NASA Tech Briefs Insider Blog

New Technologies for Heart Patients

Square leaflet mechanical heart valves allow efficient blood flow with low shear stress because there are no obstructions in the path of blood flow. This patented innovation in mechanical heart valve design is simple, cost-effective, and substantially improves existing mechanical heart valve designs. Rectangular leaflets provide a means to completely remove any central obstruction to blood flow.
More information here.

This technology offers a quick, inexpensive, and consistent method for determining the effectiveness of cardioversion in atrial fibrillation (AF) patients, and offers physicians a tool to differentiate between patients who will successfully cardiovert and those who will not. Cardioversion returns AF to a normal heart rhythm through either an electric shock or drugs. This technology is rapid, complementary to existing work-ups, and uses existing equipment.
More information here.

The Technologies of the Week describe inventions offered for license through the yet2.com marketplace. Search over $2.5 billion of licensable technologies at www.yet2.com.

In-Orbit Ultrasounds Conducted Onboard Space Vehicles

Medical imaging technology has led to quicker diagnoses of conditions that, when caught early, can be treated. Because such devices are large, however, they are impractical in the limited area of a space vehicle. An on-going NASA project to address the issue involves image fusion, where in-orbit ultrasounds would be combined with previously done Earth-bound scans that are more informative. NASA Tech Briefs spoke with Dr. Richard Boyle, the project’s principal investigator.

Dr. Boyle explained, “Image fusion is the combining of images of the same subject from different modalities, from CT scans to MRIs. This produces a coherent 3D image that has multi-dimensional information that should be superior to any of the constituent images alone.”

Read the “Who’s Who at NASA” interview with Dr. Richard Boyle on page 10 of the June issue, or click here.

Soft Contacts for Cone-Shaped Corneas Could Eliminate Transplants

University of Rochester (New York) researchers have developed custom- designed contacts for people with keratoconic eyes, which are rare but disabling. From the side, the eyes look more pointed or cone-shaped than round. The condition causes people to see halos, and double and triple images. About 1 in 2,000 people suffer from the disease, usually in both eyes. The contacts would offer hope of nonsurgical treatment instead of corneal transplants.

“The condition shows up in a relatively small population, but it causes huge optical problems,” according to Geunyoung Yoon, assistant professor. “These people have problems so severe, they can’t tolerate glasses. The only available treatment is to wear hard contact lenses or a corneal transplant with a donored cornea if the disease is severe. And with the corneal transplant, there is a rejection rate.”

Conventional soft contacts do not work for keratoconic eyes, as they merely conform to the conical cornea shape. The custom-designed lenses have irregular front surface profiles designed to correct for specific aberrations of the cornea and crystalline lens. The scientists designed the front profiles by measuring with wavefront sensors exactly how light enters the subjects’ eyes through the misshapen cornea. Keeping the lenses exactly in place is still a challenge, as blinking notoriously shifts contacts.

Read the full story here.

Medical scientists at PTC Therapeutics (S. Plainfield, NJ) have entered into trials an oral drug therapy aimed at treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy and other genetic conditions caused by “nonsense mutations.” Nonsense mutations inactivate gene function and are known to cause anywhere from five to 70% of the individual cases of most inherited diseases, such as cystic fibrosis (10%) and Hurler’s syndrome (70%). The drug, PTC124, is designed to bypass the mutations.

“As these preclinical data demonstrate, the broad potential of PTC124 lies in its specificity and unique mechanism of action, which has the potential to address the underlying cause of a broad range of genetic disorders due to nonsense mutations,” said Stuart W. Peltz, PhD, president and CEO of PTC Therapeutics.

For more information, click here

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD) have cured malaria-infected mice with single shots of a new series of potent, long-lasting synthetic drugs modeled on an ancient Chinese herbal folk remedy. The drugs mimic artemisinin, the active agent in a Chinese herbal drug used to treat malaria and other fevers for thousands of years. Artemisinin comes from the Artemisia annua plant.

“These peroxide compounds promise not only to be more effective than today’s best malaria remedies, but also potentially safer and more efficient,” said research team leader Gary Posner, Scowe Professor of Chemistry in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins. The oxygen-oxygen unit in the peroxides causes malaria parasites to self-destruct.

For more information, click here.