3D Printing Inside the Body Could Patch Stomach Ulcers (scientificamerican.com) 34
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Stomach ulcers and other gastric wounds afflict one in eight people worldwide, but common conventional therapies have drawbacks. Now scientists aim to treat such problems by exploring a new frontier in 3-D printing: depositing living cells directly inside the human body. [...] In their effort to treat stomach lesions less invasively, scientists in China wanted to develop a miniature bioprinting robot that could enter the human body with relative ease. The researchers used existing techniques for creating dexterous electronic devices, such as mechanical bees and cockroach-inspired robots, says the study's senior author Tao Xu, a bioengineer at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The resulting micro robot is just 30 millimeters wide -- less than half the width of a credit card -- and can fold to a length of 43 millimeters. Once inside a patient's body, it unfolds to become 59 millimeters long and can start bioprinting. "The team has constructed clever mechanisms that make the system compact when entering the body yet unfurl to provide a large working area once past the tight constrictions at entry," says David Hoelzle, a mechanical engineer at the Ohio State University, who did not take part in the study. In their experiments, the researchers in China fitted the micro robot onto an endoscope (a long tube that can be inserted through bodily openings) and successfully snaked it through a curved pipe into a transparent plastic model of a stomach. There, they used it to print gels loaded with human stomach lining and stomach muscle cells (which were grown in culture by a commercial laboratory) onto a lab dish. The printed cells remained viable and steadily proliferated over the course of 10 days. "This study is the first attempt to combine micro robots and bioprinting together," Xu says. The study has been published in the journal Biofabrication.
The resulting micro robot is just 30 millimeters wide -- less than half the width of a credit card -- and can fold to a length of 43 millimeters. Once inside a patient's body, it unfolds to become 59 millimeters long and can start bioprinting. "The team has constructed clever mechanisms that make the system compact when entering the body yet unfurl to provide a large working area once past the tight constrictions at entry," says David Hoelzle, a mechanical engineer at the Ohio State University, who did not take part in the study. In their experiments, the researchers in China fitted the micro robot onto an endoscope (a long tube that can be inserted through bodily openings) and successfully snaked it through a curved pipe into a transparent plastic model of a stomach. There, they used it to print gels loaded with human stomach lining and stomach muscle cells (which were grown in culture by a commercial laboratory) onto a lab dish. The printed cells remained viable and steadily proliferated over the course of 10 days. "This study is the first attempt to combine micro robots and bioprinting together," Xu says. The study has been published in the journal Biofabrication.
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That's because he's suffering from dementia. Not as much as we're suffering from his dementia, though. Still, he often loses track mid-sentence and has to pause to recall what he was saying.
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You have to cut him some slack, though. He loses track mid-sentence and has to pause to recall what he was saying because he's so boring and full of shit that he's not even listening to what he's saying.
The micro robot is "just" 30 millimetres wide (Score:2)
Why the hell compare 30mm to less than half the width of a credit card... Are you people still in kindergarten? Why are you always comparing to something else? Can't you at the very least convert metric measurements to your own imperial system?
Here, let me do the job t
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And of course Slashdot deleted the non-breaking space I put in the inches length, so it shows "13/16" instead of "1-3/16".
So I repeat, since Slashdot can't even display a fucking non-breaking space:
30mm = 1.1811" ~ 1 3/16"
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30mm is nowhere near small enough to qualify being a "micro" robot.
O RLY?
You CAN look words up before you complain about their use. I believe in you!
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We're in 2020. I don't see why a 30mm robot qualifies as small, especially since it's supposed to be the cutting-edge of medicine. That's not micro, that's just regular size now. You do know they sell flying robots that small for around 10 dollars, right?
Also I did look up the meaning of the word. That's where this part came from:
What is the measurement of micro?
Micrometre, also called micron, metric unit of measure for length equal to 0.001 mm, or about 0.000039 inch. Its symbol is m. The micrometre is com
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You do know they sell flying robots that small for around 10 dollars, right?
Except that they're about twice that size, sure.
Also I did look up the meaning of the word.
Then why don't you know that the word has multiple meanings? It's right there in the dictionary.
Micro can mean thousandth, but it can also mean smaller than usual. That's how English works. It can be annoying, but it's also very powerful.
