Latest advances in medical research thread

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Scientists arm cells with tiny lasers
Distinctive colors could enable biologist to track individual cells for weeks
news.sciencemag.org

 

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Increasing Lifespans by Changing Our RNA? - http://bit.ly/1JuMsA5


Altering RNA helicases in roundworms doubles their lifespan: similar technique could be used on human cells, experts say
www.sciencedaily.com

 

[ScienceRocks]

Hope is on the horizon for people struggling with prostate & pancreatic cancers.


Diabetes drug could treat prostate and pancreatic cancers
Diabetes drugs could also be effective against some types of cancer by preventing the delivery of glucose to those cells and reducing tumor growth,...
www.redorbit.com|By redOrbit

 

[ScienceRocks]

'Universal' flu vaccine in the works

Each year, scientists create an influenza (flu) vaccine that protects against a few specific influenza strains that researchers predict are going to be the most common during that year. Now, a new study shows that scientists may be able to create a 'universal' vaccine that can provide broad protection against numerous influenza strains, including those that could cause future pandemics.

 

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Cell transplant 'regenerates' liver

The Medical Research Council team showed severely damaged organs in mice could be restored to near-normal function.
They say the findings, published in Nature Cell Biology, could eventually help people stuck on a waiting list for a transplant.
Further tests are now taking place with human tissue.

 

[ScienceRocks]

FDA approves finger-prick blood test

Theranos technology uses a finger prick like the one diabetics use to measure their blood sugar. With just a few milliliters of blood Theranos can test for hundreds of things, from cancer biomarkers to cholesterol counts, illegal drugs to infectious diseases. What’s more, many of the tests are cheap. And in at least one state, the system doesn’t require a visit to a doctor’s office or a lab. But Theranos has been slow to deploy its system. Now things are starting to pick up.

 

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Further evidence that solanezumab slows mild Alzheimer’s disease
Posted on 22nd July 2015
Further evidence that solanezumab slows mild Alzheimer s disease Alzheimer s Research UK
Results of a phase 3 trial of Alzheimer’s drug solanezumab are to be presented today (22 July) at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2015.
The trial, which followed 1,322 people with mild Alzheimer’s disease, showed that the drug was able to slow the decline in memory and thinking skills over time, and suggest that the treatment may be able to slow the underlying disease process.

 

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Bionic eye implant world first
Bionic eye implant world first - BBC News

Surgeons in Manchester have performed the first bionic eye implant in a patient with the most common cause of sight loss in the developed world.

Ray Flynn, 80, has dry age-related macular degeneration which has led to the total loss of his central vision.

He is using a retinal implant which converts video images from a miniature video camera worn on his glasses.

He can now make out the direction of white lines on a computer screen using the retinal implant.

 

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New Eye Drops Can Dissolve Cataracts With No Need For Surgery

July 24, 2015 | by Aamna Mohdin

A cataract is the clouding of the eye’s lens and accounts for over half of all cases of blindness worldwide. Though cataracts can be effectively treated with surgery, it’s costly and requires trained surgeons. This is a problem for developing countries with poor health systems. Drug treatments have the potential to be a game changer in providing cheap and accessible treatment, but there are many hurdles. A new study that used eye drops to shrink cataracts in dogs may have made an important step in overcoming them.

http://www.iflscienc...-cataracts-dogs

 

[ScienceRocks]

A new antibody appears to slow the advance of Alzheimer's disease http://econ.st/1HStJOO

 

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New company plans to revolutionize genomic medicine with deep learning
By Richard Moss - July 26, 2015 1 Picture

Deep learning has already had a huge impact on computer vision and speech recognition, and it's making inroads in areas as computer-unfriendly as cooking. Now a new startup led by University of Toronto professor Brendan Frey wants to cause similar reverberations in genomic medicine. Deep Genomics plans to identify gene variants and mutations never before observed or studied and find how these link to various diseases. And through this work the company believes it can help usher in a new era of personalized medicine.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Tweaking One Enzyme Doubles A Worm's Lifespan



It could work the same way in humans

From the second we’re born, our cells are given their marching orders for how to grow, mature, and maintain our bodies. But at a certain point, the repairs become faulty, and we age and eventually die. Now a team of Korean researchers has found a way to modify a particular type of enzyme in roundworms to double their lifespan—and they suspect the same mechanisms might work in humans.



Caenorhabditis elegans, the roundworm in question, may not look much like humans since they measure just one millimeter in length, but a number of their biological processes are similar to ours. In the study, published this week in PNAS, the researchers turned their attention to a family of enzymes called RNA helicase. These enzymes are known to regulate RNA, which is found in every living cell to carry instructions from DNA to control protein synthesis and maintain cells. Though RNA helicase is well studied, researchers don’t know much about the role it plays in the aging process.



When the researchers suppressed one particular helicase, HEL-1, as well as a gene called daf-2, the mutated roundworms were not only more immune to environmental stresses of heat, cold and pathogenic bacteria, but also their lifespans were double that of wild roundworms.



They suspect HEL-1 plays a key role in how cells convert DNA to RNA, and even conscript other enzymes to do it too. "In contrast to the expectation that RNA helicases have general housekeeping roles in RNA metabolism, our findings reveal that the RNA helicase HEL-1 has specific roles in a specific longevity pathway,” the researchers write.

