БЛОГ

Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 682

Dec 14, 2022

Robotic heart to replace human transplants on the horizon

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, robotics/AI, wearables

Year 2020 face_with_colon_three


Scientists are working to end the need for human heart transplants by 2028. A team of researchers in the UK, Cambridge, and the Netherlands are developing a robot heart that can pump blood through the circulatory network but is soft and pliable. The first working model should be ready for implantation into animals within the next 3 years, and into humans within the next 8 years. The device is so promising that it is among just 4 projects that have made it to the shortlist for a £30-million prize, called the Big Beat Challenge for a therapy that can change the game in the treatment of heart disease.

The other projects include a genetic therapy for heart defects, a vaccine against heart disease, and wearable technology for early preclinical detection of heart attacks and strokes.

Continue reading “Robotic heart to replace human transplants on the horizon” »

Dec 14, 2022

Speeding up bone healing in menopausal females

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, futurism

Older women heal bone fractures slower than men. Now a team has found that a single, localized delivery of estrogen to a fracture can speed up healing in postmenopausal mice. The findings could have implications for the way fractures in women are treated in the future.

Over 250,000 hip fractures occur each year in adults aged 65 or older in the U.S., three-quarters of which are female. Within a year, between 15 and 36% of hip fracture patients will die. While staggering, the is unsurprising given that more women than men suffer from osteoporosis, a disease that weakens the bones. And yet, only recently has the scientific community shifted their focus to understanding this difference.

“The majority of stem cell research is done on male animals. There’s very little research that has actually been done on females,” said Wu Tsai Alliance member Charles Chan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of surgery at Stanford University and co-senior author of the paper published Oct. 30 in Nature Communications. “The research is long overdue, especially the question of why women heal differently from men.”

Dec 14, 2022

Potential new treatment for ‘brain fog’ in long COVID patients

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Individuals with long COVID, sometimes referred to as “long-haulers,” experience symptoms that may persist for weeks, months, or even years after their acute viral infection. While symptoms vary widely, a common complaint among patients is “brain fog”—a colloquial term for significant, persistent cognitive deficits, with consistent impairment of executive functioning and working memory.

Long-haulers may experience a lack of mental clarity, poor focus and concentration, memory problems, difficulty with multi-tasking, and more. Brain fog can be debilitating, but there currently are no treatment options that are approved for the condition.

While the number of patients they studied is too small for their results to be definitive, Yale researchers, using their extensive experience with two existing medications, have published initial evidence that those drugs, given together, can mitigate or even eliminate brain fog.

Dec 14, 2022

Novel Imaging Marker Reveals Very Early Brain Changes in Alzheimer’s Disease

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Summary: The integrity of cholinergic pathways may indicate very early changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Source: Karolinska Institute.

A new collaborative study from Karolinska Institutet, Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE), and Czech Technical University suggests a novel imaging marker of brain connectivity might be a very early indicator of pathological changes in Alzheimer’s disease.

Dec 14, 2022

Privacy-preserving AI technique improves brain tumour detection

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

Intel Labs and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn Medicine) have completed a joint research study using federated learning – a distributed machine learning (ML) artificial intelligence (AI) approach – to help international healthcare and research institutions identify malignant brain tumours.

The largest medical federated learning study to date with an unprecedented global dataset examined from 71 institutions across six continents, the project demonstrated the ability to improve brain tumour detection by 33%.

“Federated learning has tremendous potential across numerous domains, particularly within healthcare, as shown by our research with Penn Medicine,” says Jason Martin, principal engineer at Intel Labs. “Its ability to protect sensitive information and data opens the door for future studies and collaboration, especially in cases where datasets would otherwise be inaccessible.

Dec 14, 2022

The army of ‘bacteriabots’ that could combat cancer tumors

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

IStock/ Volodymyr Horbovyy.

Not only did the research demonstrate that equipping E. coli bacteria with artificial components is possible, but the scientists could also precisely navigate the bots remotely using magnets.

Dec 14, 2022

The bird is fine, the bird is fine, the bird is fine, it’s dead

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

I don’t think immortality is possible because everything has it’s end.with with proper research in medical science life expectancy can be increased.


The pursuit of immortality is getting older. So are we.

Dec 14, 2022

Gene therapy for heart attacks in mice just got more precise

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

If humans are ever going to be able to regrow damaged tissues the way lizards and fish routinely do, it will require the precise control of gene expression in time and place—otherwise you might end up with random cells growing everywhere or a new body part that never quits growing. That is, stopping the process just as important as starting it.

A team of Duke scientists studying how other animals regrow damaged tissues has made an important step toward controlling at least one part of the regenerative machinery with that kind of precision. They used the mechanisms zebrafish rely on to repair damage to their hearts combined with viral vectors used for in humans.

In a new paper appearing online Dec. 13 in Cell Stem Cell, the researchers demonstrate the ability to control gene activity in response to , limiting it to a specific region of and during a defined time window, rather than being continuously active in the entire organ.

Dec 14, 2022

How a Cell’s Mitochondria make their Own Protein Factories

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The findings shed a rare light on mitoribosomes, the unique ribosomes found within the cell’s mitochondria. Ribosomes, the tiny protein-producing factories within cells, are ubiquitous and look largely identical across the tree of life. Those that keep bacteria chugging along are, structurally, not much different from the ribosomes churning out proteins in our own human cells.

But even two organisms with similar ribosomes may display significant structural differences in the RNA and protein components of their mitoribosomes. Specialized ribosomes within the mitochondria (the energy producing entities within our cells), mitoribosomes help the mitochondria produce proteins that manufacture ATP, the energy currency of the cell.

Scientists in the laboratory of Sebastian Klinge wondered how mitoribosomes evolved, how they assemble within the cell, and why their structures are so much less uniform across species. To answer these questions, they used cryo-electron microscopy to generate 3D snapshots of the small subunits of yeast and human mitoribosomes as they were being assembled. Their findings, published in Nature, shed light on the fundamentals of mitoribosome assembly, and may have implications for rare diseases linked to malfunctioning mitoribosomes.

Dec 14, 2022

Newly Discovered Immune Response Explains Why We Get Sick When It’s Cold

Posted by in categories: biological, biotech/medical

New research has finally pinned down an physiological change that explains why we are so much more prone to certain respiratory infections when the weather is lousy. The discovery is the first biological mechanism to explain why the common cold, flu and COVID-19 see such significant seasonal spikes when the weather is colder in certain regions, and could help us work on better preventative measures.

“Conventionally, it was thought that cold and flu season occurred in cooler months because people are stuck indoors more where airborne viruses could spread more easily,” said Dr Benjamin Bleier, director of Otolaryngology Translational Research at Mass Eye and Ear and senior author of the study, in a statement.

“Our study however points to a biological root cause for the seasonal variation in upper respiratory viral infections we see each year, most recently demonstrated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Page 682 of 2,621First679680681682683684685686Last