more local, comfortable, and controllable.&rdquo;MIT research assistants Chia-Chen Yu and Aastha Shah are the lead authors of the&nbsp;<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202300066" target="_blank">paper</a>, which appears in&nbsp;Advanced&nbsp;Materials, as part of the journal&rsquo;s &ldquo;Rising Stars&rdquo; series, which showcases the outstanding work of researchers in the early stages of their independent careers. Other MIT authors include Research Assistant Colin Marcus and postdoc Md Osman Goni Nayeem. Nikta Amiri, Amit Kumar Bhayadia, and Amin Karami of the University of Buffalo are also authors of the paper.<h2>A boost from sound waves</h2>The researchers began this project as an exploration of alternative ways to deliver drugs. Most drugs are delivered orally or intravenously, but the skin is a route that could offer much more targeted drug delivery for certain applications.&ldquo;The main benefit with skin is that you bypass the whole gastrointestinal tract. With oral delivery, you have to deliver a much larger dose in order to account for the loss that you would have in the gastric system,&rdquo; Shah says. &ldquo;This is a much more targeted, focused modality of drug delivery.&rdquo;Ultrasound exposure has been shown to enhance the skin&rsquo;s permeability to small-molecule drugs, but most of the existing techniques for performing this kind of drug delivery require bulky equipment. The MIT team wanted to come up with a way to perform this kind of transdermal drug delivery with a lightweight, wearable patch, which could make it easier to use for a variety of applications.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VpUCtA5D8PA?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-gtm-yt-inspected-7="true" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>The device that they designed consists of a patch embedded with several disc-shaped piezoelectric transducers, which can convert electric currents into mechanical energy. Each disc is embedded in a polymeric cavity that contains the drug molecules dissolved in a liquid solution. When an electric current is applied to the piezoelectric elements, they generate pressure waves in the fluid, creating bubbles that burst against the skin. These bursting bubbles produce microjets of fluid that can penetrate through the skin&rsquo;s tough outer layer, the stratum corneum.&ldquo;This works open the door to using vibrations to enhance drug delivery. There are several parameters that result in generation of different kinds of waveform patterns. Both mechanical and biological aspects of drug delivery can be improved by this new toolset,&rdquo; Karami says.The patch is made of PDMS, a silicone-based polymer that can adhere to the skin without tape. In this study, the researchers tested the device by delivering a B vitamin called niacinamide, an ingredient in many sunscreens and moisturizers.In tests using pig skin, the researchers showed that when they delivered niacinamide using the ultrasound patch, the amount of drug that penetrated the skin was 26 times greater than the amount that could pass through the skin without ultrasonic assistance.The researchers also compared the results from their new device to microneedling, a technique sometimes used for transdermal drug delivery, which involves puncturing the skin with miniature needles. The researchers found that their patch was able to deliver the same amount of niacinamide in 30 minutes that could be delivered with microneedles over a six-hour period.<h2>Local delivery</h2>With the current version of the device, drugs can penetrate a few millimeters into the skin, making this approach potentially useful for drugs that act locally within the skin. These could include niacinamide or vitamin C, which is used to treat age spots or other dark spots on the skin, or topical drugs used to heal burns.With further modifications to increase the penetration depth, this technique could also be used for drugs that need to reach the bloodstream, such as caffeine, fentanyl, or lidocaine. Dagdeviren also envisions that this kind of patch could be useful for delivering hormones such as progesterone. In addition, the researchers are now exploring the possibility of implanting similar devices inside the body to deliver drugs to treat cancer or other diseases.The researchers are also working on further optimizing the wearable patch, in hopes of testing it soon on human volunteers. They also plan to repeat the lab experiments they did in this study, with larger drug molecules.&ldquo;After we characterize the drug penetration profiles for much larger drugs, we would then see which candidates, like hormones or insulin, can be delivered using this technology, to provide a painless alternative for those who are currently bound to self-administer injections on a daily basis,&rdquo; Shah says.The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, the Sagol Weizmann-MIT Bridge Program, Texas Instruments, Inc., the MIT Media Lab Consortium, and a K. Lisa Yang Bionics Center Graduate Fellowship.<hr>&quot;Reprinted with permission of&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2023/wearable-patch-can-painlessly-deliver-drugs-through-skin-0419" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MIT News</a>&quot; &nbsp;

MIT researchers have developed a wearable patch that applies painless ultrasonic waves to the skin, creating tiny channels that drugs can pass through. Image: Courtesy of the researchers

Using ultrasonic waves that propel drug molecules into the skin, the patch could be used to treat a variety of skin conditions.

Wearable patch can painlessly deliver drugs through the skin

A camel cannot go through the eye of a needle. But researchers at ETH Zurich have now achieved something that &ndash; figuratively speaking &ndash; comes quite close. They have developed a new approach to minimally invasive surgical instruments, thanks to which large objects can be brought into the body through a narrow catheter.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wuiAQJF8z88?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> This works as follows: The researchers disassemble such devices into individual parts and then slide them through the catheter in a row, like a string of pearls. At the end of the catheter, the parts assemble themselves into a predefined shape thanks to built-in magnets.In its research, the team &ndash; led by ETH doctoral student Hongri Gu, who is now a postdoc at the University of Konstanz &ndash; was primarily concerned with demonstrating the many possibilities of this new approach. In a relatively simple way and using 3D printing, the scientists also constructed an endoscopic grasper. Moreover, they showed that the new approach makes it possible to assemble an endoscope head consisting of three parts.For their prototypes, the researchers combined soft, elastic segments with rigid segments, into which the tiny magnets are incorporated. This design method also makes it possible for an endoscope head to perform movements with very tight radii and angles that aren&rsquo;t feasible with today&rsquo;s endoscopes. This increased mobility broadens the possibilities when designing devices for minimally invasive surgery on organs such as the intestine or the stomach. The scientists published their demonstration study in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36819-z" target="_blank">external pageNature Communicationscall_made</a>.

For minimally invasive surgery, the instruments used must be small. ETH Zurich researchers have now developed a method to transport large devices through a narrow catheter. This expands the possibilities for designing minimally invasive surgical tools.