Alfred Mann Institute For Biomedical Development at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (AMIT) Opens Doors of the $100 Million Institute

AMIT Advancing Israel's Leading Scientific-Technological University

VALENCIA, Calif., July 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering announced the opening of the most recent Alfred Mann Institute, this one at the Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology (AMIT) in Haifa, Israel. The AMIT is a university-based institute designed to enable commercialization of innovative biomedical technologies that improve human health.

The acronym AMIT stands for the Alfred Mann Institute at the Technion, which has a double meaning in Hebrew of "friend, colleague or partner." This partnership between the Mann Institute and the Technion will focus on advances in the biomedical, medical device and life sciences industries.

Alfred Mann, a world renowned entrepreneur and philanthropist, created the first AMI at the University of Southern California, which became operational in 2001 as a test-bed for the development for future AMIs. In 2004 he announced his Foundation's plans to establish a group of AMIs at a number of select universities over the coming years. Mann's vision has been to establish AMIs in an effort to make further advances in the biomedical field and bring new biomedical products to the public. AMIT is the second Institute to open its doors and the only Institute established internationally. A gift of $100M for the creation of the third AMI on the campus of Purdue University was announced earlier this year.

"We are delighted to partner with the Technion due to the university's technological innovation and tremendous contribution to Israel's economy," Al Mann stated in a conversation with Technion President, Professor Yitzhak Apeloig. "The Technion has already achieved impressive results and we believe it will continue to thrive in the areas of medicine, science, engineering and technology."

The motivation behind opening an institute within Israel came from Mann's wife, Claude Mann. Claude, who is not Jewish, has had a strong connection to the Jewish faith. Her father was active in the French Resistance during World War II and was sent to a concentration camp for hiding Jews from Nazi soldiers. Claude was born in a concentration camp and she will always hold a strong connection with the Jewish people.

During the opening ceremony of the institute, President Yitzhak Apeloig publicly applauded Claude's support of the university and honored her by dedicating a floor of the Institute in her name.

"We would like to express both our sincere gratitude and admiration to both Dr. Mann and his wife, Claude, for their generous donation to our university," stated President Apeloig. "We know that through the collaboration of our joint efforts, the Technion will continue to implement life changing research in a number of biomedical fields. We foresee that the Institute will create a platform for successful technologies and companies for years to come."

About the Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering

The Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering is a philanthropic organization that establishes university-based institutes (AMIs) to enable and support biomedical product development for the benefit of mankind. Alfred Mann's philanthropic mission is to create and expedite the delivery of life- improving biomedical products to patients.

Mann is chairman of the boards of directors for the Alfred Mann Institutes for biomedical development at USC, Purdue, and the Technion. Mann also is chairman and chief executive officer of MannKind Corp. and of Advanced Bionics Corp.; chairman of Second Sight LLC, Bioness Inc., AlleCure Corp., Quallion LLC and Inplantable Acoustics; and chairman emeritus of Pacesetter System Inc. and MiniMed. All of these highly successful companies were founded by Mann.

About the Technion

As Israel's oldest and premier institute of science and technology, the Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology has been an active and leading participant in Israel's establishment and development.

The university offers degrees in science and engineering, and related fields such as architecture, medicine, industrial management and education in an intellectually invigorating environment. Great emphasis is also placed on its humanities and social science programs, the incorporation of which take on ever-increasing importance in today's multi-faceted workplace. But Technion's goals go beyond providing a well-rounded technical education. At the institute, scientific instruction is interwoven with professional ethics, producing leaders sensitive to social and environmental issues.

As a whole, the Technion is committed to its role as one of Israel's top facilities for science and technology, a role that is necessary for the future of Israel and to all of humanity.

Source: Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering

NATURE'S SECRETS YIELD NEW ADHESIVE MATERIAL

Scientists report they have merged two of nature's most elegant strategies for wet and dry adhesion to produce a synthetic material that one day could lead to more durable and longer-lasting bandages, patches, and surgical materials. As published in this week's issue of the journal "Nature", the scientists, supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health, have designed a synthetic material that starts with the dry adhesive properties of the gecko lizard and supplements it with the underwater adhesive properties of a mussel. The hybrid material, which they call a geckel nanoadhesive, proved in initial testing to be adherent under dry and wet conditions. It also adhered much longer under both extremes than previous gecko-based synthetic adhesives, a major issue in this area of research.

