Latest advances in medical research thread

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New model for preserving donor tissue will allow more natural joint repair for patients
Published: Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - 14:03 in Health & Medicine
New model for preserving donor tissue will allow more natural joint repair for patients e Science News

Currently, doctors have to throw away more than 80 percent of donated tissue used for joint replacements because the tissue does not survive long enough to be transplanted. Now, following a recent study, University of Missouri School of Medicine researchers have developed a new technology that more than doubles the life of the tissue. This new technology was able to preserve tissue quality at the required level in all of the donated tissues studied, the researchers found. "It's a game-changer," said James Stannard, co-author of the study and J. Vernon Luck Sr. Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the MU School of Medicine. "The benefit to patients is that more graft material will be available and it will be of better quality. This will allow us as surgeons to provide a more natural joint repair option for our patients."

 

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Improved Anti-HIV Antibodies Created Through Genetic Engineering

Part of what makes human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) so difficult to treat is its ability to elude the body’s immune system in a variety of ways. However, a recent study has described genetically-altered antibodies which have 100 times the HIV-fighting power of natural antibodies. This could be used to develop new treatments. Rachel Galimidi of Caltech was lead author of the paper, which was published in Cell.

 

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Electronic Glasses Allow Legally Blind Woman To See Her Baby For First Time


There’s no shortage of heartwarming videos on YouTube, and this is no exception. In the short clip, you get to see the moment when a legally blind woman sees her newborn baby boy for the first time, thanks to a pair of innovative electronic specs.

 

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3-D printers to make human body parts? It's happening
4 hours ago by Steve Johnson, San Jose Mercury News

It sounds like something from a science fiction plot: So-called three-dimensional printers are being used to fashion prosthetic arms and hands, jaw bones, spinal-cord implants - and one day perhaps even living human body parts.

Read more at: 3-D printers to make human body parts It s happening

 

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For the first time, Johns Hopkins researchers used biodegradable nano-particles to kill brain cancer cells in animals and lengthen their survival.

Despite improvements in the past few decades with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, a predictably curative treatment for glioma does not yet exist. New insights into specific gene mutations that arise in this often deadly form of brain cancer have pointed to the potential of gene therapy, but it’s very difficult to effectively deliver toxic or missing genes to cancer cells in the brain. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have used nanoparticles to successfully deliver a new therapy to glioma cells in the brains of rats, prolonging their lives. A draft of the study appeared this week on the website of the journal ACS Nano.

For their studies, the Johns Hopkins team designed and tested a variety of nanoparticles made from different polymers, or plastics. When they found a good candidate that could deliver genes to rat brain cancer cells, they filled the nanoparticles with DNA encoding an enzyme, herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase (HSVtk), which turns a compound with little effect into a potent therapy that kills brain cancer cells. When combined with the compound, called ganciclovir, these loaded nanoparticles were 100 percent effective at killing glioma cells grown in laboratory dishes.

“We then evaluated the system in rats with glioma and found that by using a method called intracranial convection-enhanced delivery, our nanoparticles could penetrate completely throughout the tumor following a single injection,” says Jordan Green, Ph.D, associate professor of biomedical engineering, neurosurgery and ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins and a member of the Institute for NanoBioTechnology. “When combined with systemic administration of ganciclovir, rats with malignant glioma lived significantly longer than rats that did not receive this treatment.” (Intracranial convection-enhanced delivery uses a pressure gradient to enhance diffusion throughout the tumor.)

In its current form, Green envisions that the nanoparticles would be administered locally in the brain during the surgery that is commonly used to treat glioma. In the future, these nanoparticles may be able to be administered systemically rather than directly to the brain. “We are encouraged by these promising results and look forward to optimizing the intracranial distribution of this new nanoparticle gene therapy strategy,” says Tyler.

http://www.hopkinsme..._cancer_in_rats

 

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Code cracked for infections by major group of viruses including common cold and polio

Researchers have cracked a code that governs infections by a major group of viruses including the common cold and polio.
Until now, scientists had not noticed the code, which had been hidden in plain sight in the sequence of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) that makes up this type of viral genome.
But a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Early Edition by a group from the University of Leeds and University of York unlocks its meaning and demonstrates that jamming the code can disrupt virus assembly. Stopping a virus assembling can stop it functioning and therefore prevent disease.

