Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Although there have been advances in medical technology and donation, the demand for organ, eye and tissue donation still vastly exceeds the number of donors. What sounds like a dream of the future has already been the subject of research for a few years: simply printing out tissue and organs. Now German researchers have developed a new gelatin bio-ink that can be used by 3D printing technology to produce artificial tissues.
A review article by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) suggests that epigenetics may be a useful target to stop the growth, spread and relapse of cancer. The findings are published online in Volume 14 of the International Journal of Molecular Science.
The term epigenetics refers to the external modifications to DNA that turn genes "on" or "off." These modifications do not change the DNA sequence, but instead, they affect how cells read genes.
The researchers propose that epigenetic and other changes mediate the development of cancer progenitor cells. These cells represent the early stage of cancer cell development and can grow rapidly to become full-fledged cancer. According to the researchers, progression of different cancer stages and development of metastatic potential requires differentiation of these cancer progenitor cells.
"These findings are not only important in understanding how cancer progresses, but also help in understanding how cancer progenitor cells grow and differentiate via epigenetic regulators," said Sibaji Sarkar, PhD, instructor of medicine at BUSM.
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, together with researchers at the Polish Wroclaw University of Technology, have made a discovery that may lead to the curing of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the so called mad cow disease) through photo therapy.
The researchers discovered, as they show in the journal Nature Photonics, that it is possible to distinguish aggregations of the proteins, believed to cause the diseases, from the the well-functioning proteins in the body by using multi-photon laser technique.
"Nobody has talked about using only light to treat these diseases until now. This is a totally new approach and we believe that this might become a breakthrough in the research of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. We have found a totally new way of discovering these structures using just laser light", says Piotr Hanczyc at Chalmers University of Technology.
If the protein aggregates are removed, the disease is in principle cured. The problem until now has been to detect and remove the aggregates.
Nitric oxide (NO) is one of the most important signaling molecules in living cells, carrying messages within the brain and coordinating immune system functions. In many cancerous cells, levels are perturbed, but very little is known about how NO behaves in both healthy and cancerous cells.
BBC News - Blood test could detect serious skin cancer spreadA simple blood test could be used to identify patients whose skin cancer has spread, according to a presentation at the National Cancer Research Institute conference.
Melanoma is particularly difficult to detect and treat once it spreads.
Dundee University researchers say that measuring levels of a gene called TFP12 in DNA in the blood could be key.
Cancer Research UK said the findings could lead to faster diagnoses and new treatments.
Dr Tim Crook, study author and consultant medical oncologist at the University of Dundee, said detecting if melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, had started to spread was challenging
BBC News - Down's pregnancy blood test on trialA simple blood test during pregnancy which can detect Down's syndrome in the developing foetus is to be trialled by the NHS.
It could significantly reduce the number of women needing invasive testing, which can cause miscarriage.
The study at Great Ormond Street Hospital will assess how and when the blood test could be introduced across the NHS.
In the UK, 750 babies are born with Down's syndrome each year.
All pregnant women in the UK are offered screening for Down's syndrome.
The stop and start of blood flow to the heart during and after a heart attack causes severe damage to heart cells, reducing their capacity to function and potentially causing their death. But a recent study led by researchers at Temple University School of Medicine suggests that it is possible to limit the extent of that damage using a drug. In experiments in mice that recapitulated a human clinical scenario, they discovered that inhibition of a heart protein called TNNI3K reduced damage from heart attack and protected the heart from further injury.
(Medical Xpress)—Researchers in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, have recently made some significant advances in developing artificial blood substitutes. Their formulation is based not on synthetic hemoglobins, but rather on hemerythrin protein extracted from marine worms. Led by Professor Radu Silanghi-Dumitrescu, from Babes-Bolyai University, the team has been testing their blood substitute in both mice and in cultured cells. Their initial results suggest that many of the adverse effects normally associated with either perfluorocarbon (PFC) or hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (HBOC) substitutes can be eliminated, or at least minimized by using hemerythrin.
Concussions in college and professional football are under the microscope more than ever these days, but they don't seem to be slowing down in frequency.
Nearly every game produces an incident where a player suffers "concussion-like symptoms." According to the CDC, more than 1.6 million sports-related concussions happen annually, with football being the sport with the highest concussion risk.
While the NFL and NCAA are trying to address the mounting concerns, BYU student Jake Merrell is developing technology that may change the concussion game.
Researchers at the University of Arizona and University of Tübingen have made a breakthrough in retinal implant technology that could help people who have lost their sight see more than just light and vague shapes.
