MindJet Webinar: Innovation - Moving Inventions from Idea to Market

On April 6th I did a live webinar at the request of MindJet to discuss how to not only move ideas to market faster but also how to consolidate large amounts of information - all using MindManager and their Catalyst (cloud based) product.  If you are not familiar with it MindJet is a software product deveoped by MindManager that I have been using daily for about nine years. MindJet's visual information maps (mind maps) start with a central theme, and then add branches with ideas, notes, images, tasks, hyperlinks and attachments. I use MindManager maps to capture and organize information, and transform my thoughts and ideas into fine-tuned documents.  The webinar which was about 30 minutes long, explored how I enhanced creative and critical thinking skills among all employees, increased team alignment and individual productivity, and much more.

You can find an archive of it here on the MindJet web site if you want  give it a listen.

DUOMENTIS in the news

My latest venture DUOMENTIS has found its way into the news. Jack Marshall over at ClickZ wrote a nice article about what we have been up to at DUOMENTIS for the last 8 or so months.

I started DUOMENTIS this past July with the co-inventor and co-founder of JAGTAG Dudley Fitzpatrick. 

DUOMENTIS is an every-medium, multi-disciplinary invention agency. DUOMENTIS helps marketers, media companies, technology companies and agencies monetize the convergence of technology, marketing and business strategy. We look to add value wherever we can. Most of our clients contract us to help them identify and develop the following:

• New Business Methods
• Futurist Trends
• Intellectual Property
• Technology Strategy
• Proprietary Media
• Social Commerce
• Utility Marketing
• Sustainable Marketing Properties
• New Product Offerings
• Alternative Distribution

You can read the ClickZ article here. 

If you want to learn more you can visit the DUOMENTIS web site.

Growing laboratory-engineered miniature human livers

I enjoyed eating cow liver as a kid. I never understood why so many kids thought it was bad. It was and still is one of my favorite foods. Now, one day soon, I might just be able to grow my own livers for snacking anytime I'd like. And the bonus is that if my own liver wears out or fails I might be able to have a surgeon pop a new one in. Well it might not be quite that simple. But in the quest to grow replacement human organs in the lab, livers are no doubt at the top of many a wish list. With its wide range of functions that support almost every organ in the body and no way to compensate for the absence of liver function, the ability to grow a replacement is also the focus of many research efforts. Now, for the first time, researchers have been able to successfully engineer miniature livers in the lab using human liver cells.

The ultimate aim of the research carried out at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is to provide a solution to the shortage of donor livers available for patients who need transplants. Additionally, the laboratory-engineered livers could also be used to test the safety of new drugs.

The livers engineered by the researchers are about an inch in diameter and weigh about 0.2 ounces (5.7 g). Even though the average weight of an adult human liver is around 4.4 pounds (2 kg), to meet to minimum needs of the human body the scientists say an engineered liver would need to weigh about one pound (454 g) because research has shown that human livers functioning at 30 percent of capacity are able to sustain the human body.

“We are excited about the possibilities this research represents, but must stress that we’re at an early stage and many technical hurdles must be overcome before it could benefit patients,” said Shay Soker, Ph.D., professor of regenerative medicine and project director. “Not only must we learn how to grow billions of liver cells at one time in order to engineer livers large enough for patients, but we must determine whether these organs are safe to use in patients.”

How the livers were engineered

To engineer the organs, the scientists took animal livers and treated them with a mild detergent to remove all cells in a process called decellularization. This left only the collagen “skeleton” or support structure which allowed the scientists to replace the original cells with two types of human cells: immature liver cells known as progenitors, and endothelial cells that line blood vessels.

Because the network of vessels remains intact after the decellularization process the researchers were able to introduce the cells into the liver skeleton through a large vessel that feeds a system of smaller vessels in the liver. The liver was then placed in a bioreactor, special equipment that provides a constant flow of nutrients and oxygen throughout the organ.

Humans could form 'backbone' of new mobile networks

Rolling out mobile phone infrastructure is expensive, difficult and often meets public resistance, but it’s an essential step for increasing coverage. So researchers are looking at alternatives, including one proposal that could see members of the public carrying portable nodes in the network.

A study, which is being conducted at Queen’s University in Belfast, under the supervision of Dr. Simon Cotton would involve wearable sensors carried by members of the public. These would interact to transmit data between each other, allowing for far lower power requirements than a traditional antenna, greater coverage, and the capability to adapt to demand.

The way it works is simple.

Instead of hundreds or thousands of separate connections between different devices and a single phone mast, each participant in the network would send signal to someone nearby, who would send it to the next person, and then to the next person, and so on until it reaches its destination.

These body-to-body networks, or BBNs, could be embedded within existing devices like your phone, so you wouldn’t need to carry extra equipment. One of the significant benefits offered by such a system would be the way that large crowds would actually increase the coverage in an area, rather than making it more difficult to place a call.

“If the idea takes off, BBNs could also lead to a reduction in the number of base stations needed to service mobile phone users, particularly in areas of high population density,” said Simon Cotton, from Queen’s University’s Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology. “This could help to alleviate public perceptions of adverse health associated with current networks and be more environmentally friendly due to the much lower power levels required for operation.”

While such networks are still in their infancy today, Cotton reckons that they could reach more than 400 million devices across the world by 2014.

Flexible biocompatible LEDs for next gen biomedicine

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created bio-compatible LED arrays that can bend, stretch, and even be implanted under the skin. You can see an example of this in the image as LEDs have been embedded under an animal's skin.

While getting a glowing tattoo would be awesome, the arrays are actually intended for activating drugs, monitoring medical conditions, or performing other biomedical tasks within the body. Down the road, however, they could also be incorporated into consumer goods, robotics, or military/industrial applications.

Many groups have been trying to produce flexible electronic circuits, most of those incorporating new materials such as carbon nanotubes combined with silicon. The U Illinois arrays, by contrast, use the traditional semiconductor gallium arsenide (GaAs) and conventional metals for diodes and detectors.

Last year, by stamping GaAs-based components onto a plastic film, Prof. John Rogers and his team were able to create the array’s underlying circuit. Recently, they added coiled interconnecting metal wires and electronic components, to create a mesh-like grid of LEDs and photodetectors. That array was added to a pre-stretched sheet of rubber, which was then itself encapsulated inside another piece of rubber, this one being bio-compatible and transparent.

The resulting device can be twisted or stretched in any direction, with the electronics remaining unaffected after being repeatedly stretched by up to 75 percent. The coiled wires, which spring back and forth like a telephone cord, are the secret to its flexibility.

Rogers and his associates are now working on commercializing their biocompatible flexible LED array via their startup company, mc10.

The research was recently published in the journal Nature Materials.