Ken Hall, of electronic design company Triteq considers the challenges of complying with the EU Medical Device Directive, when designing safety critical systems for medical products.
Organic semiconductors can provide photodynamic therapy, an attractive alternative to invasive surgery, where a light-emitting sticking plaster, together with a pharmaceutical cream, is used to kill tumour cells and treat skin cancers.
The need for improved and earlier diagnoses has fuelled the demand to create detection systems and miniturised devices that use molecular nanoparticles for diagnostics.
Damaged nerve endings could be repaired by inserting a Neurotex silk conduit, a sheath made from a silk tube that contains luminal fibres and a proprietary silk biomaterial called Spidrex, to restore nerve function between two severed nerve endings.