 

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FDA approves new drug to treat estrogen-receptor–positive breast cancer
UCLA resesarch played key role in development of Ibrance
FDA approves new drug to treat estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer UCLA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved a new drug to treat patients with advanced breast cancer, signaling a new strategy for arresting tumor growth and extending the time before cancer worsens in women with metastatic disease.

The drug, Ibrance (palbociclib), was studied in 165 post-menopausal women with advanced estrogen–receptor positive (ER+) and HER2–negative (HER2-) breast cancer who had received no prior systemic therapy for their metastatic disease. In 2013, after patients in a clinical study led by UCLA researchers showed a dramatic improvement, the FDA granted the drug “breakthrough therapy” status, allowing it to be fast-tracked for approval.

 

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"Robot scientist" Eve to save time and money in drug development
By David Szondy
February 7, 2015

Modern pharmaceuticals are a wonder of our age, but they also take years to develop at incredible cost. To shorten development time and increase economy, scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester have built Eve, an artificially-intelligent "robot scientist" that is not only faster and cheaper than its human counterparts, but has already identified a compound that could be used to fight malaria.

 

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French Maker Creates a 3D Printed, Robotic Prosthetic Hand

http://3dprint.com/3...t-robotic-hand/

 

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Newly Discovered Networks among Different Diseases Reveal Hidden Connections
Enormous databases of medical records have begun to reveal connections among diseases that could provide insights into the biological missteps that make us sick
February 5, 2015 |By Veronique Greenwood and Quanta Magazine
Newly Discovered Networks among Different Diseases Reveal Hidden Connections - Scientific American

From Quanta (Find original story here).

Stefan Thurner is a physicist, not a biologist. But not long ago, the Austrian national health insurance clearinghouse asked Thurner and his colleagues at the Medical University of Vienna to examine some data for them. The data, it turned out, were the anonymized medical claims records—every diagnosis made, every treatment given—of most of the nation, which numbers some 8 million people. The question was whether the same standard of care could continue if, as had recently happened in Greece, a third of the funding evaporated. But Thurner thought there were other, deeper questions that the data could answer as well.

 

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MIT researchers develop glucose-responsive diabetes treatment
By Chris Wood
February 10, 2015

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new method for tackling diabetes that could represent a significant breakthrough in treating the condition. The team's engineered insulin stays in the patient’s bloodstream, but is only activated when sugar levels start to tip the scales.

 

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Oil-exuding silicone could prevent bacterial infections
By Ben Coxworth
February 12, 2015

Whenever foreign objects such as catheters, implants or other devices are placed within the human body, there's a danger that bacterial colonies known as biofilms could collect on them, leading to infections. Now, however, scientists at Harvard University's Wyss Institute have created a material that's too slippery for those biofilms to cling onto. It works by continuously releasing oil.

 

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Ultrasound technique shown to reverse Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice
By Nick Lavars
February 12, 2015
2 Pictures

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-guided ultrasound, a technology that involves highly-targeted ultrasound beams and monitoring their effects through imaging, has shown to help treat symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mice. The treatment was found to improve brain performance in the animals and has the researchers hopeful that the technique may prove effective in improving cognitive behavior in humans.

 

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Nanorobot takes on hepatitis C virus, wins

http://www.gizmag.co...-florida/23379/

A new scientific breakthrough points to a new way of treating the Hepatitis C virus, which infects 170 million people worldwide. Researchers at the University of Florida have created nanorobots that can attack the very mechanism of viral replication. It acts on a cellular level as a tiny particle destroys the mechanism that reproduces the proteins related to the disease.

The virus is destroyed by a particle called a nanozyme, the surface of which is made up of two main biological components. The first is an enzyme that destroys mRNA, the carrier of the genetic recipe of the disease-related protein. The other part is the intelligence of the system, a DNA oligonucleotide that identifies the material and instructs the enzyme to destroy the carrier of the protein code.

The main current treatment option for sufferers of hepatitis C, which can lead to scarring and cirrhosis of the liver and for which no vaccine is yet available, involves a grueling 48-week regime of Interferon and Ribavirin, with success rate of just below 50 percent. The combination therapy can cause debilitating side effects in patients, and some even have to quit treatment due to anemia, depression and and extreme fatigue. The nanotherapy also tackles the side effect issue: because it does not trigger the body’s defense mechanisms, the possibility of adverse reactions is greatly reduced.

