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Synthetic biology researchers at Northwestern University, working with partners at Harvard Medical School, have for the first time synthesized ribosomes -- cell structures responsible for generating all proteins and enzymes in our bodies -- from scratch in a test tube.
Others have previously tried to synthesize ribosomes from their constituent parts, but the efforts have yielded poorly functional ribosomes under conditions that do not replicate the environment of a living cell. In addition, attempts to combine ribosome synthesis and assembly in a single process have failed for decades.
Breathing oxygen-enriched liquid is an old idea, but it's god a few flaws. One of those flaws being the removal of carbon dioxide from the bloodstream. A simpler problem is how to breathe it without gagging. Wouldn’t it be far easier if you just didn’t need to breathe at all?
Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital thought so, so they created microparticles that can be injected into your bloodsteam and oxygenate it. Even if you can’t/aren’t breathing. And it can keep people alive for 15 to 30 minutes. Think about that. At worst, it’s 2/3 and episode of Seinfeld. At best, you could start a second.
The particles are pockets of oxygen in a layer of lipids, specifically fats. This is then suspended in liquid, which can be injected into the blood steam. The oxygen then “squeezethrough capillaries,” according to Dr. John Kheir of Boston Children’s Hospital.
The implications of this are enormous. It could mean doctors have another 15 to 30 minutes to work on patients who have lost the ability to breathe, an amount of time that could potentially save lives.
The real question, though, is does this mean we can now breathe underwater?
Before scientists and engineers can realize the dream of using stem cells to create replacements for worn out organs and battle damaged body parts, they'll have to develop ways to grow complex three-dimensional structures in large volumes and at costs that won't bankrupt health care systems.
Researchers are now reporting advances in these areas by using gelatin-based microparticles to deliver growth factors to specific areas of embryoid bodies, aggregates of differentiating stem cells. The localized delivery technique provides spatial control of cell differentiation within the cultures, potentially enabling the creation of complex three-dimensional tissues. The local control also dramatically reduces the amount of growth factor required, an important cost consideration for manufacturing stem cells for therapeutic applications.
Using tiny gold particles and a kind of resin, a team of scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has discovered how to make a new kind of flexible sensor that one day could be integrated into electronic skin, or e-skin. If scientists learn how to attach e-skin to prosthetic limbs, people with amputations might once again be able to feel changes in their environments. The findings appear in the June issue of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
MUMBAI: Scientists have found that key metabolites in blood - chemical 'fingerprints' left behind as a result of early molecular changes before birth or in infancy - could provide clues to a person's long-term overall health and rate of ageing in later life.
Published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, the international study of twins led by King's College London highlights how a technique called metabolomic profiling has revealed a collection of 22 metabolites linked to ageing. One of these, linked to ageing traits such as lung function and bone mineral density, is also strongly associated with birth weight - a well-known developmental determinant of healthy ageing.
This finding suggests that levels of this novel metabolite, which may be determined in the womb and affected by nutrition during development, could reflect accelerated ageing in later adult life. Scientists say the findings show it is possible that these markers of ageing can be identified with simple blood tests in the future, which may provide further clues to the ageing process and could pave the way for development of therapies to treat age-related conditions.
Professor Tim Spector, Head of the Department of Twin Research at King's College London, said: 'Scientists have known for a long time that a person's weight at the time of birth is an important determinant of health in middle and old age, and that people with low birth weight are more susceptible to age related diseases. So far the molecular mechanisms that link low birth weight to health or disease in old age had remained elusive, but this discovery has revealed one of the molecular pathways involved.'
Breakthrough could lead to 'artificial skin' that senses touch, humidity and temperature
6 hours ago by Kevin Hattori
Using tiny gold particles and a kind of resin, a team of scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has discovered how to make a new kind of flexible sensor that one day could be integrated into electronic skin, or e-skin. If scientists learn how to attach e-skin to prosthetic limbs, people with amputations might once again be able to feel changes in their environments. The findings appear in the June issue of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Read more at: Breakthrough could lead to 'artificial skin' that senses touch, humidity and temperature
Stanford researchers are on track to begin human trials of a potentially potent new weapon against cancer, and would-be participants are flooding in following the Post’s initial report on the discovery.
