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A team of University of Notre Dame researchers led by Mayland Chang and Shahriar Mobashery have discovered a new class of antibiotics to fight bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other drug-resistant bacteria that threaten public health. Their research is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in an article titled "Discovery of a New Class of Non-beta-lactam Inhibitors of Penicillin-Binding Proteins with Gram-Positive Antibacterial Activity."
According to the World Health Organization, there were approximately 207 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2012, 627,000 of which proved fatal. Unfortunately, the disease most often occurs in developing nations, where diagnostic equipment may not be available. This means that doctors can't determine the particular strain of malaria from which a patient is suffering, and thus don't know which medication will work best. Manu Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the Stanford School of Medicine, hopes to change that ... using his disposable folding paper microscope.
Known as the Foldscope, the device can be assembled on site by the user in just a few minutes, from flat-packed components. It's made almost entirely of cardstock paper, with the exception of its poppy seed-sized spherical lens. The lenses are in fact actually a type of abrasive grit, used to round off the rough edges of metal parts.
Materials-wise, each microscope is worth about 50 cents. Using them is fairly simple as Stanford describes it:
When it comes to thoroughly assessing the condition of someone's eyes, it's usually necessary to utilize large, expensive contraptions such as those found in an ophthalmologist's office. While that's OK in some situations, physicians in rural areas or developing nations might not have access to such technology. Additionally, emergency room personnel typically need information on-the-spot, ASAP. That's why two scientists from Stanford University have created the EyeGo system, which allows smartphones to do the job.
Developed by assistant professor of ophthalmology Dr. Robert Chang and ophthalmology resident Dr. David Myung, the system consists of two adapters that are simply added to an existing smartphone camera – one of them gets shots of the front surface of the eye, while the other focuses light through the pupil to get pics of the retina, along the back of the eye.
According to the university, EyeGo is designed to "make it easy for anyone with minimal training to take a picture of the eye and share it securely with other health practitioners or store it in the patient’s electronic record."
(Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it approved a nerve-stimulating device to prevent migraines that is worn as a band across the forehead.
The battery-powered device, which should be positioned above the eyes, sends an electric current to the skin and underlying tissue via a self-adhesive electrode to stimulate the trigeminal nerve that is associated with migraines.
Melbourne scientists are a step closer to creating a new drug to stop a heart attack in its tracks and reduce the damage caused, without any side effects.
The Monash University research, published today in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (PNAS), offers new hope to thousands of people who experience heart attacks and heart failure – one of the major causes of death worldwide.
Professors Arthur Christopoulos and Peter Scammells from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) led a team of scientists combining molecular pharmacology and medicinal chemistry to reveal new insights into a specific protein belonging to the family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). After successfully combining two molecules, they are a step closer to creating a brand new class of drug that is more targeted and could possess minimal side effects.
GPCRs play a role in virtually every biological process and most diseases, including, cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, neuropsychiatric disorder, inflammation and cancer. Almost half of all current medications available use GPCRs to achieve their therapeutic effect.
Current GPCR drugs work either by fully activating or completely blocking receptors, treating the protein like a simple "on-off" switch. This new research discovered alternative recognition sites on GPCRs that can be targeted by drugs to fine-tune the behavior of the protein, basically converting the "on-off" switch into a "dimmer switch".
Professor Christopoulos said it was this insight that enabled the new breakthrough.
"When a heart attack strikes, heart cells die because of a lack of oxygen and nutrients. But even more damage is caused when the blood rushes back to the heart cells due to the release of inflammatory chemicals and damaging free radicals," Professor Christopoulos said.
Currently, drugs to minimise damage to the heart activate the adenosine A1 receptor, a GPCR found in the heart. However, a major issue in activating the A1 receptor also slows down the heart, and too much activation can stop the heart.
"Correct dosage has been a serious challenge in clinical trials for A1 receptor drugs. The consequences are serious; a dosage that is too high can stop the heart from beating. Too low, and the drug fails to prevent cell damage. Getting this balance right has been a big problem," Professor Scammells said.
Professor Christopoulos said the Monash study focused on finding new ways to activate the protein, to achieve the beneficial effects (protection) without the side effects (slowing the heart).
