Lifeboat Foundation

One key question can it help control Glioblastoma.

A new “wearable” device being tested to suppress brain-cancer cell growth in patients ended its clinical trials early with positive results. Optune is a battery powered device researchers claim will extend the life of a patient with “newly diagnosed glioblastoma” when it is paired with traditional temozolomide chemotherapy. Researches were confident enough in its effectiveness to end the clinical trials (which ran from July 2009 to November 2014) of the device early. The device is likely not “the cure for cancer,” but it is a step forward in extending the life expectancy of brain-cancer patients and more research will be needed to see if it may be effective on other forms of cancer.

“With this new data, it appears the tumor-treating fields should be used upfront and become a standard of care. We should add this modality to what we’re currently doing for our patients,” said Dr. Maciej Mrugala, a brain-cancer specialist who led UW Medicine’s participation in the clinical trial.

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PI3K (phosphoinositide 3-kinase) is a cell-signaling molecule found tied to breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancers.

Important insights into the biology that underlies glycolysis, the metabolic process that enables cancer cells to generate biomass and energy, have been revealed by new research, confirming the importance of sugar to cancer survival.

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With the recent use of genetically engineered mosquitoes in Brazil to halt the spread of the Zika virus, we might be beginning to see some major health improvements as a consequence of the genetics revolution. A world in which mosquitoes were all but eliminated from the ecosystem would look quite different from the world of today, especially for people living in the tropics where the threat of mosquito transmitted infections does more than just mar an otherwise tranquil margarita sipped from the veranda of a beach resort. This is not to beggar the more mundane advantages of a mosquito-free habitat, but rather call attention to the fact that for large parts of the world, including Brazil, mosquitoes can be the difference between life and death.

Ironically, the genetic changes made to the Aedes aegypti mosquito in order to halt the spread of the Zika virus are deceptively simple. The company behind the project, Oxitec, used a modified version of something called the “Sterile Insect Technique” to create their hybrid specimens. The end goal of this process is to produce a male mosquito possessing a “self-limiting gene.” When these males mate with wild female mosquitoes, they create non viable offspring that perish soon after the birth. The end result is a rapid drop in the mosquito population of a given area.

When compared with some of the more hazardous forms of mosquito control currently in use such as massive spraying of DEET and chemical infusers popular throughout Asia, sterilizing mosquitoes sounds like an imminently reasonable approach. As a journalist who once saw his roadside samosa blasted by a massive spray of DEET from an oncoming municipal vehicle in India, I can personally attest to a preference for a genetic solution.

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This is not good especially as we look at those aspirations for more nanobots to connect us to the cloud plus Mr. Kurzweil’s desire to live forever.

Medical device manufacturers are struggling to safeguard their newly connected designs from current and emerging security threats.

Natick, MA (PRWEB) January 29, 2016.

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Could the FDA crush IoT opportunities in Healthcare?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week took a step toward addressing the threat the Internet of Things poses to patients and their data by releasing some proposed guidelines for managing cybersecurity in medical devices.

“A growing number of medical devices are designed to be networked to facilitate patient care. Networked medical devices, like other networked computer systems, incorporate software that may be vulnerable to cybersecurity threats,” the FDA says in its proposal.

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An experiment by University of Washington researchers is setting the stage for advances in mind reading technology. Using brain implants and sophisticated software, researchers can now predict what their subjects are seeing with startling speed and accuracy.

The ability to view a two-dimensional image on a page or computer screen, and then transform that image into something our minds can immediately recognize, is a neurological process that remains mysterious to scientists. To learn more about how our brains perform this task—and to see if computers can collect and predict what a person is seeing in real time—a research team led by University of Washington neuroscientist Rajesh Rao and neurosurgeon Jeff Ojermann demonstrated that it’s possible to decode human brain signals at nearly the speed of perception. The details of their work can be found in a new paper in PLOS Computational Biology.

The team sought the assistance of seven patients undergoing treatment for epilepsy. Medications weren’t helping alleviate their seizures, so these patients were given temporary brain implants, and electrodes were used to pinpoint the focal points of their seizures. The UW researchers saw this as an opportunity to perform their experiment. “They were going to get the electrodes no matter what,” noted Ojermann in a UW NewsBeat article. “We were just giving them additional tasks to do during their hospital stay while they are otherwise just waiting around.”

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Researchers have successfully demonstrated how it is possible to interface graphene — a two-dimensional form of carbon — with neurons, or nerve cells, while maintaining the integrity of these vital cells. The work may be used to build graphene-based electrodes that can safely be implanted in the brain, offering promise for the restoration of sensory functions for amputee or paralysed patients, or for individuals with motor disorders such as epilepsy or Parkinson’s disease.

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The burgeoning field of nanotechnology promises an indefinite range of capabilities in medicine, optics, communications, and other facets of applied science and engineering. On that front, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Atoms 2 Products program (A2P) is funding 10 companies, universities, and institutions to develop mass-manufacturing techniques and technologies for functional products made up of nanoscale constituents. The project demonstrates a mere slice of the contributions in the mass movement to make nanotechnology a part of our everyday lives.

The following gallery highlights the work of five DARPA-funded projects in the program. The slides describe an atomic calligraphy technique for 2D atomic printing, a manufacturing method for producing high-frequency “Nanolitz” wires, the construction of pop-up sensors for laparoscopy, and a conjunct effort to use micro-robotics to build the assemblers of nanodevices.

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59% of the providers surveyed recently state that they have no intentions of offering precision treatment such as CRISPR for the next 5 yrs. which means patients with MS, Dystonia, Cancer, etc. will not necessarily get proper choice of treatments that they deserve.

As the Obama administration looks to Congress to fund its $215 million Precision Medicine Initiative, a new poll of healthcare executives indicates that most hospitals and health systems are not planning on leveraging such advances in genomics and data analytics to personalize patient care.

In the poll, conducted by analytics vendor Health Catalyst, 59 percent of respondents indicated that precision medicine will not play a significant role in their organizations over the next five years.

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