The progress comes just two months after the groundbreaking study by Dr Irv Weissman, who developed an antibody that breaks down a cancer's defense mechanisms in the body.
A protein called CD47 tells the body not to "eat" the cancer, but the antibody developed by Dr Weissman blocks CD47 and frees up immune cells called macrophages — which can then engulf the deadly cells.
A disease which robs children of the ability to walk and talk has been cured by pioneering gene therapy to correct errors in their DNA, say doctors.
The study, in the journal Science, showed the three patients were now going to school.
A second study published at the same time has shown a similar therapy reversing a severe genetic disease affecting the immune system.
Gene therapy researchers said it was a "really exciting" development.
Both diseases are caused by errors in the patient's genetic code - the manual for building and running their bodies.
Read more at: Lab-on-a-chip technology gets a flexible upgradeMicrofluidic devices move liquids through tiny, hair-sized pathways carved into glass slides and have distinct advantages over traditional laboratories when it comes to medical diagnostics. At these reduced scales, fluid transport is enhanced by factors such as diffusion and high surface-to-volume ratios, making testing procedures much faster. By constructing parallel arrays of microfluidic pathways, researchers are working to produce 'lab-on-a-chip' technologies that allow multiple biological tests to be performed using just a drop of blood or urine. In a development that promises to make lab-on-a-chip devices more portable and economic to construct, Yo Tanaka from the RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center and colleagues have now produced a new type of microfluidic control valve that takes up significantly less space on a microchip than existing approaches.
A new, non-invasive type of test could spell the beginning of a new age in bladder cancer diagnosis. Researchers at the University of Liverpool and University of the West of England in Bristol have created a device that can analyze the odors in urine to catch early signs of this type of cancer. The researchers claim the device has generated an accuracy rate of 100 percent in tests with 98 urine samples.
The device, called the Odoreader, features a sensor system that responds to chemicals in gas emitted from urine. The system comprises a standard gas chromatography oven fitted with a commercially available capillary column, a staple component of this technique. The column is interfaced to a heated metal oxide sensor (a mix of tin and zinc oxide) that is used as the detector.
(Medical Xpress)—Researchers in Oxford have demonstrated a significant improvement in the treatment of advanced Parkinson's disease with deep brain stimulation.
Deep brain stimulation involves permanently inserting electrodes into the brain to deliver electrical impulses that cancel out the brain signals causing symptoms of Parkinson's.
The new 'adaptive' system, successfully trialled by a Oxford University team based at the John Radcliffe Hospital, only delivers electrical stimulation when it detects the brainwaves responsible for causing the symptoms.
Man eyeing up a doughnut Why some people find fatty foods irresistible could be hidden in their genes.
The mystery of a genetic flaw which greatly increases the risk of obesity in one in six people has been solved by an international group of scientists.
A version of an obesity gene, called FTO, had been linked to a bigger belly, but the reason why was uncertain.
A study, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, showed it made fatty foods more tempting and altered levels of the hunger hormone, ghrelin.
Obesity experts said drugs targeting ghrelin might reduce weight gain.
There is a strong family link with obesity, and a person's genetic code is thought to play a major role in the risk of them becoming overweight.
People have two copies of the FTO gene - one from each parent - and each copy comes in a high and a low-risk form. Those with two-high risk copies of the FTO gene are thought to be 70% more likely to become obese than those with low-risk genes.
Magnets could be a tool for directing stem cells' healing powers to treat conditions such as heart disease or vascular disease.
By feeding stem cells tiny particles made of iron oxide, scientists at Emory and Georgia Tech can use magnets to attract the cells to a particular location in the body after intravenous injection.
The results are published online in the journal Small and will appear in an upcoming issue.
FDA Approves Brainwave Device For Diagnosing ADHD | Popular ScienceThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a brainwave-measuring device to help diagnose kids with ADHD, a first for the disorder.
