Biomedical Equipment and Biomaterials

This branch is in charge of research and development of medical equipment and materials for clinical application.

Biomaterials are one of the important keys for the development of medical equipment. Our lab is developing novel injectable hydrogels with good biocompatibility. Their application into tissue engineering scaffolds, adhesion-preventing materials, and topical hemostatic agents are studied. In addition, we develop nano / micro particles with various size and materials for medical use. Their application includes drug delivery for peritoneally disseminated gastric cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, and hepatic cirrhosis. They can also be used as artificial oxygen carriers and bio-imaging agents.

In research of medical equipment, robot-assisted technologies are studied to promote medicine-engineering collaboration. Quantitative surgical skill assessment has been studied to understand the skill and implement it to surgical robots. Automation has also been studied to investigate intelligent control of surgical robots. Targets of our robotic applications include microsurgery, minimally-invasive surgery, pathological examination and science experiments.

Projects

1. Medical hydrogel and nano/micro particles
2. Peritoneally adhesion-preventing materials / hemostatic agents / tissue engineering scaffolds
3. Drug delivery imaging
4. Medical robots and their intelligent control
5. Quantitative surgical skill assessment and its applcations

＜Ito Lab＞

1. Pan Qi, Ying Grace Zheng, Seiichi Ohta, Norihiro Kokudo, Kiyoshi Hasegawa, and Taichi Ito
   “In situ fabrication of double-layered hydrogels via spray processes to prevent postoperative peritoneal adhesion”
   ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering, 2019, 5(9), 4790-4798 DOI:10.1021/acsbiomaterials.9b00791
2. Yuichiro Oki, Katsuhisa Kirita, Seiichi Ohta Shinsuke Ohba, Ikki Horiguchi, Yasuyuki Sakai, and Taichi Ito
   “Switching of cell proliferation/differentiation in thiol-maleimide clickable microcapsules triggered by in situ conjugation of biomimetic peptides”
   Biomacromolecules, 2019, 20(6), 2350-2359 DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.9b00333
3. Seiichi Ohta, Mai Matsuura, Yuta Kawashima, Xinyu Cai, Machiko Taniguchi, Hitoshi Okochi, Yoshihide Asano, Shinichi Sato, and Taichi Ito
   “Facile fabrication of PEG-coated PLGA microspheres via SPG membrane emulsification for the treatment of scleroderma by ECM degrading enzymes”
   Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces, 2019, 179, 453-461 DOI: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2019.04.028.
4. Megumu Sakoda, Makoto Kaneko, Seiichi Ohta, Pan Qi, Shigetoshi Ichimura, Yutaka Yatomi, and Taichi Ito
   “An Injectable Hemostat Composed of a Polyphosphate-Conjugated Hyaluronan Hydrogel”
   Biomacromolecules, 2018, 19(8), 3280–3290 DOI:10.1021/acs.biomac.8b00588

＜Harada Lab＞

1. Saul Alexis Heredia Perez, Murilo Marques Marinho, Kanako Harada, Mamoru Mitsuishi
   “The Effects of Different Levels of Realism on the Training of CNNs with only Synthetic Images for the Semantic Segmentation of Robotic Instruments in a Head Phantom”, International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS), 15(8): 1257–1265, 2020. DOI: 10.1007/s11548-020-02185-0
2. Atsushi Nakazawa, Kanako Harada, Mamoru Mitsuishi, Pierre Jannin
   “Real-time surgical needle detection using region-based convolutional neural networks”, International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, 15:41-47, 2020. DOI: 10.1007/s11548-019-02050-9
3. Murilo M. Marinho, Bruno V. Adorno, Kanako Harada, Mamoru Mitsuishi
   ”SmartArm: Integration and Validation of a Versatile Surgical Robotic System for Constrained Workspaces”, The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery, 16:e2053, 2020.　DOI: 10.1002/rcs.2053
4. Arnaud Huaulmé, Fabien Despinoy, Saul Alexis Heredia Perez, Kanako Harada, Manoru Mitshuishi, 　Pierre Jannin
   “Automatic annotation of surgical activities using virtual-reality environments”, International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, 14(10):1663-1671, June, 2019.