Researchers use Stäubli robots to test potential treatments in experimental projects. The result: in one week, the RX160 6-axis robots conduct millions of experiments faster and more accurately than any human could.
Stäubli
Robots revolutionize life sciences labs
The COVID-19 crisis has spurred life sciences labs to ramp up output at warp speed – and Stäubli Robotics is helping to meet critical needs.
As the challenges multiply and pressure mounts, Stäubli Robotics is actively expanding its offerings to the life sciences market, including a full range of flexible and collaborative robotic arms and mobility solutions. The company has been developing high-throughput screening (HTS) technologies since the early 2000s and presented its latest innovations for lab automation at SLAS 2021.
Many challenges in the life sciences sector pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic but were accelerated by these unprecedented circumstances. Demands for higher throughput, greater efficiency and productivity have intensified, along with increased need to minimize time spent on repetitive tasks, ensure safety, and maintain compliance with strict hygienic requirements. In response, labs are increasingly implementing robotics for automated liquid handling and diagnostic systems.
Swiss-based Stäubli has been making innovative leaps in automation for sensitive environments for over two decades as a supplier of robots, and more recently, mobility solutions including AMRs (autonomous mobile robots) and AGVs (automated guided vehicles). The company was the first to develop a fully encapsulated robot design with a minimized footprint and optimized work envelope, ideal for stringent laboratory requirements.
Working with specialized equipment builders, Stäubli offers customized solutions for lab automation that can transform biotech and pharmaceutical applications in terms of precision, safety, ease of use and integration, enabling seamless functioning with sequencing software.
The mobile and connected laboratory of the future has arrived, and Stäubli has the technology and capabilities to meet the most demanding requirements in life science, covering:
Cell culture apparatus/supplies
Clinical automation/CLIA
Diagnostics, clinical and pre-clinical
Drug discovery
Genomics & DNA sequencing
HTS products and services
Liquid handling equipment
Microplate handlers
Custom robotics
Pre-surgical planning made it possible for surgeons to virtually select and position various medical implants to predict the optimal anatomical fit.
Materialise
3D technologies support world’s first double hand & face transplant
Materialise’s 3D printing and surgical planning tools provide increased speed and accuracy.
During a preparation period of 14 months, Materialise clinical engineers formed a cohesive team alongside NYU Langone surgeons, rehearsing the operation in a lab environment to develop and fine-tune the surgical plan.
3D technologies, developed by Materialise, played a crucial role in the world’s first simultaneous double hand and face transplant that was successfully performed at NYU Langone Health in Manhattan, New York. Materialise’s 3D planning and printing tools enable the speed and accuracy required for such a complex medical procedure. 3D printed personalized tools, such as those used in the double hand and face transplant, are also increasingly common for use in routine surgery, providing surgeons with an additional level of confidence which results in improved patient outcome.
Materialise engineers coordinated the development of a surgical plan and created an on-screen 3D model based on CT-scans.
The 22-year-old patient suffered burn wounds resulting from a car accident, leaving him with severe injuries to his face and both arms. He suffered significant damage to his soft tissue, which severely limited his ability to lead a normal life. During a preparation period of 14 months, Materialise clinical engineers formed a cohesive team alongside NYU Langone surgeons, rehearsing the operation in a lab environment to develop and fine-tune the surgical plan. Once a suitable donor was found, the team, led by Dr. Eduardo D. Rodriguez, the Helen L. Kimmel Professor of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and chair of the Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery at NYU Langone, had only 24 hours to begin the procedure that would improve the patient’s function, appearance, and quality of life.
A fully guided system for bone fragment repositioning and fixation was unique to the patient’s anatomy and helped position the medical tools with great precision, reducing the overall surgery time.
