(Credit:
DARPA)
An all star research team is developing a putty-like material to help regenerate shattered bones, a technology that could allow soldiers to avoid amputation and quickly regain full use of badly broken legs.
'Fracture putty' is a biocompatible compound designed to be packed in and around non-union fractures. It provides a load-bearing, osteoconductive, bone-like structure to give regenerative growth a chance. Then, once the bone heals, the putty degrades into harmless, absorbable by-products.
"The fracture putty will serve as a bioactive scaffold and will be able to substitute for the damaged bone," said principal researcher Mauro Ferrari. "At the same time, the putty will facilitate the formation of natural bone and self-healing in the surrounding soft tissue through the attraction of the patient's own stem cells. The putty will have the texture of modeling clay so that it can be molded in any shape in order to be used in many different surgical applications, including the reconnection of separated bones and the replacement of missing bones."
Traumatic, compound bone fractures are very difficult to treat on the battlefield, often requiring multiple surgeries with bone screws, plates, and rods to cobble together grafts with healthy bone. They also take a long time to heal. Bone putty could have the patient up and around in as little as a week, according to the researchers.
The program, which has been called "the ultimate convergence of materials science, mechanics, and orthopedics," will first be tested on animals, but could eventually lead to the use of 'bone putty' in emergency rooms to treat civilians injured in traffic accidents and other traumatic events, researchers hope.
The two-year research project is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and includes the University of Texas Health Science Center and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Harvard University, the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern University among others.
Electron microscope image of early prototype.
(Credit: University of Texas at Dallas)The University of Texas at Dallas has entered the race to produce a more powerful semiconductor using a $1.75 million grant from DARPA to develop a microchip that is "faster than anything" on the market today.
The new technology will still be silicon-based but will use photons rather than electrons to speed things up, according to a UT press release.
"This research is intended to produce a completely new class of components that could have a revolutionary impact on information engineering," Professor Duncan MacFarlane said. "The photonic integrated circuit (PIC) we're developing will be a versatile, programmable, scalable device that will process photonic signals and provide a sophisticated and practical interface with existing electronics."
Total internal reflection mirrors are fabricated using focused ion-beam micromachining.
(Credit: Erik Jonsson/School of Engineering and Computer Science, UT Dallas)The military's vociferous appetite for hotter technology and market demand for more powerful chips are driving the research. "The current roadmap for semiconductor evolution envisions the need for just such an innovation in coming years, when current design and manufacturing processes are expected to encounter physical barriers to continued miniaturization," according to UT. The project, known as PhASER (photonic analog signal processing engines with reconfigurability), will develop a fundamental PIC that can act as a reconfigurable building block in forming a high-throughput, low-power, analog signal processor and overcome the limits of conventional silicon-based processing technology, according to DARPA.
The research will take place in UT's new nanophotonic development facility. Collaborators include Southern Methodist University and Dallas-based photonics technology company Photodigm. Northrop Grumman and Raytheon will evaluate the technology's performance in high-tech antenna systems and laser radar, according to UT.
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