NASA steps in to help develop COVID-19 solutions

In a bid to find solutions that can address shortage of critical medical equipment like ventilators in tackling the COVID-19 crisis, the US space agency has joined forces with a task force in California to build medical devices to help patients infected with the disease. The US space agency on Friday said its Armstrong Flight Research Center partnered with Antelope Valley Hospital, the City of Lancaster, Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company (TSC), and Antelope Valley College to come up with innovative ideas to meet shortage of medical equipment that could arise in future.

One of their first efforts was to build a prototype oxygen hood that has now proven to work for the doctors at the hospital, NASA said, adding that the production of 500 will begin next week at TSC’s Faith Facility in Mojave, California.
 
Oxygen hood
The device, developed by NASA engineer Mike Buttigieg, is an oxygen hood for COVID-19 patients exhibiting minor symptoms and will minimise the need for these patients to use ventilators.
The device functions like a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to force oxygen into a patient’s low-functioning lungs.

“We looked across our center’s expertise in innovation, engineering, design, and fabrication of unique systems, to bring NASA knowledge and people together to collaborate on solving the needs and challenges brought about by the COVID-19 situation,” said Armstrong Chief Technologist David Voracek.

Canopy
NASA engineer Allen Parker and this team at Armstrong designed a canopy that protects health care workers by safely covering COVID-19 patients while still allowing health care providers access to the patients to provide care.

“The patient will be located inside this canopy where aerosol viral contaminants will be vacuumed out through a viral filter located within the canopy. In doing so, the health provider can freely work around the patient outside the canopy with minimal risk,” Parker said.

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Researchers identify deadly microbes and make medical devices infection-free

Researchers have found a way to identify the presence of deadly microbes present on medical devices, such as catheters, and ways to keep them infection-free. This study was conducted as an interdisciplinary collaboration between microbiologists, immunologists, and engineers led by Dr Simon Corrie from Monash University's Department of Chemical Engineering and Professor Ana Traven from the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI).

It was recently published in the American Chemical Society journal -- ACS Applied Interfaces and Material. Candida albicans, a commonly found microbe, can turn deadly when it colonises on devices such as catheters implanted in the human body. While commonly found in healthy people, this microbe can become a serious problem for those who are seriously ill or immune-suppressed.

The microbe forms a biofilm when it colonises using, for example, a catheter as a source of infection. It then spreads into the bloodstream to infect internal organs. "The mortality rate in some patient populations can be as high as 30 to 40 per cent even if you treat people. When it colonises, it's highly resistant to anti-fungal treatments," a Professor  said.

"The idea is that if you can diagnose this infection early, then you can have a much bigger chance of treating it successfully with current anti-fungal drugs and stopping a full-blown systemic infection, but our current diagnostic methods are lacking. A biosensor to detect early stages of colonisation would be highly beneficial," added the Professor.

The researchers investigated the effects of organosilica nanoparticles of different sizes, concentrations and surface coatings to see whether and how they interacted with both C. Albicans and with immune cells in the blood. They found that the nanoparticles bound to fungal cells, but were non-toxic to them. "They don't kill the microbe, but we can make an anti-fungal particle by binding them to a known anti-fungal drug," Professor Traven said.

The researchers also demonstrated that the particles associated with neutrophils -- human white blood cells -- in a similar way as they did with C. Albicans, remaining noncytotoxic towards them. "We've identified that these nanoparticles, and by inference a number of different types of nanoparticles, can be made to be interactive with cells of interest," Dr. Corrie said.

"We can actually change the surface properties by attaching different things; thereby we can really change the interactions they have with these cells -- that's quite significant," added Dr Corrie. Dr Corrie said while nanoparticles were being investigated in the treatment of cancer, the use of nanoparticle-based technologies in infectious diseases lags behind the cancer nanomedicine field, despite the great potential for new treatments and diagnostics.

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Antibiotic-resistance- Key source is infected medical devices finds CDC report

Infections related to medical devices are a key source of antibiotic resistance than infections associated with surgical procedures.

According to a report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), antibiotic resistance is more prevalent in healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) related to the use of medical devices than in HAI associated with surgical procedures. The report is published in the journal- Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

Also, HAIs acquired in long-term acute care facilities are more likely to be antibiotic-resistant than those in short-stay acute care hospitals, while data from a separate report indicates that antibiotic resistance is more prevalent in adult HAIs than it is pediatric hospital infections.