An experimental cancer vaccine used to treat advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, proved effective in a late-stage study in shrinking tumors in a way that suggests the drug triggered the intended systemic immune response, according to data presented on Friday.
The Amgen Inc. vaccine shrank tumors that were directly injected with the drug and tumors around the body that were not injected, according to the data.
A new study of math anxiety shows how some people may be at greater risk to fear math not only because of negative experiences, but also because of genetic risks related to both general anxiety and math skills.
The study, which examined how fraternal and identical twins differ on measures of math anxiety, provides a revised view on why some children – and adults – may develop a fear of math that makes it more difficult for them to solve math problems and succeed in school.
"We found that math anxiety taps into genetic predispositions in two ways: people's cognitive performance on math and their tendency toward anxiety," said Zhe Wang, lead author of the study and postdoctoral researcher in psychology at The Ohio State University.
The results don't mean that math anxiety can be blamed solely or even mostly on genetic factors, the researchers emphasized. In this study, genetic factors explained about 40 percent of the individual differences in math anxiety. Much of the rest was explained by the different environments—in the school, in the home and elsewhere—that the twins experienced.
A single gene appears to play a crucial role in coordinating the immune system and metabolism, and deleting the gene in mice reduces body fat and extends lifespan, according to new research by scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center (USDA HNRCA) on Aging at Tufts University and Yale University School of Medicine. Their results are reported online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Doctors from the University Medical Center (UMC) in Utrecht, Holland, have successfully carried out the first full skull transplant, using a 3D printed implant, on a 22 year old woman. The operation saved the young woman’s life from a rare disease that caused the inside of her natural skull to grow extra bone tissue, squeezing her brain.
The news – as it should be – is being reported by almost every important news outlet globally, as an amazing feat of modern medical technology. However, what I think is most amazing about this new success achieved through 3D printing technologies, is the relative ease with which it was achieved.
Surgical procedures are always complex and extremely delicate, especially when the brain is involved. However, surgeons routinely remove or replace parts of the skull to cure concussions or other conditions involving a swelling of the brain. Partial 3D printed skull replacements have also already been successfully implemented.
This time the Dutch doctors “simply” replaced the entire skull and they were able to do it without any complications because the new skull had been 3D printed in a biocompatible plastic material to perfectly fit the patient’s anatomy. Anatomics, the Australian company that handled the 3D modelling and 3D printing only had to adjust the CT scan data to remove the added skull growth form the patient’s natural bone.
A new treatment for hepatitis C "cured" 90% of patients with the infection in 12 weeks, scientists said.
The study is a "major breakthrough" and marks a "turning point" in hepatitis C treatment, said experts.
More than 200,000 people are infected with hepatitis in the UK, and deaths from the infection have increased threefold since 1996.
Only 3% of patients in the UK currently opt for the existing treatment, which only works half of the time.
As a species, humanity is getting good at creating artificial body parts: from artificial hearts and other organs to limbs and prosthetics. Obviously, creating artificial blood is the natural next step, especially considering how expensive and time consuming and sometimes dangerous it is to suck blood out of humans just to give to other humans. Scientists at Wellcome Trust have created a form of artificial universal blood made from stem cells that is just about ready for testing in humans needing transfusions, potentially making blood something that can be mass produced.
Scientists at Cardiff University say they have made a significant breakthrough in the treatment of the most common form of leukaemia.
Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) affects 3,000 people in Wales and 20,000 in the UK.
A new drug has been developed that targets cancer cells, stopping them in their tracks before they have time to multiply and travel through the body.
Scientists said the disease would become less of a clinical problem.
A team at the institute of cancer and genetics at the University Hospital of Wales has been working on the project which has been led by Prof Chris Pepper, who has worked on the disease for 20 years.
A significant breakthrough could revolutionize surgical practice and regenerative medicine. Researchers have demonstrated that the principle of adhesion by aqueous solutions of nanoparticles can be used in vivo to repair soft-tissue organs and tissues. This adhesion method is exceptional because of its potential spectrum of clinical applications. It is simple, easy to use and the nanoparticles employed can be metabolized by the organism. It can easily be integrated into ongoing research on healing and tissue regeneration and contribute to the development of regenerative medicine.
