Medical
Bringing life-saving cell therapies to the masses
Doctors knew long before Owen Webb was born that they were racing against the clock to save his life. Tests had confirmed the developing child suffered from Krabbe disease, a genetic disorder that causes toxins to build up in the nervous system, progressively damaging the brain. Just days after he was delivered, a medical team at Duke University began Owen on nine days of chemotherapy. His body was then infused with stem cell-rich donor...
The latest weapon against Diabetes
Researchers led by ETH Professor Martin Fussenegger at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) in Basel have produced artificial beta cells using a straightforward engineering approach. These pancreatic cells can do everything that natural ones do: they measure the glucose concentration in the blood and produce enough insulin to effectively lower the blood sugar level. The ETH researchers presented their development in the l...
Probe offers accurate detection of biomarker for cancer
A technique offers better sensitivity and accuracy in detecting an essential biomarker of cancer and inflammatory diseases. Hypochlorous acid HOCl is one of the reactive molecules that our immune system dispatches to attack invading pathogens or potentially harmful irritants. The oxidant is also generated as a result of tissue damage that causes – or even exacerbates – inflammatory diseases such as lung and liver disease, heart a...
Visual stimulation may be latest treatment for Alzheimer’s
Using LED lights flickering at a specific frequency, MIT researchers have shown that they can substantially reduce the beta amyloid plaques seen in Alzheimer’s disease, in the visual cortex of mice. This treatment appears to work by inducing brain waves known as gamma oscillations, which the researchers discovered help the brain suppress beta amyloid production and invigorate cells responsible for destroying the plaques.
Collaboration aims to advance the digitisation of healthcare
A partnership has been announced between Virtual Technology Cluster Group (The VTC Group) and Deloitte, to create a Deloitte Healthcare Virtual Technology Cluster (Deloitte VTC). The Deloitte VTC will aim to advance the digitisation of healthcare providers through improving access to human, digital capabilities and adoption of new technologies.
Eye'll be back ;)
A partnership between the Polytechnic School and the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of São Paulo (USP) achieved a new patent. Researchers developed a prototype of a type of eye prosthesis with eyelids that blink in sync with the healthy eye. The project had two FD professors, Neide Coto and Reinaldo Dias, and a student of engineering at the Polytechnic, Paulo Oguro. The system was patented by the USP Innovation Agency in 2015.
Designer switches could streamline stem cell biology
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a novel strategy to reprogram cells from one type to another in a more efficient and less biased manner than previous methods. The ability to convert cells from one type to another holds great promise for engineering cells and tissues for therapeutic application, and the new Wisconsin study could help speed research and bring the technology to the clinic faster.
AR helps patients with chronic phantom limb pain
Dr Max Ortiz Catalan at Chalmers University of Technology has developed a novel method of treating phantom limb pain using machine learning and augmented reality. This approach has been tested on over a dozen of amputees with chronic phantom limb pain who found no relief by other clinically available methods before. The treatment reduced their pain by approximately 50%, reports a clinical study published in The Lancet.
A radiation-free approach to imaging molecules in the brain
Scientists hoping to get a glimpse of molecules that control brain activity have devised a probe that allows them to image these molecules without using any chemical or radioactive labels. Currently the gold standard approach to imaging molecules in the brain is to tag them with radioactive probes. However, these probes offer low resolution and they can’t easily be used to watch dynamic events, says Alan Jasanoff, an MIT professor of b...
Magnetic brain stimulation brings stowed memories back
Brad Postle’s lab, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is challenging the idea that working memory remembers things through sustained brain activity. They caught brains tucking less-important information away somewhere beyond the reach of the tools that typically monitor brain activity — and then they snapped that information back into active attention with magnets. Their latest study will be published in the journal&nb...