The device detects two different types of brainwaves, theta and beta, and how frequently they occur. Kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder have more theta than beta brainwaves, compared to kids without ADHD.
The FDA approved the device, called the Neuropsychiatric Electroencephalogram-Based Assessment Aid or NEBA, for use with a full medical exam. In a statement, the director of the agency's Office of Device Evaluation, Christy Foreman, emphasized that the device has to work with other clinical measures.
To get their FDA approval, NEBA's creators performed a study with 275 kids with attention problems. The study, which the FDA didn't make public, found that adding a 20-minute NEBA test to standard diagnostic procedures helped doctors diagnose ADHD more accurately.
Scientists have corrected the genetic fault that causes Down's syndrome – albeit in isolated cells – raising the prospect of a radical therapy for the disorder.
In an elegant series of experiments, US researchers took cells from people with DS and silenced the extra chromosome that causes the condition. A treatment based on the work remains a distant hope, but scientists in the field said the feat was the first major step towards a "chromosome therapy" for Down's syndrome.
"This is a real technical breakthrough. It opens up whole new avenues of research," said Elizabeth Fisher, professor of neurogenetics at UCL, who was not involved in the study. "This is really the first sniff we've had of anything to do with gene therapy for Down's syndrome."
Around 750 babies are born with DS in Britain each year while globally between one in a 1000 and one in 1100 births are DS babies. Most experience learning difficulties.
Researchers at the University of Basel have successfully developed artificial organelles that are able to support the reduction of toxic oxygen compounds. This opens up new ways in the development of novel drugs that can influence pathological states directly inside the cell. The results have been published in the Journal
Free oxygen radicals are produced either as metabolic byproduct, or through environmental influences such as UV-rays and smog. Is the concentration of free radicals inside the organism elevated to the point where the antioxidant defense mechanism is overwhelmed, the result can be oxidative stress, which is associated with numerous diseases such as cancer of arthritis.
Reuters) - Scientists have created an "intelligent" surgical knife that can detect in seconds whether tissue being cut is cancerous, promising more effective and accurate surgery in future.
The device, built by researchers at London's Imperial College, could allow doctors to cut back on additional operations to remove further pieces of cancerous tumors.
The technology, effectively merging an electrosurgical knife that cuts through tissue using heat with a mass spectrometer for chemical analysis, has also been shown to be able to distinguish beef from horsemeat.
Surgeons often find it impossible to tell by sight where tumors end and healthy tissue begins, so some cancer cells are often left behind. A fifth of breast cancer patients who have lumpectomy surgery need a second operation.
Stem cells are key to the promise of regenerative medicine: the repair or replacement of injured tissues with custom grown substitutes. Essential to this process are induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can be created from a patient's own tissues, thus eliminating the risk of immune rejection. However, Shinya Yamanaka's formula for iPSCs, for which he was awarded last year's Nobel Prize, uses a strict recipe that allows for limited variations in human cells, restricting their full potential for clinical application.
Now, in this week's issue of Cell Stem Cell, the Salk Institute's Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte and his colleagues show that the recipe for iPSCs is far more versatile than originally thought. For the first time, they have replaced a gene once thought impossible to substitute, creating the potential for more flexible recipes that should speed the adoption of stem cells therapies.
Men with advanced prostate cancer may live longer after receiving a new type of targeted radiation treatment, a new study suggests.
In the study, men given the treatment -- a radioactive drug that specifically targets tumors in bone -- lived 14.9 months on average after their diagnosis, while those who received the placebo lived 11.3 months, meaning the drug extended life by about 3.5 months.
Medical science is always hard at work developing the next miraculous medication, but some of them will be of limited use without an equally miraculous delivery system. Advanced materials science may hold the key to delivering drugs with high precision when an injection simply won’t do. Biomedical scientists and engineers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have joined forces looking for a breakthrough. What they’ve come up with is a so-called “smart sponge” that can be loaded up with medication, then release it only when and where it’s