Wolfgang Fink, an associate professor in the UA departments of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering, is researching new implant design and methods of electrical stimulation of the retina that will enable retinal implants to produce much clearer images.
3-D printed liver slices are able to function normally for 40 days | DVICE3D printing has the ability to create almost anything, from customized figurines to bionic ears and even other 3D printers. Recently, one San Diego-based startup discovered it can even generate a slice of a functioning, long-lasting liver by printing layers of living cells.
By harnessing the liver's natural ability to regenerate itself, researchers at Organovo were able to create a piece of liver that was able to operate like a regular healthy liver, filtering out toxins and drugs and keeping in nutrients — for up to 40 days. That extended record beat the company's previous results in April, when the liver slice was able to keep functioning for just over five days. That's a 700 percent increase!
The 3D-printed liver slices showed a normal reaction to acetaminophen (you know, Tylenol) and other drugs, suggesting that it functions on par with a normal human liver. However, the success of the printed liver slices are not yet an indication for full 3D organ transplant operations. A full-grown liver contains tiny networks of blood vessels to stay healthy, which poses a challenge to replicate in 3D printing.
Autism can be identified in babies as young as two months, early research suggests.
US researchers analysed how infants looked at faces from birth to the age of three.
They found children later diagnosed with autism had shown diminished eye contact - a hallmark of autism - in the first few months of life.
The findings, reported in Nature, raised hope for early interventions to tackle autism, said a UK expert.
In the study, researchers led by Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta used eye-tracking technology to measure the way babies looked at and responded to social clues.
BBC News - Spinal cord injury: Prosthetic bladder 'controls urine'A device that could one day restore bladder function to patients with a severed spinal cord has been devised by UK researchers and tested in animals.
Nerve damage can leave no sense of when the bladder is full or control over when the contents are released.
A study, published in Science Translational Medicine, showed a device to read the remaining nerves' signals could be used to control the organ.
www.sciencedaily.com: Researchers regrow hair, cartilage, bone, soft tissues: Enhancing cell metabolism was an unexpected key to tissue repairYoung animals are known to repair their tissues effortlessly, but can this capacity be recaptured in adults? A new study from researchers at the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children's Hospital suggests that it can. By reactivating a dormant gene called Lin28a, which is active in embryonic stem cells, researchers were able to regrow hair and repair cartilage, bone, skin and other soft tissues in a mouse model.
Further experiments showed that bypassing Lin28a and directly activating mitochondrial metabolism with a small-molecule compound also had the effect of enhancing wound healing. This suggests the possibility of inducing regeneration and promoting tissue repair with drugs.
"This image shows tissue regrowth in adult mice (reactivated Lin28a gene). (Credit: Cell, Shyh-Chang et al.)"
Researchers at the University of Iowa have created a bio patch to regenerate missing or damaged bone by putting DNA into a nano-sized particle that delivers bone-producing instructions directly into cells.
The bone-regeneration kit relies on a collagen platform seeded with particles containing the genes needed for producing bone. In experiments, the gene-encoding bio patch successfully regrew bone fully enough to cover skull wounds in test animals. It also stimulated new growth in human bone marrow stromal cells in lab experiments.
A two-year collaboration between the Chan and the Rocheleau labs at the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) has led to the development of a new microfluidics screening platform that can accurately predict the way nanoparticles will behave in a living body.
Nanoparticles are being eyed by scientists as a potentially powerful tool for personalized cancer treatments. The tiny particles, ranging in size from 10 to 100 nanometres (somewhere in size between a large protein to a small virus), can be deployed to outline tumors or to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to cancer cells with more potency and less side effects than regular delivery methods.
But Associate Professor Jonathan Rocheleau, core faculty at the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), cross-appointed to the Departments of Physiology and Medicine, Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism and a corresponding author of the study released in Nature Communications last week, explained that the new platform fills some of the glaring holes in current nanotechnology research.
The same technology designed for huge robotic arms that help astronauts in space is being brought back to Earth to do some heavy lifting in cancer treatment — in the form of a surgical robot. Its inventors say the robot could take breast biopsies with remarkable precision and consistency.
The new machine is called IGAR, which is short for Image-Guided Autonomous Robot. NASA officials say it descends from a long line of robotic arms built for the Canadian Space Agency, such as Canadarm, which helped build the space station, service satellites and sometimes gave astronauts a lift during spacewalks, and Dextre, a maintenance robot on the space station. (This specific tech was developed by the British Columbia-based aerospace and communications firm MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.)
