Top Medtech Breakthroughs of 2014 (So Far)

Energy Harvesting BreakthroughsMajor strides have been made of late when it comes to harvesting energy off the body’s physical movements.Early this year, John Rogers, PhD, of the University of Illinois-Champaign, announced the creation of a super-thin silicone-encased, bendable energy harvester that can be affixed to a beating heart. Rogers and colleagues have placed the device on the surface of hearts beating inside anesthetized cows and sheep, demonstrating that it can produce up to 1.2 μW/cm², according to a paper Rogers and his colleagues published in the Proceedings of that National Academy of Sciences.Meanwhile, UCLA researchers have successfully harvested mechanical energy from the human hand to power a microfluidic device. And University of Utah in March announced progress towards the development of computers that could draw power from their own waste heat.