Medtech innovations that make you look: Head transplants, smart pills, kidney transplant from pigs

The progress in medtech is forging through, bringing unprecedented changes and opportunities. Many innovations in tech are bringing about transformations in the medical field that can change the way we view healthcare.

Read more: A tie up to automate clinical interpretation of whole genome sequencing in cancer

A neuroscience and biomedical engineering startup called BrainBridge unveiled the radical and possibly controversial concept of a robotic head transplant system. The company says they should be able to accomplish the first one in eight years. If they do, the process would be life changing for terminally ill patients and those with neurodegenerative diseases, where a healthy head could occupy a healthy donor body.

In May, Bangalore-based informatics startup G-KnowMe tied up with researchers at the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) to develop an automated workflow for interpreting data from sequencing the entire genome of cancers.

Last year, researchers at MIT and Boston University created a smart capsule no larger than a blueberry that can detect signs of gastrointestinal trouble, and send warning signals to an ordinary smart phone.

In May, a team led by scientists from Harvard and Google made a detailed map of a tiny piece of human brain. The researchers used an AI algorithm to produced 1.4 million gigabytes of data from a cubic millimetre of brain tissue. With the findings the authors were able to identify previously unknown features of the human temporal cortex.

In March, surgeons in Boston transplanted a genetically edited pig kidney into a 62-year-old man. The pig’s kidney had undergone CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing by eGenesis’s scientists to modify 69 of the animal’s characteristics to suit the patient. The successful transplant has raised hopes among researchers that larger clinical trials that use pig organs can soon become a reality.

Scientists from the University of Science and Technology (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) developed a three-dimensional single-pixel imaging (3D-SPI) technique on the basis of 3D light-field illumination. The process allows high-resolution imaging of microscopic objects. The 3D-SPI approach can possibly change the visualization of several biological absorption contrasts, cell morphology, and growth, bringing new opportunities in biomedical research and optical sensing.

Read more: AI innovations helping healthcare

Last year, for the first time, surgeons performed in-utero embolization repair on a foetus at 34 weeks and 2 days gestational age. The first human trial of a unique ultrasound device showed that it can briefly open the blood-brain barrier and deliver chemotherapy directly to the brain. Meanwhile, endovascular thrombectomy, or EVT is doing wonders for stroke victims by pulling out blood clots within minutes.

?Looking at these medtech innovations, it doesn’t seem we’re far from the day when a human being might be able to completely renovate the body with the help of science and technology. The ethical nuances for that time are another topic though.