Iván Moreno Plaza: European Inventor Award and the Importance of Health

The European Inventor Award

Lisbon, Portugal, recently became the European capital of innovation to celebrate the edition 2016 of the European Inventor Award, an award that is given to those who make the world a better place for the rest of humanity with their creations and developments. This time, six inventors from various countries of that continent and other parts of the world were recognized for their contributions to various fields of science, especially health, where at least three mentions are related to this field. Today, MIGLOBAL will keep you on the news about this topic.

More about the winners and their contributions

Helen Lee, a leading Franco-Asian-English researcher, can be considered one of the great big winners of these awards since her initiative of a diagnostic kit for infectious diseases, including -but not limited- to HIV got the largest margin of voter in the history of the important event (64% of the votes via the Internet), which not only enhance her invention, but a life devoted to the study in her area.

Helen Lee. Popular Prize winner

Also, Robert Langer, a professor at MIT in Boston, won the prize in the category of "non-European countries" for its work in developing a new generation of drugs that help in cancer therapy, which is known for stopping the development of malignant tumors. The scientist has invented a biodegradable plastic device that encapsulates powerful drugs that fight these tumors and that are implanted directly into the tumor allowing its performance at the target point.

Bernhard Gleich and Jürgen Weizenecker of Germany were also recognized, this time in the industrial category for their invention of a three-dimensional high precision scanner, which allows doctors to see inside the human body by using nanoparticles of iron oxide, and has characteristics of superparamagnetism acting with the magnetic field of the equipment, but otherwise remain inert, and are then eliminated naturally.

Robert Langer. The other winner

MIGLOBAL and the Remote Patient Monitoring

New Advances for Remote Monitoring

Pioneering companies in the development of equipment for remote and wireless patient monitoring recently announced that the Food and Drug Administration of the United States gave the permission needed to start the development of a new non-invasive device of own invention that will allow the control both of blood pressure and the patient's heart condition, based on its proprietary technology of sensors on the fingertips of the user. Today, MIGLOBAL explains you more details about these new medical advances.

This wearable monitor allows continuous monitoring without the use of wires or electrodes of vital signs of the patient, without any type of disrupts in the daily lives of the patients, maintaining a continuous and mobile care, either in the clinic or hospital, during transportation or remotely, after the hospital visits. This implies a large advance over previous systems that required invasive procedures for its operation.

A Wearable Monitor

Technology of Pulses Decomposition, developed for this product, allows the non-invasive measurement, moment by moment, in blood pressure that exceeds the requirements of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI); this device also measures the heart rate as accurately as a three leads electrocardiogram (ECG).

A secure webpage or application installed on any mobile device will transmit the information to the medical staff in charge of the patient. It is important to mention that, before these new technologies, some systems for measuring the blood pressure of the patient time to time required some type of procedure, such as placement of a catheter or complicated equipment, uncomfortable to carry, that the patient only used in critical care situations.

Transmition of the Information

However, Continuous Non-Invasive Blood Pressure (cNIBP) is able to provide measurements with the same quality obtained in intensive care wards without the ones mentioned above, giving the professionals the opportunity to detect early tendencies in hemodynamic deterioration, which would give them more time to intervene while receiving understandable hemodynamic data status of the patient.

Iván Moreno Plaza: MIGLOBAL and the Limits of Imagination

James Young and the bionic arm

James Young is a scientist specializing in biology that, due to an unfortunate train accident lost his left arm four years ago. After the incident, he passed through an intervention that seems to come out of a sci-fi story to recover what he lost. Instead of living his entire live using traditional prosthesis, James Young decided to make himself a bionic being, and now he has a robotic arm. 

Today, MIGLOBAL continues with the presentation of great technologies and new advances in the creation of robotic prosthesis in the health field for you to be on date about what is looks like a futuristic reality.

Alternative Limb Project, a team of experts in the field that includes 3D designers, electronic specialists, engineers in mechanical and robotics, as well as specialized designers in GTR, which is a company that builds parts carbon fiber for Formula 1 and aerospace projects), helped James to create his new arm, a unique piece in its kind. However, concreting this design was not an easy task.

Sophie de Oliveira Barata, creator of this group, began her career working on special effects for Hollywood movies; she said this has been the most challenging proposal to date, so it took a total of eleven members of the team to make it a reality. The result is a functional piece of high technology, inspired by the James’s favorite videogame, Metal Gear Solid.

Some of the functions and other characteristics of the arm

The bionic arm includes a removable panel on the shoulder, with small magnets capable of holding small objects such as a camera or phone, which can also be recharged by an attachment in the member. It also has: 

• heart monitor,
• USB port,
• torch,
• laser,
• a quadcopter drone,
• and a small screen with Bluetooth capabilities, where the user can receive e-mails, calls, messages and notifications from social networks.

Equipment upgrades will always be just on hand, since the possibilities for an arm of this type are endless and, although the arm has LED lights that run through it, Young continues to propose ideas and gadgets for his arm that can be generated by impressions in three dimensions.

'Metal Gear Solid'-inspired prosthetic limb sends e-mail and charges phones