Jan 21 2011
Cambridge-based Institute for Paediatric Innovation, a non-profit organisation operating with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, has been offered a $340,000 award by Philips Healthcare for advancing an adhesive medical system for use in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs).
Ross Trimby, chief operating officer of IPI explained that around 250,000 to 350,000 premature babies require treatment in NICUs annually, with sensors and other systems fixed to their immature skin that tear them by the use of the prevailing adhesive tapes. Trimby remarked that in order to overcome such issues they are devising a process using an adhesive encompassing numerous layers, produced from the skin of infants without damaging it.
Jeffrey Karp, co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospitalis guiding the research team comprising 30 scientists, are focussing on the areas of biology, interface of material science, engineering and medicine.
Two NICU clinical specialists from children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, functioning in Missouri and Kansas, will provide clinical support to the researchers in devising this advanced medical device. IPI will then authorize the developed system to Philips Children’s Medical Ventures and according to Trimby, it will take at least 18 months to achieve certification.
IPI plans to license a neonatal endotracheal tube, its primary system, to Phillips in 2011, and has already 20 various projects in the process of development.
Source: http://www.pediatricinnovation.org