Modular Cast Accelerates Healing Process  In 2009, during a biomedical-engineering course, the professor challenged the students to solve a problem that was important to them. They set about finding a way to reduce the harm that casts cause. After considering several ideas, they decided to create a modular cast. The device would secure the entire arm like a conventional cast, but a doctor could disassemble it a piece at a time as the bone healed, freeing up the arm to make specific movements one by one to build flexibility and increase blood flow to muscles—and reduce the length of physical therapy after the cast is removed by as much as half.  (via 2012 Invention Awards: A Recovery-Accelerating Modular Cast | Popular Science)