NIBIB-funded engineers are using focused ultrasound to modulate motor activity in the brain without surgical device implantation, a first step toward non-invasive brain stimulation therapies.

Duke Engineering’s First-Year Design program team triumphed at the NIH’s 9th annual DEBUT Challenge. The team’s project, named LowCostomy, received the National Cancer Institute Prize for Technologies for Cancer Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment. The team received $15,000 in prize money in recognition for their work. Source: Duke University.

NIBIB-funded researchers are working on an ankle prosthetic that relies on the user’s residual muscles—and the electrical signals that they generate—to help amputees control their posture continuously.

The gut microbiome can impact us in a variety of different ways, from our metabolism to our mood. Now, NIBIB-funded researchers are investigating if a fiber-based gel can restore beneficial microbes in the gut to enhance the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors, a type of cancer immunotherapy treatment.

Placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) disorder is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the placenta remains attached to the uterus after childbirth. Now researchers have developed a blood test to identify this condition, enabling early intervention by high-risk pregnancy specialists.

NIBIB selected three winning teams for designs that excel according to four criteria: the significance of the problem being addressed; the impact on clinical care; the innovation of the design; and the ideation process or existence of a working prototype.

The RADx program has paved a path forward for small- and medium-sized diagnostics companies with innovative ideas and novel technologies to help meet public health challenges and compete in the marketplace. A funded network of agile academic or private laboratories that can objectively evaluate novel clinical tests, whether they originate from the largest diagnostics companies or new startups, can provide impartial and cost-effective third-party assessments of test performance to facilitate FDA decision making. Source: Nature Biotechnology.

NIBIB-funded research drives progress in the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of middle ear infections.

Bioengineers have developed biocompatible self-assembling “piezoelectric wafers,” which can be made rapidly and inexpensively to enable broad use of implantable muscle-powered electromechanical therapies.