A new way of scanning the heart can identify those who may be at high risk of a heart attack, early tests suggest.
It can identify dangerous plaques in the arteries which nourish the heart. If a fatty plaque ruptures, it can lead to a clot, blocking the flow of blood.
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh said an effective tool for predicting a heart attack would make a "massive difference" to patients.
Experts said it was an exciting start.
More than 100,000 people have a heart attack in the UK each year and disease of the arteries around the heart is the leading cause of death in the world.
Light up
The researchers used a radioactive tracer which can seek out active and dangerous plaques. This was combined with high resolution images of the heart and blood vessels
The overall effect is a detailed picture of the heart with the danger zones clearly highlighted. The technology is already used to detect tumours in cancer patients.
The first tests of the technique for danger spots in the heart were on 40 patients who had recently had a heart attack.
Symptoms of Parkinson's disease linked to fungus(Medical Xpress)—Scientists at Rutgers and Emory universities have discovered that a compound often emitted by mold may be linked to symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
Arati Inamdar and Joan Bennett, researchers in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers, used fruit flies to establish the connection between the compound – popularly known as mushroom alcohol – and the malfunction of two genes involved in the packaging and transport of dopamine, the chemical released by nerve cells to send messages to other nerve cells in the brain.
The findings were published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Parkinson's has been linked to exposure to environmental toxins, but the toxins were man-made chemicals," Inamdar said. "In this paper, we show that biologic compounds have the potential to damage dopamine and cause Parkinson's symptoms."
Johns Hopkins engineers and cardiology experts have teamed up to develop a fingernail-sized biosensor that could alert doctors when serious brain injury occurs during heart surgery. By doing so, the device could help doctors devise new ways to minimize brain damage or begin treatment more quickly.
Sotera Wireless introduces the ViSi Mobile System, a platform for comprehensive vital signs monitoring that is designed to keep clinicians connected to their patients, whether in or out of bed, or while in transport – “monitoring in motion.” Featuring comfortable body-worn sensors that allow for freedom of movement, the system enables highly accurate, continuous monitoring of all vital signs.
The ViSi Mobile System is able to continuously measure and display all vital signs (ECG, Heart/Pulse Rate, SpO2, Blood Pressure (cuff-based and now also cuffless on a beat-to-beat basis), Respiration Rate, Skin Temperature) with monitoring accuracy and resolution typically found in ICUs. In addition to the color touchscreen display on the patient-worn device, platforms such as desktop or tablet PCs can be utilized as remote viewing and notification devices. ViSi Mobile is able to wirelessly transmit data, leveraging existing hospital WiFi infrastructure, and is designed to provide information output in electronic form (i.e. EMR connectivity) as well as print-outs. In the future, the ViSi Mobile System will also include Sotera’s patient Posture / Motion as a “new vital sign.”
At the University of Oxford a research team has created molecule-sized shuttles that build their own micro-tracks and then use those pathways to deliver compounds from one location to another.
Such networks could work to carry medicine to precise locations of disease. Or they could be used to transport molecular materials to places in the body where new structures need to be built.
Top 10 Uses For The World’s Strongest Material
The Oxford team, led by physics graduate student Adam Wollman, used kinesins, which are “motor” proteins that can carry other molecules and assemble them, like a train car carrying a crane and supply of rails to build tracks. Wollman’s team put two kinesins together, called assemblers. The proteins built “tracks” out of artificial, nonliving DNA. The tracks were arranged in a pattern like a wagon wheel with spokes.
The scientists then used kinesin molecules as “shuttles,” which worked like boxcars to deliver a fluorescent green dye. Adding adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which cells use to transport energy, made the kinesins carrying the dye spread out along the hub and spokes.
The benefits of mobile technology in a healthcare setting have not, it’s safe to say, gone unnoticed. A throng of companies is trying to turn the smartphone into an assortment of medical devices, from blood pressure cuffs to otoscopes. Such devices offer patients a chance to keep up with chronic conditions and send data to their doctors on occasion.
But go to a hospital intensive care unit and what you’ll see are bulky machines not very different from what you saw on ER in the 1990s. The reasons are institutional: hospitals buy in bulk, and they can only buy devices that are precise and proven.
But mobile vital sign monitors are at last making inroads inside the hospital walls. Sotera Wireless’s ViSi mobile monitor, recently adopted by a San Diego hospital and a few other sites, takes the functions of those enormous beeping bedside machines and puts them in a smartphone-sized oval the patient wears on his or her wrist.