But it’s not only hepatitis C that can be treated with nanotherapy. Lead researcher Dr. Chen Liu said the new technology can have broad application because it can target any gene researchers want, such as cancer and other viral infections. “This opens the door to new fields so we can test many other things. We’re excited about it,” Liu said.

Nanoparticle technologies are already being used in medical treatments, especially in genetic testing and to help determine genetic markers of diseases. The researchers say they could hail a new age in medicine because nanorobots can enter diseased cells only, targeting only the specified disease process but leaving healthy cells unharmed. What’s more, therapies could be delivered in pill form. In the case of this particular nanoparticle, further safety testing is needed.

 

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Promising lung cancer breath test device moves into clinical trials
By Nick Lavars
February 15, 2015

The developers of a promising new lung cancer detection instrument have announced they are now moving their device into clinical trials. By relying on breath tests as a means of diagnosing the disease, it is hoped that the device could a non-invasive method for earlier detection and ultimately boost lung cancer survival rates.

 

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Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: Scientists Home In On Molecule Which Halts Development of Disease
Telegraph (UK) ^ | February16, 2015 | John Bingham

Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: Scientists Home In On Molecule Which Halts Development of Disease Cambridge scientists raise prospect of new generation of treatments after finding technique to limit development of biggest cause of dementia

By John Bingham, 16 Feb 2015

Scientists have found a method which could potentially stop the growth of Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks, raising the prospect of a wave of new treatments for the condition.

A team at Cambridge University, working with partners in Sweden and Estonia, has identified a molecule which can block the progress of Alzheimer’s at a crucial stage in its development. Not only is it the first time that experts have identified a means of breaking the cycle leading to the development of Alzheimer’s but they believe the technique could be used to identify other molecules as future treatments to curb the growth of the condition. Charities hailed it as an "exciting" discovery. More than 520,000 people in the UK are estimated to be living with Alzheimer's, by far the most common cause of dementia.

 

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Gold nanotubes used to image and destroy cancer cells
By Nick Lavars
February 16, 2015

For some time, the potential of gold nanoparticles as a diagnostics and imaging tool has been known to scientists, but new research suggests they could prove even more useful than previously thought. A team at the University of Leeds has discovered that shaping the particles in the form of nanotubes sees them take on a number of new properties, including the ability to be heated up to destroy cancer cells.

 

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OLIVE OIL COMPOUND KILLS CANCER IN MINUTES

An ingredient in extra-virgin olive oil kills a variety of human cancer cells without harming healthy ones.
Scientists knew that oleocanthal killed some cancer cells, but weren’t really sure how. They thought the compound might be targeting a key protein in cancer cells that triggers a programmed cell death, known as apoptosis, and decided to test their hypothesis.
“We needed to determine if oleocanthal was targeting that protein and causing the cells to die,” says Paul Breslin, professor of nutritional sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers and coauthor of a new study published in Molecular and Cellular Oncology.

Link to actual study: http://www.tandfonli...77#.VOXocS5A-Cg
Link to originial article on Rutgers: http://news.rutgers....11#.VOYbrfnF9lp

 

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The biggest biotech discovery of the century is about to change medicine forever

A scientific stampede commenced, and in just the past two years, researchers have performed hundreds of experiments on CRISPR. Their results hint that the technique may fundamentally change both medicine and agriculture.

Some scientists have repaired defective DNA in mice, for example, curing them of genetic disorders. Plant scientists have used CRISPR to edit genes in crops, raising hopes that they can engineer a better food supply.

Some researchers are trying to rewrite the genomes of elephants, with the ultimate goal of re-creating a woolly mammoth.

Writing last year in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, Motoko Araki and Tetsuya Ishii of Hokkaido University in Japan predicted that doctors will be able to use CRISPR to alter the genes of human embryos "in the immediate future."

Thanks to the speed of CRISPR research, the accolades have come quickly. Last year MIT Technology Review called CRISPR "the biggest biotech discovery of the century."

 

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Designer protein 'blocks all known strains of HIV'

A novel drug candidate against HIV has been created by a joint team led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, FL. The scientists consider it to be so potent and effective that it could form the basis of a vaccine alternative.