In the months leading up to the surgery Materialise engineers coordinated the development of a surgical plan and created an on-screen 3D model based on CT-scans. This allowed the surgeons and clinical engineers to virtually plan the procedure and visualize different scenarios in three dimensions, creating an in-depth understanding of the anatomical bone structure and determining the optimal surgical flow. Pre-surgical planning also made it possible for surgeons to virtually select and position various medical implants to predict the optimal anatomical fit. Once the surgical plan was finalized, Materialise 3D printed the personalized surgical guides, anatomical models, and tools for use during the transplant surgery.
Image-based planning and medical 3D printing have completely revolutionized personalized patient care by providing surgeons with detailed insights and an additional level of confidence before entering the operation room.
During this momentous procedure, Rodriguez and his surgical team of 16 used Materialise’s 3D printed cutting and drilling guides. This fully guided system for bone fragment repositioning and fixation was unique to the patient’s anatomy and helped position the medical tools with great precision, reducing the overall surgery time. Additionally, Materialise created 3D printed sterilizable identification tags for nerves and blood vessels, 3D printed models that were used during donor transport, and 3D printed splints, enabling optimal donor hand position during soft tissue reconstruction.
During a preparation period of 14 months, Materialise clinical engineers formed a cohesive team alongside NYU Langone surgeons, rehearsing the operation in a lab environment to develop and fine-tune the surgical plan.
“Complex transplant surgery like this brings together a large team of specialists and presents new and unique challenges,” Rodriguez says. “This demands careful planning and makes timing, efficiency and accuracy absolutely critical. Virtually planning the surgery in 3D and creating 3D printed, patient-specific tools offer additional insights in the pre-operative phase and increased levels of speed and accuracy during a time-critical surgery.”
“Image-based planning and medical 3D printing have completely revolutionized personalized patient care by providing surgeons with detailed insights and an additional level of confidence before entering the operation room,” says Bryan Crutchfield, vice president and general manager – North America. “As a result, leading hospitals are adopting 3D planning and printing services as part of their medical practices because they create a level of predictability that would be impossible to achieve without the use of 3D technologies.”
Materialise has pioneered many leading medical applications of 3D printing and enables researchers, engineers, and clinicians to develop innovative, personalized treatments that help improve and save lives. The Materialise platform of software and services forms the foundation of certified medical 3D printing in clinical and research environments, offering virtual planning software tools, 3D-printed anatomical models, and personalized surgical guides and implants.
Faster inspection of specialty valves for ventilators
OGP’s TurnCheck enables Cygnus Manufacturing Co. to scan and measure cylindrical parts in seconds, not minutes.
Cygnus Manufacturing Company (CMC) provides full-service manufacturing from prototype through production of high precision products and components for the medical device, transportation, energy, and aerospace industries.
As an FDA compliant and ISO 13485 medical device certified manufacturer, a leading U.S. ventilator company approached CMC at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic requesting expeditious assistance to substantially increase its production of a specialty valve in response to the country’s shortage of life-saving ventilators.
The ventilator company had a chrome on brass part requiring documented measurements of 31 datapoints after manufacturing and again after plating. While CMC had been manufacturing this valve prior to the start of the pandemic, the substantial increase in production volume in a short time frame necessitated much faster and more automated measuring capability.
They needed a precision optical instrument designed to scan and measure cylindrical parts in seconds, not minutes so they turned to Inspection Technologies to identify a metrology solution. As an OGPrepresentative, Inspection Technologies suggested a TurnCheck precision optical instrument system equipped with intelligent and intuitive software.
Since CMC needed an immediate production ramp-up solution, Inspection Technologies worked with OGP to expedite order and production of the TurnCheck while OGP was able to fast-track the delivery.
Craig Harding, chairman and CEO of CMC comments, “We were extremely pleased with the speed of OGP’s responsiveness and the high-quality performance of the TurnCheck system, allowing immediate increased ventilator production to help meet the country’s demand during this crisis.”
OGP President, R. Stephen Flynn adds, “It is with great pleasure that we were able to meet the expectations of this customer to enable the manufacturing of such an important product during this difficult time.”