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I wouldn't want to try swallowing a 30x43mm "micro" robot!
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"I wouldn't want to try swallowing a 30x43mm "micro" robot!"
That's what she said.
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If bleeding ulcers are the alternative to swallowing the thing then pass me some coconut oil to make it go down easier.
Realistically the patient would be under anesthesia for the procedure.
Very Cool. Very Creepy (Score:1)
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I was thinking more about the "medical spider robots" from The Island.
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I was thinking more about the "medical spider robots" from The Island.
Thanks. I needed to be creeped out even more.
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Awesome use of technology, and hope this becomes wide-spread. But does anyone else find it just a bit creepy? Thinking Pixar meets Stephen King?
This is a solution looking for a problem.
Once we realized most ulcers are caused by a bacteria Helicobacter pylori we learned to treat it with antibiotics which gave us cure rates > 80% and dropped the number of gastrostomies for ulcers by at least an order of magnitude and probably closer to 2 since we rarely resect stomachs anymore (causing massive drop in the number of surgeons who have a lot of experience operating on the stomach). For many of the other cases we have endocscopy, which is several dec
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In my wife's experience proton pump inhibitors are crap. Her stomach problems got worse when taking them, and have improved since she stopped. Not everyone's biology is the same.
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McCoy: What's wrong with you?
Elderly Patient: Kidney dialysis...
McCoy: My god, what is this, the Dark Ages?! [gives her a pill] Here, you take this.
(A few minutes later)
Elderly Patient: Doctor gave me a pill, and I grew a new kidney!
--The Voyage Home
Coke is It! (Score:2)
Stomach ulcers and other gastric wounds afflict one in eight people worldwide
I got one from drinking a bunch of free employer-provided coca-cola. It went away when I quit. Really gives some perspective on the consequences of overconsumption. I was drinking about a six pack per day, sometimes more...
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I think stomach ulcers and other gastric wounds were the least of your problems. Do you know how much sugar you were drinking each day?
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Oh, an awful shitload. I was depressed, who cares under those conditions? Had to leave Texas, couldn't stand the weather. Shame really, I miss some of the people terribly. Then again, I don't miss most of them at all.
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Speaking of gastric ulcers, drinkypoo claimed:
I got one from drinking a bunch of free employer-provided coca-cola. It went away when I quit. Really gives some perspective on the consequences of overconsumption. I was drinking about a six pack per day, sometimes more...
I doubt that. Most gastric ulcers are caused by a Helicobacter pylori infection [mayoclinic.org] - and, for practical purposes, by "most," the Mayo Clinic here means "all."
Back in the dark ages (which is to say, "prior to about 1980 or so"), gastric ulcers were thought to be caused by stress or ingestion of irritants, including acid-y drinks (Coca-Cola, for instance), alcohol, spicy foods, etc. Then Helicobacter was discovered, and it turned out to be the culprit in virtually a
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Coke doesn't actually have particularly high levels of caffine.
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And like another poster here, I have experienced (confirmed) lining damage after I took much ibuprofen for several months.
I thought it was demonstrated in animal studies that emotional stress can increase acid production in the stomach (I can't look this up right now; see "Dr. Cannon").
The vagus nerve is involved in stomach acid production. It's theorized (and sensible) that the vagus nerve
I am a gastroenterologist (Score:3)
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About 25 years ago there was flurry of news articles that main cause of stomach ulcers was infection and the treatment should be antibiotics not the historic endless consumption of antacid and buffers. Is that true? In that case hard to see how printing more food for the germs is going to help.
Re: I am a gastroenterologist (Score:4, Informative)
Common request (Score:1)
"Hey doc, while your bot is down there, can you give me a ten-inch...
Garbage in (Score:2)
Stomach ulcers and other gastric wounds afflict one in eight people worldwide, but common conventional therapies have drawbacks
I dunno. The doc said 10 years ago they'd have had to do surgery, but the new drugs were great.
Oh, and I stopped taking 12-16 ibuprofen a day, which was the real cure.
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I have never mentioned this online. I shall now monitor google ads and so on, to see if ads for ibuprofen or ulcers start appearing.
In America (Score:2)
China gives you ulcers.