HONG KONG, Oct. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Since the dawn of healthcare, technology has been drastically improving medical systems and services to help us live longer and better lives. In this special half-hour episode of 'Tomorrow Transformed', connections, partnerships, and collaborations in the world of medicine are humanized through compelling first-person stories.
Thanks to an amputation procedure pioneered at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Amy Pietrafitta has taken on more sports than most people have done in a lifetime since having her leg amputated in 2018. With more of Amy's muscle and nerve endings preserved compared to similar operations in the past, she has been able to work with the biomechatronics lab at MIT, where moving her prosthesis feels like natural foot movement. Dr. Hugh Herr and his team of graduate students hope that one day technology will be sophisticated enough for limbs to be rebuilt after amputation.
Inspired by her aunt's battle with cancer, Professor Canan Dagdeviren has spent the last six years working with her students from MIT on a wearable breast monitor. This monitor has a nature-inspired honeycomb structure, with an embedded ultrasound device in the tracker that moves around its hexagonal design and the monitor can even be snapped onto a bra with its in-built magnets, allowing for daily imaging. As mammography cannot be done frequently, this technology significantly reduces the risk of women developing cancer in the interval between mammograms. This has also inspired her students to create other wearable technologies, such as silicone patches, also known as second skin, to scan for pancreatic or kidney cancers.
As wearable technologies and home healthcare become the norm, the high amounts of data generated can overwhelm medical practitioners. At Helsinki University Hospital, Dr. Jukka Putaala relies on cardiac monitors to help detect irregularities in the heartbeats of his stroke patients. Through advancements in artificial intelligence, these wireless devices, which collect data twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, can effectively predict heart attacks and future strokes by analyzing patterns and support cardiologists on challenging diagnoses. This helps patients receive proper diagnoses, reduces hospital admissions, and ultimately increases their quality of life.
Organ shortages have been one of the biggest problems for doctors, but a biotech company in Tokyo may have found a solution. Dr. Keiichi Fukuda and his team at Heartseed are working to regrow damaged heart tissue by injecting specifically engineered heart muscle cells, known as cardiomyocytes, directly into the organ to assist in its repair. Previously assumed impossible, this procedure has now been performed on six patients, with clinical trial results showing great promise. Dr. Fukuda hopes to continue his life's work and spread this treatment to hospitals worldwide.
Tomorrow Transformed trailer:
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Airtimes for 30-minute special:
Saturday, 5th October at 6:30pm HKT
Sunday, 6th October at 9:30am HKT
Monday, 7th October at 1:30am HKT
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