An international team of scientists led by Jef Boeke, PhD, director of NYU Langone Medical Center’s Institute for Systems Genetics, has synthesized the first functional chromosome in yeast, an important step in the emerging field of synthetic biology, designing microorganisms to produce novel medicines, raw materials for food, and biofuels.
Over the last five years, scientists have built bacterial chromosomes and viral DNA, but this is the first report of an entire eukaryotic chromosome, the threadlike structure that carries genes in the nucleus of all plant and animal cells, built from scratch. Researchers say their team’s global effort also marks one of the most significant advances in yeast genetics since 1996, when scientists initially mapped out yeast’s entire DNA code, or genetic blueprint.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists implanted thin sheets of scaffolding-like material from pigs into a few young men with disabling leg injuries — and say the experimental treatment coaxed the men's own stem cells to regrow new muscle.
The research, funded by the Defense Department, included just five patients, a small first step in the complex quest for regenerative medicine.
But the researchers described some of the men improving enough to no longer need canes, or to ride a bicycle again, after years of living with injuries that today have no good treatment.
A next-generation genome editing system developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators substantially decreases the risk of producing unwanted, off-target gene mutations. In a paper receiving online publication in Nature Biotechnology, the researchers report a new CRISPR-based RNA-guided nuclease technology that uses two guide RNAs, significantly reducing the chance of cutting through DNA strands at mismatched sites.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Chad Bouton snapped awake at 5 a.m. He skipped coffee, threw some Clif Bars and water in a bag, and left his wife and children and robot at home. He ordered three Sausage McMuffins from a drive-up window. He steered toward the hospital. He entered the operating room at 6:15 a.m.
Bouton is a research engineer, not a doctor, and he worked with an engineer’s precision. By 7 a.m., he and his team had set everything up in the operating room and tested it — the computer with the secret algorithm, the uplink cable, the Wand. They were ready to go, right on time. As they had been told to expect, the patient was late. So they tested the equipment again.
By Ron Winslow
Giving old mice blood from young ones makes them smarter and improves such functions as exercise capacity, according to reports from two research teams that point to new ways to study and potentially treat diseases of aging.
In one study, researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco found that blood transfusions from young mice reversed cognitive effects of aging, improving the old mice's memory and learning ability. The report was published Sunday in the journal Nature Medicine.
Two other reports appearing in Science from researchers at Harvard University found that exposing old mice to a protein present at high levels in the blood of young mice and people improved both brain and exercise capability. An earlier report by some of the same researchers linked injections of the protein to reversal of the effects of aging on the heart.
Researchers cautioned that much more work is needed to figure out how the findings might apply to humans. Many promising results obtained in mouse tests for various treatments through the years later turned out not to be effective in humans.
But they said the reports offer compelling evidence that certain factors present in blood may play an important role in how people age and offer potential avenues to slow or reverse the process and improve health.
"These are really exciting papers," said Brian Kennedy, chief executive officer of the Buck Institute for Aging Research in Novato, Calif., who wasn't involved in the studies. "We're finding more and more potential strategies to target age-related tissue decline and aging itself."
A helmet that delivers electro-magnetic impulses to the brain has shown promise in treating people with depression, Danish researchers have said.
About 30% of those with the condition fail to respond to medication or psychological counselling.
The new device targets malfunctioning blood cells in the brain.
In clinical trials two-thirds who used it reported that their symptoms had disappeared, and improvements in mood were noticeable within a week.
The helmet was tested on 65 patients with treatment-resistant depression.
The trials were conducted by the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Copenhagen University and the Psychiatric Centre at Hillerod in North Zealand.
Patients also continued taking their regular anti-depressant medication for the eight weeks of the trial.
(Nanowerk News) Arizona State University (ASU) scientists, together with collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, have published, in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology ("Structural basis for protein-RNA recognition in telomerase"), a first of its kind atomic level look at the enzyme telomerase that may unlock the secrets to the fountain of youth.
Telomeres and the enzyme telomerase have been in the medical news a lot recently due to their connection with aging and cancer. Telomeres are found at the ends of our chromosomes and are stretches of DNA which protect our genetic data, make it possible for cells to divide, and hold some secrets as to how we age –and also how we get cancer.
