This book highlights the responsibility of medical device designers and engineers to eliminate sites of failure and to test devices to demonstrate its ultimate safety and efficacy. It also evaluates biomaterials and their properties as related to the design and reliability of medical devices. The principals that are described are readily applicable to the biomaterial scaffolds used for generating tissue-engineered constructs.

Polyurethanes form a large family of polymeric materials with an enormous diversity of chemical compositions and properties The wide range of properties that can be achieved with polyurethane chemistry has attracted the attention of developers of biomedical devices who see promise in the mechanical flexibility of these materials combined with their high tear strength. The authors of this book discuss polyurethanes used in a variety of biomedical applications.

In this book, members of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Liver Support Unit (LSU) present the most current understanding of the pathophysiology of liver failure and how its various forms and manifestations are classified, and summarize the state of the art in the diagnosis and management of the disease.

This book is about the perfect vascular graft: A hypothetical discussion of what it is and how one may go about producing it.. By exploring some basic biological areas and introducing the background of clinical and pathological failures and demands, this book shall serve as a comprehensive guide, furthering the research initiatives of academic vascular surgeons, scientists and industry researchers.

Fundamental engineering principles are essential to consider when designing and developing artificial organs, especially the artificial kidney. Early contributors to the development of the artificial kidney were primarily chemical and electrical engineers who developed improved hemodialysis membranes, methods for producing large quantities of dialysis solutions and easy-to-use machines or dialysis delivery systems. Efforts along these lines continue today to improve hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis therapies. Recent engineering efforts to improve artificial kidney therapies have focussed on developing a better understanding of the effect of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis on patient physiology or pathophysiology, and develop improved treatments using recent advances in tissue, cellular and genetic engineering. Investigators active in these areas have contributed authoritative chapters to this book. The focus of this book is to provide bioengineers and other interested researchers with comprehensive reviews of active research related to the artificial kidney. Each chapter begins from first principles and develops the topic to include the most recent research.from authors who are experts in their respective fields. This approach will permit both the student and the expert to gain a thorough understanding of this research area.