According to the authors, their findings mark the first time that two polar opposite adhesion strategies in nature have been merged into a man-made reversible adhesive. "Our work represents a proof of principle that it can be done," said Phillip Messersmith, D. D.S., Ph.D., a scientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. and the senior author on the paper. "A great deal of research still must be done to refine the fabrication process and greatly reduce its cost. There's no reason to believe that these improvements can't be achieved, but it's going to take time."

Dr. Messersmith said the inspiration for the geckel nanoadhesive came about two years ago when he noticed an article about the adhesive force of a single hair from the foot of gecko. As lizard fans have long marveled, geckos climb walls and other dry, steep surfaces not by producing a glue-like substance but through a natural adaptation of the hairs of that cover the soles of their feet.

Roughly one-tenth the thickness of a human hair, each gecko hair splits multiple times at the end. These split ends contain cup-like structures called spatulae that vastly increase the hair's surface area. Whereas a human hair touches a surface just once, the gecko makes multiple contacts with the suction-like spatulae. With roughly a half million hairs on each foot, scientists estimate a gecko has a billion spatulae at work as it scampers up a wall.

Messersmith knew that researchers have attempted for several years to produce synthetic adhesives based on the adherence strategy of the gecko. What caught his eye in this article is gecko adhesion doesn't work well in water. Messersmith, who studies the underwater adhesion of mussels, had an idea. What if each synthetic gecko-inspired polymer, called a pillar, was coated with a man-made adhesive protein inspired by the mussel? As Messersmith mused, nobody had ever tried it and, if successful, this hybrid approach might spawn a new and potentially superior direction in designing temporary adhesive materials.

As reported in "Nature", Messersmith's idea turned out to be correct. He and his colleagues designed a small nanopolymer array that mimicked the natural spatial patterns of the hair on the foot of a gecko. They then coated their creation with a thin layer of a synthetic compound. This unusual compound mimics the reversible bonding action of a mussel adhesive protein that Messersmith's group has studied for the past several years.

In their initial experiments, which were led by graduate student Haeshin Lee, they found that the wet adhesive force of each pillar increased nearly 15 times when coated with the mussel mimetic and applied to titanium oxide, gold, and other surfaces. The dry adhesive force of the pillars also improved when coated with the compound.

"That actually wasn't so surprising to us," said Lee, the lead author on the study. "The mussel-inspired adhesive is extremely versatile in that it can bond reversibly to inorganic surfaces under wet and dry conditions."

As Lee noted, the next research hurdle was whether their hybrid geckel nanoadhesive would continue to stick to surfaces after multiple contacts. This has been a major challenge with other gecko-based adhesives. They typically stick well at first but lose their ability to adhere after a few cycles of contact with a tipless cantilever.

Using the cantilever and repeatedly touching it down, Lee developed a camera to visualize the process down to individual pillars. He found that the geckel hybrid maintained 85 percent of its adherence under wet conditions after 1,100 contacts with the tip. Under dry conditions, the level of adherence was 98 percent.

"This isn't quite a home run, but it's somewhere in between a double and a triple," said Lee, who devised on his own a special imaging devise to visualize individual pillars during the experiments.

Messersmith said that while the results are extremely promising, his group still must tackle several practical problems before it can scale up its research. "Any time that you fabricate an array of nano pillars of this type over large areas, you must have a very effective way of doing it without losing the efficacy of the approach," said Messersmith. "We'll also need to reduce the fabrication costs to make geckel commercially viable."

But Messersmith said he envisions great possibilities for geckel. "Band aids already adhere well, except if you go swimming, take a shower, or somehow expose it to a lot of water," said Messersmith. "So I think the most important thing with this adhesive is the added value of resisting immersion in water."

"I should add that the essential component of the wet adhesive polymer on the pillars contains a chemical that we have discovered last year adheres well to mucosal surfaces, such as those inside our mouth," he noted. "It may be possible to develop patches in the future that can be applied on the inside of the cheek to cover damaged tissue."