GIE Media
Have lunch with us Feb. 18, 2021
Register for this Lunch and Learn event to hear from The L.S. Starrett Co. and Rollomatic on the new techology to help you be even more successful.
We have so many opportunities for you to expand your knowledge! Plan on registering for our free Manufacturing Lunch & Learn webinar on Feb. 18 from 12PM to 1PM ET.
During the event, representatives from The L.S. Starrett Company and Rollomatic will provide an in-depth look into new, reliable technologies that can ensure a competitive edge. A Q&A session will follow each presentation, offering deeper insights and allowing attendees to get answers to their specific questions.
A group of KAIST researchers and collaborators have engineered a tiny brain implant that can be wirelessly recharged from outside the body to control brain circuits for long periods of time without battery replacement. The device is constructed of ultra-soft and bio-compliant polymers to help provide long-term compatibility with tissue. Geared with micrometer-sized LEDs (equivalent to the size of a grain of salt) mounted on ultrathin probes (the thickness of a human hair), it can wirelessly manipulate target neurons in the deep brain using light.
This study, led by Professor Jae-Woong Jeong, is a step forward from the wireless head-mounted implant neural device he developed in 2019. That previous version could indefinitely deliver multiple drugs and light stimulation treatment wirelessly by using a smartphone.
For the new upgraded version, the research team came up with a fully implantable, soft optoelectronic system that can be remotely and selectively controlled by a smartphone. This research was published on January 22, 2021 in Nature Communications.
The new wireless charging technology addresses the limitations of current brain implants. Wireless implantable device technologies have recently become popular as alternatives to conventional tethered implants, because they help minimize stress and inflammation in freely-moving animals during brain studies, which in turn enhance the lifetime of the devices. However, such devices require either intermittent surgeries to replace discharged batteries, or special and bulky wireless power setups, which limit experimental options as well as the scalability of animal experiments.
"This powerful device eliminates the need for additional painful surgeries to replace an exhausted battery in the implant, allowing seamless chronic neuromodulation," said Professor Jeong. "We believe that the same basic technology can be applied to various types of implants, including deep brain stimulators, and cardiac and gastric pacemakers, to reduce the burden on patients for long-term use within the body."
To enable wireless battery charging and controls, researchers developed a tiny circuit that integrates a wireless energy harvester with a coil antenna and a Bluetooth low-energy chip. An alternating magnetic field can harmlessly penetrate through tissue, and generate electricity inside the device to charge the battery. Then the battery-powered Bluetooth implant delivers programmable patterns of light to brain cells using an "easy-to-use" smartphone app for real-time brain control.
"This device can be operated anywhere and anytime to manipulate neural circuits, which makes it a highly versatile tool for investigating brain functions," said lead author Choong Yeon Kim, a researcher at KAIST.
Neuroscientists successfully tested these implants in rats and demonstrated their ability to suppress cocaine-induced behaviour after the rats were injected with cocaine. This was achieved by precise light stimulation of relevant target neurons in their brains using the smartphone-controlled LEDs. Furthermore, the battery in the implants could be repeatedly recharged while the rats were behaving freely, thus minimizing any physical interruption to the experiments.
"Wireless battery re-charging makes experimental procedures much less complicated," said the co-lead author Min Jeong Ku, a researcher at Yonsei University's College of Medicine.
"The fact that we can control a specific behaviour of animals, by delivering light stimulation into the brain just with a simple manipulation of smartphone app, watching freely moving animals nearby, is very interesting and stimulates a lot of imagination," said Jeong-Hoon Kim, a professor of physiology at Yonsei University's College of Medicine. "This technology will facilitate various avenues of brain research."
The researchers believe this brain implant technology may lead to new opportunities for brain research and therapeutic intervention to treat diseases in the brain and other organs.
Posted by Elizabeth Engler Modic
