Drugless approach that could thin blood during open-heart surgeries

Brigham Young University researchers recently developed a new anticoagulation strategy for use during extracorporeal circulation (ECC) that does not involve systemic administration of heparin, which causes negative reactions in three to 10 percent of surgical patients. "Rather than give something to the patient to prevent coagulation, let's take something out," says BYU biomedical engineer Kenneth A. Solen, who led the study published in the August issue of ASAIO Journal (the journal of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs).

Solen’s team inhibited coagulation by absorbing plasma clotting factors using protamine immobilized on a Sepharose matrix (PSM). In a porcine ex-vivo circuit, plasma was separated from blood via plasmapheresis, passed through a column containing PSM beads, and then returned. After 90 minutes, prothrombin time (PT) was prolonged more than 10 times the baseline and blood clotting Factors I (fibrinogen), II (prothrombin), VIII, and X were decreased more than 90 percent. This state was maintained for 2 ½ hours without any detectable adverse consequences. Within 60 minutes of ECC cessation, PT approached normal levels and hemostasis was restored.

For More readings: Take a look at here.

Source:

Blake Ferguson
University Communications
Brigham Young University

The Venture business plan competetion 2008 Switzerland

"Venture 2008 takes you from business idea to professional business plan and all the way to the financing and founding of a company. The Venture business plan competition takes place every two years and combines a competition, learning events and contact forum in one."

Venture 2008 is an initiative of the ETH Zurich and McKinsey & Company, Switzerland. The Swiss-wide business plan competition supports young entrepreneurs in founding a company.

Experienced coaches support competition participants in the preparation of their business plans and in the search for suitable partners and the necessary capital. Participants also receive feedback from the team of highly qualified jurors. The jurors (approximately 80 people) belong to one of two groups: entrepreneurs, who evaluate the formal and business aspects of an idea, and venture capitalists, who evaluate its financial attractiveness. Jury members also act as coaches. Venture 2008 offers total prize money of CHF 150,000 for the winning business ideas and business plans.

For details of the competion click here.

Entrepreneurial opportunity identification: bring the gap between Research and its applications!

Lately, I have been participating in a course given by Prof. Gruber at the college of management of technology at EPFL on entrepreneurial opportunity identification and exploitation.

Here, I would like to make a brief resume of what I found interesting during recent discussions that we had in the program. This is about the very early stage of entrepreneurship when one might search or discover, through a mere idea or a technology, feasible market applications. I hope, this would be helpful for those researchers who seek to found a start-up or simply apply their knowledge in the “real world”.

1. Discovery of market opportunities depends on the information that people already possess. In a simpler world, different people might see different applications in a single technology or idea partly because of their different background. What you may see as a researcher as a potential application of the technology, may not be the only possible opportunity. It seems that it might be beneficial to make a heterogonous team to have some other feedbacks.

2. Identification and analysis of different opportunities in the market would help, later, in the productivity of the founded companies. This suggests that maybe looking at one or two alternative markets before entering to one might increase the chance to succeed. One should find a compromise between the effort, time and money that should be spent on this identification and the added value that it could bring to the market.

References:

Scott Shane, ‘prior knowledge and the discovery of the entrepreneurial opportunities’, Organization Science, 2000, vol. 11, No. 4, pp 448-469

Class notes of the mentioned course.

Upcoming conference 2008

16th congress of European society of Biomechanics,

Lucerne, Switzerland

July 6th-9th 2008

Deadline for abstract sumbission: 30th November 2007

First announcement and call for abstracts

Computed Ultrasound Risk Evaluation (C.U.R.E.)

During the last annual meeting of SSBE in Neuchatel, Switzerland, there was an interesting talk about a project called CURE, an undergoing study at the Karmanos Cancer institute,Detroit(USA). The talk was given by Prof. Neb Duric.

Here is a summary of Cure project:

C.U.R.E.: Computed Ultrasound Risk Evaluation

The project is an attempt to image breast, based on the interaction of acoustic waves with human tissue.

It is known that the relative risk of developing breast cancer is dependent on breast density. However, since x-ray mammography has poor sensitivity in dense breasts, the reliance on mammography to measure density has prevented expanded adoption of breast density as a risk factor. The ultrasound tomography provides a safe and alternative measure for assessing beast cancer risk and for identifying high risk groups.

Ultrasound tomography does not use ionizing radiation and does not compress the breast. For those who have already been subject to mamography, it is clear that squeasing the breast to bring it to an almost 2D state, is really painful. This approach would provide a potentially more specific alternative to mammography.

For more information about the project, take a look at this reference, where one should find even a nice powerpoint file.There are more information available on results of the project as well.

Conference announcement 2007

“Innovation in Drug Delivery: From Biomaterials to Devices”
30 September – 3 October 2007

http://www.apgi.org/missive/missive.htm

Symposium on Cardiovascular Diseases, Fribourg, Switzerland october 18,19 th ,2007

Here, you can find the announcement and registration form for the following symposium:

Cardiovascular Diseases -

The Blood, the Vasculature, and the Perivasculature

(October 18 and 19^th, 2007, Fribourg, Switzerland)

Organizers: Zhihong Yang and Brenda R.

Registration is free but mandatory.

Current event: Annual meeting of Biomechanics Society, France

XXXIIème congrès annuel de la société de Biomécanique,
Lyon,France 28-29 août 2007

XXXIIth annual meeting of French biomechanical societyLyon,France 28-29 August 2007

Medical Devices Vigilance regulations in Switzerland

Swissmedic is the central Swiss supervisory authority for therapeutic products. It is a public service organization of the federal government with headquarters in Bern.

Its core competence includes

• licensing medicines
• granting authorizations to manufacture and distribute wholesale, and inspecting facilities
• monitoring medicines and medical devices already on the market
• controlling the traffic of narcotics
• laboratory testing of medicine quality
• drafting laws and standards

Medical devices Vigilance:

In order to monitor medical devices already on the market, manufacturers and distributors placing medical devices on the Swiss market are required to report all serious incidents and recalls that are carried out for safety reasons.

• The European guidelines on vigilance to report procedure applies also in Switzerland. MEDDEV 2.12/1.
• Incidents: people responsible for the product on the market, should report incidences to Swissmed. An information sheet from Swissmedic describes the legal obligations and the reporting procedure for serious incidents.
• Recalls: In case of recall of a product from market, Swissmedic should be informed.

To get more information about Vigilance procedure in Switzerland, take a look at the following link:

Vigilance: reporting serious incidents with medical devices

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