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0:04
Now, the next part of the slides I
wanted to talk about are sensors,
and I think this is another very
promising avenue for nanomedicine.
0:14
Whenever somebody has a hip
implant, or any medical device
for that matter, you have
to go into a hospital.
You have to go into
a surgical suite.
You have to get an X-ray,
get a bone scan to determine
how your implant is performing.
And many times, the
information you get,
it's too late to do
anything about it.
These measurement techniques
are not sensitive enough.
They're not precise enough to
determine small amounts of bacteria
that might be present, whether
bone growth is not occurring,
if scar tissue is starting.
They're not sensitive enough
to determine those events.
And many times they only show
up on these X-rays or bone
scans when the problem is too big.
0:53
We're thinking of
implantable sensors
that you can put on implants
or other parts of the body
to determine events,
cellular events.
So we have a sensor
component that I'll describe.
This is a component
that will detect what's
happening surrounding your implant.
We have a responder.
So of course, you want to be
able to do something about it
if bacteria are present
around your implant.
So we have something that can
respond to an external iPhone
application, for example, to release
a drug to kill those bacteria.
And then, of course, the last
circle here is the processor.
So we have to process all this
information from the sensor,
from the responder, to
allow for a human interface.
1:37
You can see our sensor.
So here is the titanium hip
implant as our first model.
We're now studying this for
catheters and other applications.
But you can just quickly look at
the bottom right, which shows how
we have anodized
titanium, which is what
the hip implant is composed of.
And then we grew carbon
nanotubes out of the surface.
These carbon nanotubes, or
multi-wall carbon nanotubes,
electrically sense
what cell attaches.
So bone cells have a
different conductivity
than bacteria, which has
a different conductivity
than scar tissue-forming cells.
So by using carbon nanotubes to
measure the conductivity of a cell
that attaches, we can identify it.
Now, pictured above
is our responder.
We've created a
biodegradable polymer coating
that can basically
release a drug when
we apply an electromagnetic field.
So this biodegradable conductive
polymer could release an antibiotic
if we sense through
the carbon nanotubes
that bacteria have
attached, or it could
release an anti-inflammatory if we
see that macrophages have attached.
So that's our responder.
You can see on the
left our processor.
So we have developed this
sensor to send radio frequencies
to a computer, or again
a handheld device,
to communicate what is happening
inside the body surrounding
this implant.
So it's a whole collection of
a more intelligent implant that
can earlier determine adverse events
that might be occurring surrounding
the implant to ensure
success later on,
things that are not possible
with today's technology.
And by the way, this
is all in real time.
So every minute somebody
is using their implant
or the implant is in the body, this
sensor collects information, which
is much better than having a patient
go in periodically for an X-ray
to determine what's happening.
