Skeletal arm showing diamond coated steel pins stabilising broken bones by connecting them to steel splints. Made by Professor Mitura of the Technical University of Lodz, Poland, in 1999.

Diamonds are normally associated with jewellery rather than surgical implants. But here, the steel pins connecting the steel splints to the arm bones in order to stabilise fractures are coated with a thin layer of synthetic diamond. These diamond coated implants are not rejected by the body’s immune system. This strand of nanotechnology has undergone promising clinical trials and it is hoped this will be of beneficial use.

The arm was made by Professor Stanislaw Mitura, who headed the research team that developed diamond technology at the Technical University of Łódź in Poland from the 1980s onwards.