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When surgeons are operating on a patient, they need a lot of tools and space to get the job done. That can lead to some pretty big incisions that take a while to heal and sometimes get infected.
2016-03-08
Innovations in what's called minimally invasive surgery have changed this, to an extent. But is it possible to make a surgical cut so small that it can heal on its own?
Mechanical engineering student Jason Dearden helps with the origami-inspired research at Brigham Young University.
Mark Philbrick
Now they are turning their attention to the human body, finding new ways to design wide, flat tools that can be folded up into something narrower. "You want it to go in from as small a hole as possible," Lang says in a video about the research.
The research is in its early stages, but the goal is for the new surgical devices to make incisions so small that they would heal much faster and require few (or zero) stitches.
Mechanical engineering professor Spencer Magleby looks over his origami-inspired surgical devices.
Mark Philbrick
One of their devices takes inspiration from the "<a href="http://www.origamiway.com/origami-chomper.shtml">chomper</a>" origami fold.
You can see how the finished stainless-steel surgical tool still looks like a chomper. It's only 4 millimeters.
3D-printing the parts, engineering professor Spencer Magleby says in the video, allows them to go from an idea to a finished prototype in less than a day.
The researchers signed a licensing agreement with <a href="http://www.davincisurgery.com/">Intuitive Surgical</a>, the company that makes the da Vinci robotic surgery system. The tools are designed to be held and used by a surgical robot like da Vinci, not a person.
The company plans to use the lab's chomper tool, which is smaller than its current one and has fewer parts.
"Instead of trying to make that complexity smaller and smaller," Magleby says in the video, "we're going for simplicity early."
A recent review noted that practical applications of origami technique are now being explored in aerospace, biomedicine, packaging, storage, manufacturing, robotics, and more.
Rebecca was an Executive Editor for Business Insider's news division, overseeing the Science, Speed news, Weekend news, LA news, Visual Features, and Voices of Color desks. She worked across teams to assign, coordinate, and edit breaking news, explainers, features, analysis, and investigations. She also developed guides, trainings, and coaching opportunities for the newsroom to get better every day.Rebecca started as a reporter on Tech Insider's science section in 2015, covering everything from solar energy and rocket launches to Zika, before moving to the news team during the summer of 2016 at the height of the presidential election and then running weekend coverage for 2 years. She's previously worked with the Politics, Military & Defense, and Video teams, and served as an editorial liaison with the product team that powers the CMS.She received her Master's degree from the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University, as well as a BS in Biology and a BA in Journalism from the University of Minnesota. Rebecca has also written for Popular Science, Scientific American, Scienceline, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the Minnesota Daily.ExpertiseBreaking news, legal analysis, criminal justice, police misconduct, public health, abortion, space, energy, visual features, extreme weather, White House history, voting rights, executive actionsPopular articlesJust don't call it 'climate change': What Republicans in Dallas can teach us about saving the planetWhat Buzz Aldrin was thinking when he left the moonHow the 25th Amendment works to remove a sitting presidentHurricane categories tell only part of the storyTRUMP'S FIRST 100 DAYS: Here's how they compare with Obama's, Bush's, and Clinton's