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research is the Nation's leading funder of research on oral, dental, and craniofacial health.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) -- "The Nation's Medical Research Agency" -- includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

New Physics Device May Revolutionize Cancer Treatment

Using innovative physics, researchers have proposed a system that may one day bring proton therapy, a state-of-the-art cancer treatment method currently available only at a handful of centers, to radiation treatment centers and cancer patients everywhere.

Complete article found at physorg.com

Press Event to Announce FDA Clearance of the First Ever Cervical Artificial Disc, CINN Neurosurgeons Will Implant the Artificial Disc in a Patient Mod

CHICAGO, July 17 -- People who suffer from degenerative discs in their neck, now have a better option to relieve pain in their neck and arm, allow quick recovery and enable them to lead active and productive lives. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Prestige ST Cervical Disc System.

Used extensively in Europe, FDA clearance of the Prestige disc from Medtronic, follows a unanimous recommendation for approval from the FDA advisory board. The artificial disc for the cervical (neck) region is expected to impact more than 200,000 Americans who suffer from degenerative disc disease.

Currently, the most common treatment for patients with degenerative discs in the cervical spine is spinal fusion. In this procedure a surgeon removes the damaged disc then implants a bone graft and metal plate to fuse the vertebrae together. During artificial disc replacement surgery, the damaged disc is removed and replaced with an artificial disc, a stainless-steel device with a ball-in-trough design intended to allow for replication of normal motion. The disc stays in place with bone screws. The hospital stay for this procedure is approximately one-two days. Patients can begin rehabilitation and return to daily activities soon after surgery. In fact, patients receiving the Prestige ST artificial disc returned to work in 45 days, 16 days earlier than the fusion patients.

"Compared to spinal fusion, study results show that artificial cervical disc patients regain function faster, and have a higher rate of neurological success as measured by muscle tone, strength and sensation," says Dr. Dean Karahalios, CINN neurosurgeon. "Furthermore, the study demonstrated that at two year follow-up the overall success rate for the artificial disc group was 79.3% compared to the fusion group at 67.8%. These reasons are compelling enough for potential candidates to consider the option of an artificial disc."

Source: Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch

When to let go? Medicine's top dilemma

This article from Reuters.com discusses the issue of the ability of technology to sustain life even when by many standards sustaining life is futile, raising questions of quality of life and the right to die. Excerpt below.

By Tom Heneghan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A terminal leukemia patient must have daily blood transfusions or die. A family begs doctors to do everything possible to keep their elderly mother alive. Parents cannot accept their newborn baby will not survive.

End-of-life issues top the list of ethical dilemmas hospitals face as medical progress enables doctors to extend an endangered life to the hard-to-determine point where they may actually only be dragging out death...

Please visit Reuters.com for completed article.

Life Saving Rapid Clot First Created For Military Now Available For Consumers

WALLINGFORD, Conn., July 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Z-Medica Corporation (Z-Medica), a medical products company focused on innovative blood clotting nano-technologies, has launched its first two rapid blood clotting products for consumers, following the success of its products for the military, first responder and security markets. QuikClot Sport(TM) and QuikClot Sport Silver(TM) -- the first QuikClot(R) brand hemostat formulation with antimicrobial properties -- were created with the general sports and adventure enthusiast in mind, particularly those whose sports and outdoor activities carry the possibility of a bleeding injury far from professional medical attention. The new products have received 510k clearance from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and are available over the counter.

The products rapidly stop even severe bleeding safely and effectively following simple package directions. Designed to fit easily into backpacks and first aid kits, QuikClot Sport(TM) and QuikClot Sport Silver(TM) come in 25gram and 50gram 'clotting sponges' that are packed into the wound. The potentially lifesaving sponges retail for as low as $9.99. The products will be available at retail stores and through catalogues this spring including at http://www.cabelas.com/. For further information, visit http://www.z-medica.com/sportinfo.

In developing the QuikClot(R) consumer products, Z-Medica's in-house product development team collaborated with Galen Stucky, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara and with the United States Navy, which provided support for Stucky's research through the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and product testing at the Naval Medical Research Center.

