New Technique Bioprints Live Cells Inside the Body Using Ultrasonic Waves

The AHA! Team — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 08:57:53 +0000

Zachy Hennessey via Israel21c – Revolutionary acousto-printing method can be used to circumvent invasive surgery and has a wide array of potential applications. A new drug delivery and tissue implantation technique utilizing ultrasound waves as an alternative to surgery has been developed in the Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering Lab of Prof. Shulamit Levenberg at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The technique allows for bioprinting live cells and tissues deep within the body using external soundwave irradiation. This approach eliminates the need for invasive procedures that come with risks such as infections, tissue damage and prolonged recovery times. Traditionally, delivering biocompatible materials for applications like localized drug release and tissue grafting has required invasive surgeries. The new method directly delivers cells or drugs within a fluid biological ink to the targeted area, either through injection or catheterization. Soundwaves from an external ultrasonic transducer trigger the printing of engineered tissue from that ink, enabling the creation of complex tissue structures without exposing the internal treatment site. Significantly, the mechanical properties of the generated grafts can be customized to match target tissues and desired drug-release rates, offering a more tailored approach to medical interventions. The method was developed by postdoctoral fellow Lior Debbi in Levenberg’s lab at the Technion with Majd Machour, a doctoral student in the MD/PhD program. They say this technology could be used in a variety of applications; according to the full study published in Small Methods. Demonstrated use cases include “viable and functional cell delivery, drug delivery with sustained release profiles, and 3D printing.” “This promising technology may shift the paradigm for local and noninvasive material delivery approach in many clinical applications,” the study authors state, noting that it also presents “a new printing method — ‘acousto-printing’ — for 3D printing and in situ bioprinting.” To read the original article click here.

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Researchers Developing New Cancer Treatments With High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound

AHA Publisher — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 07:00:27 +0000

University of Waterloo via Newswise – Researchers are bringing the use of acoustic waves to target and destroy cancerous tumours closer to reality. While doctors have used low-intensity ultrasound as a medical imaging tool since the 1950s, experts at the University of Waterloo are using and extending models that help capture how high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can work on a cellular level. Led by Siv Sivaloganathan, an applied mathematician and researcher with the Centre for Math Medicine at the Fields Institute, the study found by running mathematical models in computer simulations that fundamental problems in the technology can be solved without any risk to actual patients. Sivaloganathan, together with his graduate students June Murley, Kevin Jiang and postdoctoral fellow Maryam Ghasemi, creates the mathematical models used by engineers and doctors to put HIFU into practice. He said his colleagues in other fields are interested in the same problems, “but we’re coming at this from different directions”. “My side of it is to use mathematics and computer simulations to develop a solid model that others can take and use in labs or clinical settings. And although the models are not nearly as complex as human organs and tissue, the simulations give a huge head start for clinical trials.” One of the obstacles that Sivaloganathan is currently working to overcome is that in targeting cancers, HIFU also poses risks to healthy tissue. When HIFU is being used to destroy tumours or cancerous lesions, the hope is that good tissue won’t be destroyed. The same applies when focusing the intense acoustic waves on a tumour on the bone where lots of heat energy gets released. Sivaloganathan and his colleagues are working to understand how the heat dissipates and if it damages the bone marrow. Other researchers working with Sivaloganathan include engineers, who are building the physical technology, and medical doctors, in particular, James Drake, chief surgeon at Hospital for Sick Children, looking at the practical application of HIFU in clinical settings. Sivaloganathan believes HIFU will make significant changes in cancer treatments and other medical procedures and treatments. HIFU is already finding practical application in the treatment of some prostate cancers. “It’s an area that I think is going to take center stage in clinical medicine,” he said. “It doesn’t have the negative side effects of radiation therapy or chemotherapy. There are no side effects other than the effect of heat, which we are working on right now. It also has applications as a new way to break up blood clots and even to administer drugs.” To read the original article click here.

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high intensity focused ultrasound Archives - Amazing Health Advances

New Technique Bioprints Live Cells Inside the Body Using Ultrasonic Waves

Researchers Developing New Cancer Treatments With High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound