You are a biological machine whose movement is powered by skeletal muscle, just as a car is a machine whose movement is powered by an engine. If you can be built from the bottom up with biological materials, other machines can be as well. This is the conceptual starting point for biofabrication, the act of building with living cells--building with biology in the same way we build with synthetic materials. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Ritu Raman offers an accessible introduction to biofabrication, arguing that it can address some of our greatest technological challenges.
After presenting the background information needed to understand the emergence and evolution of biofabrication and describing the fundamental technology that enables building with biology, Raman takes deep dives into four biofabrication applications that have the potential to affect our daily lives: tissue engineering, organs-on-a-chip, lab-grown meat and leather, and biohybrid machines. Organs-on-a-chip (devices composed of miniature model tissues), for example, could be used to test new medicine and therapies, and lab-grown meat could alleviate environmental damage done by animal farming. She shows that biological materials have abilities synthetic materials do not, including the ability to adapt dynamically to their environments. Exploring the principles of biofabrication, Raman tells us, should help us appreciate the beauty, adaptiveness, and persistence of the biological machinery that drives our bodies and our world.

The book begins with an introduction to the fundamentals of wearable technology, covering its history, types, and foundational principles. It then transitions into a detailed exploration of advanced applications, demonstrating the integration of wearables in healthcare, fitness, fashion, and other sectors. The book also offers insights into the technology's potential to revolutionize these fields, providing a glimpse into the future of wearable devices.

Wearable Technology: From Basics to Advanced Applications is a valuable resource for technology enthusiasts, professionals, and students. With its balance of basic knowledge and advanced insights, this book is an essential reference in understanding the impact and future of wearable technology. Discover the world of wearables and how they shape our lives in this captivating read.

The Death of Death is a truly revolutionary book. This is a visionary book that confronts us with the terrible reality of aging, and its authors are friends and connoisseurs of the subject. I believe that the authoritative and exhaustive description of this crusade that José and David make in this excellent book will accelerate this process. Forward!
Aubrey de Grey, founder of LEV (Longevity Escape Velocity) Foundation and co-author of Ending Aging

Understanding Biochemical Pathways: A Pattern-Recognition Approach provides students with a clear methodology for understanding metabolic processes, with an emphasis on human metabolic processes. It focuses on specific pathways of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism that illustrate how to apply this pattern-recognition approach.

This text presents a basic recipe of metabolism to illustrate the general sequence of reactions that are carried out in biochemical pathways to move from one oxidation state of carbon to another. The goal is to give the reader the ability to look at a reaction and determine the type of reaction based on the differences in reactants and products, identify the type of enzyme that would catalyze the reaction, and then name the enzyme based on enzyme naming rules.

The second edition features new Check Your Knowledge boxes and content summaries within each chapter. The text also features new content in Chapter 2 on the pawn shop model of metabolism to explain relationships between prominent metabolic pathways.

Understanding Biochemical Pathways is an excellent resource for courses and programs in biochemistry, nutrition, medicine, and nursing.

In its simplest form, electrical stimulation is the application of electrical impulses to nerves via electrodes placed over the nerve or muscle or implanted within the body. The aim is to evoke a muscle contraction. People may not be able to activate their own muscles sufficiently to execute effective movement due to damage to the nervous system preventing the signals from the brain reaching the muscles, for example, after a stroke or spinal cord injury, or due to disuse, often because of pain. Electrical stimulation can be used to restore or improve impaired function by initiating or complementing muscle activity. Stimulation can be used either to provide exercise and so improve strength and endurance or timed to a physical activity such as walking to improve quality of movement and function.

Over the last twenty-five years electrical stimulation has moved from a research technique to an evidence-based clinical modality. Early applications were limited to the treatment of drop-foot and loss of upper limb function. However, advances in technology, understanding of neural recovery and clinical evidence have opened applications to treat a wide range of conditions, such as pressure sores, bladder, bowel and sexual dysfunction, spasticity and lower motor neuron damage. The reader is taken from the history of therapeutic electrical stimulation, through the physiology that underpins its use, to practical guidance in clinical applications and the regulatory issues that need to be considered in the development of new technologies. It presents the research evidence for each application, reflects on new technologies and applications, such as the use of afferent stimulation to increase central and peripheral neural excitability, and provides practical guidance for clinical use.