"As we have transitioned our products from the military market to the first responder market, it has been an important goal of our company to next get the lifesaving capabilities of QuikClot(R) into the hands of consumers," said Huey. "Targeting our first consumer products to the outdoor adventure and sports markets was in response to countless inquiries from hunting, fishing, skiing, boating, cycling and other sporting organizations."

QuikClot(R) has saved scores of lives on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. First responders, safety and security organizations across the United States are also saving lives using various QuikClot product versions. It is the most widely used hemostatic first aid product available with more than one million units deployed worldwide.

QuikClot consumer product development accelerated when Z-Medica and its research partners worked to re-engineer the original formulation, eliminating its potential to generate heat with improper use. Dr. Galen Stucky's team also created a QuikClot formulation with silver ions that provides antimicrobial properties in addition to effective clotting. His contribution to understanding the mechanisms of action of the clotting process represents a significant scientific advance.

QuikClot Sport(TM) and QuikClot Sport Silver(TM) consist of beads of QuikClot(R) enclosed in a porous surgical fabric, similar to the latest products for the military and first responders. When introduced into a wound, this sponge takes the shape of the injury and rapidly stops even severe venous and arterial bleeding. The sponge stays in place until easily removed in the hospital. QuikClot represents the first and most effective solution to severe blood loss outside the operating room setting.

Z-Medica headquarters is located at 4 Fairfield Blvd., Wallingford, Connecticut 06492. For more information, please call (203) 294.0000 or visit http://www.z-medica.com/.

Source: Z-Medica Corporation

Cyberkinetics' BrainGate Technology Wins Prestigious ''R&D 100'' Award

OXBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 17, 2007--Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc. (OTCBB: CYKN; Cyberkinetics) announced that the Company's BrainGate Neural Interface System was named an "R&D 100" award winner by R&D Magazine, ranking it as one of the most innovative new products of the year. The R&D 100 awards honor excellence and innovation and are presented each year to 100 new products.

The BrainGate System, a brain-computer interface technology, is designed to control movement of assistive devices by neural signaling - that is, by thought alone. The technology is currently being investigated in two clinical trials in people with severe paralysis due to spinal cord injury, stroke and ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).

"We are honored to be picked for this prestigious industry award," stated Timothy R. Surgenor, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc. "It reflects the achievements of our work in neural signaling technology and its potential to significantly improve the quality of life for people with severe paralysis."

"We are developing the BrainGate System to one day enable paralyzed people to achieve more independence by using their own thoughts to control a wide range of external devices, including wheelchairs, as well as to someday move their own limbs," added John P. Donoghue, Ph.D., Cyberkinetics' Chief Scientific Officer and Director of the Brain Science Program at Brown University.

Battelle, the world's largest non-profit independent research and development organization, is co-winner of the award with Cyberkinetics.

"In 2006 we made a breakthrough in the development of new techniques that more accurately interpreted the brain signals we were gathering," said Chad Bouton, Senior Research Engineer at Battelle Medical Device Solutions, who worked with the BrainGate engineering team. "For the first time this allowed a person with the sensor to demonstrate control of a wheelchair directly through thought alone."

Winning candidates of the R&D 100 awards are identified by an independent panel of judges. This year's awards will be presented to winners in Chicago on October 18, 2007. The annual competition was first introduced in 1963. Previous winners have included the automated teller machine (1973), the Nicoderm anti-smoking patch (1992), and high definition television (1998).

About the BrainGate System

The BrainGate Neural Interface System is a proprietary, investigational brain-computer interface (BCI) that consists of an internal sensor to detect brain cell activity and external processors that convert these brain signals into a computer-mediated output under the person's own control. The sensor is a tiny silicon chip about the size of a baby aspirin with one hundred electrodes, each thinner than a human hair, that can detect the electrical activity of neurons. The sensor is implanted on the surface of the area of the brain responsible for movement, the motor cortex. The sensor picks up signals related to movement intentions and transmits them to computers, signal processors and monitors that enable study participants to control devices driven by their neural output - that is, by thought alone. The ultimate goal of the BrainGate System development program is to create a safe, effective and unobtrusive universal operating system that will enable those with motor impairments resulting from a variety of causes to quickly and reliably control a wide range of devices, including computers, assistive technologies and medical devices, simply by using their thoughts.

SOURCE: Adapted from Cyberkinetics press release