HEL-1 is found in many different types of organisms, including mammals—even humans. And while it’s not clear that helicases play the same role in human longevity, some evidence suggest that it could be. That could be particularly useful in treating neurological diseases that become more common with age like Alzheimer’s. But ultimately researchers hope that this work could lead to new ways to increase human longevity.

http://www.popsci.co...es-its-lifespan

 

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MIT-developed material could be used for single-use, ultra-long term drug delivery
By Chris Wood - July 29, 2015 1 Picture

Researchers at MIT have developed a new material that shows promise for use in ultra-long drug delivery systems, as well as electronic monitoring of the stomach and weight-loss intervention. A type of polymer gel, the material is flexible and pH-responsive, allowing it to reside in the stomach for long periods of time before safety dissolving in the small intestine.

 

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Harnessing the survival powers of cancer cells could wipe out heart disease
By Richard Moss - July 29, 2015 1 Picture

The same genes that allow many cancers to proliferate and thrive could in the future be repurposed as a force for good. A study at the San Diego State University (SDSU) Heart Institute has found that mouse hearts regenerate cells better, causing the mice to live longer, when their progenitor cells are modified to over-express a key gene in cancer production. The researchers believe this could lead to a new treatment for people with heart disease or who have suffered from other age-related cardiac problems.

 

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Scientists successfully edit human immune-system T cells

In a project led by investigators at UC San Francisco , scientists have devised a new strategy to precisely modify human immune-system T cells, using the popular genome-editing system known as CRISPR/Cas9. T cells play important roles in a wide range of diseases, from diabetes to AIDS to cancer, so this achievement provides a path toward CRISPR/Cas9-based therapies for many serious health problems, the scientists say. It also provides a versatile new tool for research on T cell function.
Specifically, the researchers disabled a protein on the T-cell surface called CXCR4, which can be exploited by HIV when the virus infects T cells and causes AIDS. The group also successfully shut down PD-1. Scientists have shown that using drugs to block PD-1 coaxes T cells to attack tumors.
The CRISPR/Cas9 system makes it possible to easily and inexpensively edit genetic information in virtually any organism. T cells, which circulate in the blood, are an obvious candidate for medical applications of the technology, as these cells are at the center of many disease processes, and could be easily gathered from patients, edited with CRISPR/Cas9, then returned to the body to exert therapeutic effects.

 

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World's first bilateral hand transplant on child
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150728162422.htm
Date:
July 28, 2015
Source:
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Summary:
Surgeons recently completed the world's first bilateral hand transplant on a child. Earlier this month, the surgical team successfully transplanted donor hands and forearms onto 8-year-old Zion Harvey who, several years earlier, had undergone amputation of his hands and feet and a kidney transplant following a serious infection.

 

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http://www.nanowerk....ewsid=40902.php

(Nanowerk News) Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University have engineered a tethered ribosome that works nearly as well as the authentic cellular component, or organelle, that produces all the proteins and enzymes within the cell. The engineered ribosome may enable the production of new drugs and next-generation biomaterials and lead to a better understanding of how ribosomes function.

The artificial ribosome, called Ribo-T, was created in the laboratories of Alexander Mankin, director of the UIC College of Pharmacy’s Center for Biomolecular Sciences, and Northwestern’s Michael Jewett, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering. The human-made ribosome may be able to be manipulated in the laboratory to do things natural ribosomes cannot do.

 

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Paralyzed men move legs with new non-invasive spinal cord stimulation
After training, men move legs independently, without stimulation
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150730162240.htm
Date:
July 30, 2015
Source:
NIH/National Institute of Biomedical Imaging & Bioengineering
Summary:
Five men with complete motor paralysis were able to voluntarily generate step-like movements thanks to a new strategy that non-invasively delivers electrical stimulation to their spinal cords. The strategy, called transcutaneous stimulation, delivers electrical current to the spinal cord by way of electrodes strategically placed on the skin of the lower back. This expands to nine the number of completely paralyzed individuals who have achieved voluntary movement while receiving spinal stimulation.

 

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Cell aging slowed by putting brakes on noisy transcription
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150730172605.htm

Working with yeast and worms, researchers found that incorrect gene expression is a hallmark of aged cells and that reducing such "noise" extends lifespan in these organisms. The team published theirfindings this month in Genes & Development.

The team was led by senior author Shelley Berger, PhD, a Daniel S. Och University Professor in the departments of Cell & Developmental Biology, Biology & Genetics at thePerelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Weiwei Dang, PhD, a former Penn postdoctoral fellow who is now an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, along with first author Payel Sen, PhD, currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Berger lab. Berger is also director of the Penn Epigenetics Program.

 

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Imaging tool lets scientists look inside brain at nanoscale resolution
By Richard Moss - August 1, 2015 5 Pictures

The human brain contains more synapses than there are galaxies in the observable universe (to put a number on it, there are perhaps 100 trillion synapses versus 100 billion galaxies), and now scientists can see them all – individually. A new imaging tool promises to open the door to all sorts of new insights about the brain and how it works. The tool can generate images at a nanoscale resolution, which is small enough to see all cellular objects and many of their sub-cellular components (so for the biology-literate, that's stuff like neurons and the synapses that permit them to fire, plus axons, dendrites, glia, mitochondria, blood vessel cells, and so on).

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