Techniques and Technologies in Electrical Stimulation for Neuromuscular Rehabilitation brings together experts from the fields of neuroscience, biomedical engineering and clinical research and practice. The non-technical style enables it to bridge the gap between disciplines, making it essential reading for clinicians, researchers, engineers and industrial developers specialising in electrical stimulation technologies. It aims to improve patient access to evidence-based interventions.

This updated and expanded second edition of an Artech House classic introduces readers to the importance of engineering in medicine. Transport of molecules, bioelectrical phenomena, principles of mass, momentum, and energy transport to the analysis of fluids and solids, biomechanical analysis, biomaterial selection, and imaging are discussed in detail. Readers learn about using living cells in developing therapies, biosensors, diagnostics, genomics, proteomic strategies, and model development. Key topics covered in this resource include basics of fluid mechanics, strength of materials, statics and dynamics, basic thermodynamics, electrical circuits, and material science. Many numerical problems are provided as examples and exercise problems are included. These problems facilitate in-depth understanding of engineering principles in the development of biomedical applications, cutting-edge technologies, and emerging challenges.

Describing the role of engineering in medicine today, this complete volume covers a wide range of the most important topics in this burgeoning field. Moreover, readers will find a thorough treatment of standards and ethical considerations needed for exploring biomedical research and device development. Structured as a complete text for students with some engineering background, the book also serves as a valuable reference for professionals new to the bioengineering field.

In From Darwin to Derrida, evolutionary biologist David Haig explains how a physical world of matter in motion gave rise to a living world of purpose and meaning. Natural selection, a process without purpose, gives rise to purposeful beings who find meaning in the world. The key to this, Haig proposes, is the origin of mutable texts--genes--that preserve a record of what has worked in the world. These texts become the specifications for the intricate mechanisms of living beings.

Haig draws on a wide range of sources--from Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy to Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment to the work of Jacques Derrida to the latest findings on gene transmission, duplication, and expression--to make his argument. Genes and their effects, he explains, are like eggs and chickens. Eggs exist for the sake of becoming chickens and chickens for the sake of laying eggs. A gene's effects have a causal role in determining which genes are copied. A gene (considered as a lineage of material copies) persists if its lineage has been consistently associated with survival and reproduction. Organisms can be understood as interpreters that link information from the environment to meaningful action in the environment. Meaning, Haig argues, is the output of a process of interpretation; there is a continuum from the very simplest forms of interpretation, instantiated in single RNA molecules near the origins of life, to the most sophisticated. Life is interpretation--the use of information in choice.

Dieses Open-Access-Buch dokumentiert die Entwicklung des personenzentrierten Bedarfserfassungsinstrumentes IBUT-CMA auf Grundlage der ICF. Ziel war es, die Bedarfe praxisnah zu erfassen, eine direkte, leistungsgerechte, monetäre Abbildung der Hilfen zu erreichen, die Mitwirkungsmöglichkeit und Teilhabe der Betroffenen am Erfassungsprozess zu verbessern und eine klare Kommunikationsstruktur zwischen Kostenträger und Leistungserbringer zu schaffen.

How do Olympic sprinters run so fast? Why do astronauts adopt a bounding gait on the moon? How do running shoes improve performance while preventing injuries? This engaging and generously illustrated book answers these questions by examining human and animal movement through the lens of mechanics. The authors present simple conceptual models to study walking and running and apply mechanical principles to a range of interesting examples. They explore the biology of how movement is produced, examining the structure of a muscle down to its microscopic force-generating motors. Drawing on their deep expertise, the authors describe how to create simulations that provide insight into muscle coordination during walking and running, suggest treatments to improve function following injury, and help design devices that enhance human performance.

Throughout, the book emphasizes established principles that provide a foundation for understanding movement. It also describes innovations in computer simulation, mobile motion monitoring, wearable robotics, and other technologies that build on these fundamentals. The book is suitable for use as a textbook by students and researchers studying human and animal movement. It is equally valuable for clinicians, roboticists, engineers, sports scientists, designers, computer scientists, and others who want to understand the biomechanics of movement.