The report underscores the importance of tracking antimicrobial resistance, particularly in vulnerable populations such as long term acute-care hospitals and intensive care units.

These data show that the threat of exposure to bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics extends across the nation. The data also serves as an urgent call for healthcare facilities and public health agencies to intensify their efforts to prevent the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance, said an epidemiologist at the CDC.

The study aimed to describe common pathogens and antimicrobial resistance patterns for healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) that occurred during 2015-2017 and were reported to the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

The study involved data from more than 5,600 hospitals in the CDC's NHSN. The data cover central-line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, ventilator-associated events and surgical-site infections reported to the NHSN by 5,626 acute care hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals, and inpatient rehabilitation facilities from 2015 through 2017. The report is the 4th summary of NHSN pathogen and antibiotic susceptibility data, and the CDC's most detailed HAI surveillance effort to date.

The data can be used to help hospitals improve control and prevention strategies and provide direction for new drug development.

In their analysis, CDC researchers identified the most commonly reported pathogens associated with these infections, and for each HAI type and each location, calculated the percentage of pathogens with non-susceptibility to selected antibiotics. Device-associated HAIs and the pathogens connected with them were stratified by hospital ward.

Key findings of the study include-
Germs in adult and pediatric facilities varied by infection type and care location.
The most common HAI bacteria among adult patients were E coli (18%). Staphylococcus aureus (12%) and Klebsiella ( (9%).

A companion report on pediatric health-care-associated infections, with data from 2,454 facilities, found the most prevalent pathogens among pediatric patients were Staphylococcus aureus (15%), E Coli (12%) and coagulate-negative-staphylococci (12%).

The Dr. said the increasing availability of clinical and laboratory data in electronic form provides new opportunities to quickly identify resistance to antibiotic therapies and to inform antibiotic stewardship programs. Appropriate resources should be allocated to ensure proper infection prevention methods of devices and the environment across the healthcare continuum.

The study " Antimicrobial-resistant pathogens associated with adult healthcare-associated infection:  Summary of data reported to the National Healthcare Safety Network, 2015-2017, is published in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

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Read more at Speciality Medical Dialogues: Antibiotic-resistance- Key source is infected medical devices finds CDC report https://speciality.medicaldialogues.in/antibiotic-resistance-key-source-is-infected-medical-devices-finds-cdc-report/

Wireless system to charge pacemakers developed

Scientists have developed a way to wirelessly transfer power to medical devices deep inside the body – a breakthrough that could lead to novel forms of pacemakers, nerve stimulators and other life-altering gadgets.

The wireless system developed by Stanford University Assistant Professor Ada Poon uses the same power as a cell phone to safely transmit energy to chips the size of a grain of rice.

The technology paves the way for new "electroceutical" devices to treat illness or alleviate pain.
The discoveries culminate years of efforts by Poon, assistant professor of electrical engineering, to eliminate the bulky batteries and clumsy recharging systems that prevent medical devices from being more widely used.

The technology could provide a path towards a new type of medicine that allows physicians to treat diseases with electronics rather than drugs, researchers said.

"We need to make these devices as small as possible to more easily implant them deep in the body and create new ways to treat illness and alleviate pain," said Poon.

Poon's team built an electronic device smaller than a grain of rice that acts as a pacemaker. It can be powered or recharged wirelessly by holding a power source about the size of a credit card above the device, outside the body.

The central discovery is an engineering breakthrough that creates a new type of wireless power transfer – using roughly the same power as a cell phone – that can safely penetrate deep inside the body, said researchers.

An independent laboratory that tests cell phones found that her system fell well below the danger exposure levels for human safety.

Her lab has tested this wireless charging system in a pig and used it to power a tiny pacemaker in a rabbit. She is currently preparing the system for testing in humans.

Poon believes this discovery will spawn a new generation of programmable micro-implants – sensors to monitor vital functions deep inside the body; electro-stimulators to change neural signals in the brain; and drug delivery systems to apply medicines directly to affected areas.

The finding was published in the journal PNAS.

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