Computational design of artificial organs

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Artificial Organs: SynCardia Heart

With an increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease, heart transplants are on the rise. As a result, the need for donor hearts exceeds current availability. To care for heart failure patients, healthcare professionals have developed the SynCardia total artificial heart. This article explains the artificial heart and its implementation into clinical practice

Computer aided mechanogenesis of skeletal muscle organs from single cells in vitro

Complex mechanical forces generated in the growing embryo play an important role in organogenesis. Computerized application of similar forces to differentiating skeletal muscle myoblasts in vitro generate three dimensional artificial muscle organs. These organs contain parallel networks of long unbranched myofibers organized into fascicle-like structures. Tendon development is initiated and the muscles are capable of performing directed, functional work. Kinetically engineered organs provide a new method for studying the growth and development of normal and diseased skeletal muscle

Large Area Electronic Skin

Technological advances have enabled various approaches for developing artificial organs such as bionic eyes, artificial ears, and lungs etc. Recently electronics (e-skin) or tactile skin has attracted increasing attention for its potential to detect subtle pressure changes, which may open up applications including real-time health monitoring, minimally invasive surgery, and prosthetics. The development of e-skin is challenging as, unlike other artificial organs, tactile skin has large number of different types of sensors, which are distributed over large areas and generate large amount of data. On top of this, the attributes such as softness, stretchability, and bendability etc., are difficult to be achieved as today's electronics technology is meant for electronics on planar and stiff substrates such as silicon wafers. This said, many advances, pursued through “More than Moore” technology, have recently raised hope as some of these relate to flexible electronics and have been targeted towards developing e-skin. Depending on the technology and application, the scale of e-skin could vary from small patch (e.g. for health monitoring) to large area skin (e.g. for robotics). This invited paper presents some of the advances in large area e-skin and flexible electronics, particularly related to robotics

Application of Artificial Intelligence Technology in Radiotherapy to Delineate Endangered Organs

With the development of science and technology, artificial intelligence technology has been tried to be applied to all aspects of tumor radiotherapy, including respiratory motion prediction during simulated positioning, delineation of dangerous organs and tumor targets, and prediction of dose distribution. At present, clinical radiotherapy is mainly used in the automatic delineation of endangered organs, and artificial intelligence has demonstrated high accuracy in the delineation of dangerous organs, but there are also certain limitations. This article reviews the application and shortcomings of artificial systems in the automatic delineation of dangerous organs

Geometric bionics: Lotus effect helps polystyrene nanotube films get good blood compatibility

Various biomaterials have been widely used for manufacturing biomedical applications including artificial organs, medical devices and disposable clinical apparatus, such as vascular prostheses, blood pumps, artificial kidney, artificial hearts, dialyzers and plasma separators, which could be used in contact with blood^1^. However, the research tasks of improving hemocompatibility of biomaterials have been carrying out with the development of biomedical requirements^2^. Since the interactions that lead to surface-induced thrombosis occurring at the blood-biomaterial interface become a reason of familiar current complications with grafts therapy, improvement of the blood compatibility of artificial polymer surfaces is, therefore a major issue in biomaterials science^3^. After decades of focused research, various approaches of modifying biomaterial surfaces through chemical or biochemical methods to improve their hemocompatibility were obtained^1^. In this article, we report that polystyrene nanotube films with morphology similar to the papilla on lotus leaf can be used as blood-contacted biomaterials by virtue of Lotus effect^4^. Clearly, this idea, resulting from geometric bionics that mimicking the structure design of lotus leaf, is very novel technique for preparation of hemocompatible biomaterials

An anatomy of healthcare and 'cyborgization' Part I : How can we define a cyborg?

"In this paper, I will anatomize some relationships between artificial organs and ' cyborgization ' in healthcare. Nowadays, many kinds of artificial organs are practically used to help not a few patients. Can we call any person who lives with some artificial organs a cyborg? Or could we call him/her a robot? At present, we might call him/her a cyborg. But, we could not call them a robot, because a cyborg is a symbiotic creature that is part human, part machine; a robot, on the other hand, is nothing but a machine. Firstly, I will try to arrange a compact concept of ' cyborg ' referring mainly to Heilinger & Mueller ' s requirements for being a cyborg. In order to be called a cyborg, what kind of machine (or equipment) must a host human have? Here, I call it a ' machine-for-cyborg. ' Then I propose the three necessary conditions, as follows: 1 ) the ' machine-for-cyborg ' must be embedded totally or partially in the host human body; 2 ) it should not consist of cells of living things (humans, animals or plants) ; and, 3 ) it can function actively (not passively) and collaboratively with its host. Secondly, I will try to sort main artificial organs into some ' machine-for- cyborgs ' and the others. Finally, I will briefly illustrate some correlation and difference between a cyborg and a robot. For instance, we can imagine that the ultimate cyborg that would be cyborgized unlimitedly could be replaced entirely with such ' machines ' or artificial organs: we could call this ultimate cyborg a type of robot (I named the process ' robotization ' of a cyborg.) This change will show another matter of the cyborgization which concerns the quality of life (of cyborg) that represents ' human rights ' and questions how far we can or should ethically ' cyborgize ' patients or treat them by using artificial organs. "サイボーグの定義医療サイボーグ化人工臓器ロボット