A miniature intra-oral dental implant system including a built-in biosensor device is proposed in this article. The dental implant system, or platform, is replaced over maxilla and allows relatively non-invasive procedures for a novel biosensing scheme for human blood analysis. Due to placement of the implant fixture, periodontal ligaments and the pulp structure, which are regarded as the main origin of pain, are thus removed, and long-term, continuous blood analysis and management through maxillary bone marrow becomes achievable through the dental implant platform. The new pathway of biological sensing is for the first time presented to realize an accurate and painless approach without injections. The dental implant system mainly consists of an implant fixture and a prosthetic abutment, a biosensor module, a bluetooth 4.0 wireless module and a dc button cell battery. The electrochemical biosensor possesses three electrodes, including working, reference and counter ones, which are arranged to pass through the titanium implant fixture below the biosensor module. The electrodes are exposed to the blood pool inside the maxillary bone marrow and perform oxidation/reduction reactions with the coating of biosensing enzyme. To prove the proposed platform, the immobilization process of glucose oxidase (GOD) enzyme and in vitro detections of glucose levels are successfully carried out, and proven sensitivity, linearity and repeatability of the glucose biosensor system are obtained. Moreover, a preliminary canine animal model adopting the new pathway shows significant consistency with the traditional method through dermal pricks for blood sugar detection. Despite the prospective results, further challenges in engineering implementation and clinical practices are addressed and discussed. In brief, the novel biosensing pathway and intra-oral biosensor platform may increasingly reveal their promising value and feasibilities in current bio-medical analysis, diagnosis, drug release and even healthcare technologies.

We construct a model for cell proliferation with differentiation into different cell types, allowing backward de-differentiation and cell movement. With different cell types labeled by state variables, the model can be formulated in terms of the associated transition probabilities between various states. The cell population densities can be described by coupled reaction-diffusion partial differential equations, allowing steady wavefront propagation solutions. The wavefront profile is calculated analytically for the simple pure growth case (2-states), and analytic expressions for the steady wavefront propagating speeds and population growth rates are obtained for the simpler cases of 2-, 3- and 4-states systems. These analytic results are verified by direct numerical solutions of the reaction-diffusion PDEs. Furthermore, in the absence of de-differentiation, it is found that, as the mobility and/or self-proliferation rate of the down-lineage descendant cells become sufficiently large, the propagation dynamics can switch from a steady propagating wavefront to the interesting situation of propagation of a faster wavefront with a slower waveback. For the case of a non-vanishing de-differentiation probability, the cell growth rate and wavefront propagation speed are both enhanced, and the wavefront speeds can be obtained analytically and confirmed by numerical solution of the reaction-diffusion equations.

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RFID-enabled dental prostheses can facilitate the use of relatively noninvasive procedures, and such a fixed prosthesis may provide significant additional benefits. This article describes the insertion of High frequency (13.56 MHz) RFID devices in dental fixed prostheses. A high frequency (13.56 MHz) system using sheet-type RFID-tags is inserted in the bilateral lower first molar buccal area to allow for direct identification through the cheeks without saliva contaminations. Simulations and experiments indicate that both the area occupied by the antenna and the number of coil turns influence the density of the electromagnetic field. Experimental results show that, as the tag's area increases, the tag's detecting distance is increased to more than 1 cm throughout the agarose, consisting of about 98% water to mimic the physiology of a human cheek. We also successfully download data from the tag including the prostheses design date, installing dentist identifier, and the materials used. Such a mechanism can protect patient privacy, while providing benefits for medical therapy as well as facilitating forensic identification. Further studies to minimize the antenna dimensions and improve its directional propagation are still needed for future applications.

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