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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 1761

Jan 28, 2020

The Pacific Ocean is so acidic that it’s dissolving Dungeness crabs’ shells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, habitats

The Pacific Ocean is becoming more acidic, and the cash-crabs that live in its coastal waters are some of its first inhabitants to feel its effects.

The Dungeness crab is vital to commercial fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, but lower pH levels in its habitat are dissolving parts of its shell and damaging its sensory organs, a new study found.

Their injuries could impact coastal economies and forebode the obstacles in a changing sea. And while the results aren’t unexpected, the study’s authors said the damage to the crabs is premature: The acidity wasn’t predicted to damage the crabs this quickly.

Jan 28, 2020

Laser ultrasound enables diagnoses at a distance

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Generating and detecting sound waves remotely means patients can be spared the discomfort that sometimes comes with conventional ultrasound imaging.

Jan 28, 2020

CRISPR gene-editing corrects muscular dystrophy in pigs

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is one of the most common and most devastating muscular diseases, greatly reducing patients’ quality of life and life expectancy. Now, researchers in Germany have managed to use the CRISPR gene-editing tool to correct the condition in pigs, bringing the treatment ever closer to human trials.

A protein called dystrophin is necessary for muscles to regenerate themselves, but people with DMD have a genetic mutation that removes the gene that produces dystrophin. That means that affected children usually begin to show symptoms of muscle weakness by age five, lose the ability to walk by about age 12, and rarely live through their 30s as their heart muscles give out.

Because it’s a genetic condition, DMD is a prime target for treatment with the gene-editing tool CRISPR. This system is prized for its ability to cut out problematic genes and replace them with more beneficial ones, and has been put to work treating cancer, HIV and forms of blindness.

Jan 28, 2020

Bill Gates in 2018: The world needs to prepare for pandemics just like war

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and health officials continue to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak that has killed at least 81 people in China and sickened 2,800 worldwide. And back in 2018, Billionaire Bill Gates gave a warning that the world wasn’t prepared for pandemics, which should “concern us all.”

Speaking at an event hosted by Massachusetts Medical Society and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on April 27, 2018, Gates said he believed “the world needs to prepare for pandemics in the same serious way it prepares for war.”

“This preparation includes staging simulations, war games and preparedness exercises so that we can better understand how diseases will spread and how to deal with responses such as quarantine and communications to minimize panic,” Gates said.

Jan 28, 2020

Lawrence patient held in isolation for possible coronavirus

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

LAWRENCE, KS (KCTV) — Lawrence Memorial Hospital has a patient currently being held in isolation who may have coronavirus.

The hospital says the patient recently entered the United States from Wuhan, China, and showed symptoms of a respiratory illness.

Procedures are underway to treat the patient while minimizing exposure. These procedures, the hospital says, include placing the patient in isolation in a room specially designed for infection prevention.

Jan 28, 2020

Nanoparticle chomps away plaques that cause heart attacks

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, engineering, habitats, nanotechnology

Michigan State University and Stanford University scientists have invented a nanoparticle that eats away—from the inside out—portions of plaques that cause heart attacks.

Bryan Smith, associate professor of biomedical engineering at MSU, and a team of scientists created a “Trojan Horse” nanoparticle that can be directed to eat debris, reducing and stabilizing plaque. The discovery could be a potential treatment for atherosclerosis, a leading cause of death in the United States.

The results, published in the current issue of Nature Nanotechnology, showcases the nanoparticle that homes in on due to its high selectivity to a particular immune cell type—monocytes and macrophages. Once inside the macrophages in those plaques, it delivers a drug agent that stimulates the cell to engulf and eat cellular debris. Basically, it removes the diseased/dead in the plaque core. By reinvigorating the macrophages, size is reduced and stabilized.

Jan 28, 2020

Brian Kennedy Joins the LEAF Scientific Advisory Board

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Brian Kennedy, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) will be joining the LEAF scientific advisory board.

Professor Kennedy is an important figure in the research community, as he is internationally recognized for his research and efforts to translate those findings into therapies that could potentially slow, delay, or even prevent age-related diseases. He previously served as the President of the Buck Institute, where he still remains as a Professor.

At the NUS, he is developing therapeutic interventions that directly target human aging along with biomarkers that can validate if a therapy has worked or not. Professor Kennedy and his team have been exploring the epigenetic clock, a biomarker that measures methylation of the human genome to determine biological age. They are also investigating inflammatory biomarkers of aging using metabolomics, the study of chemical processes involving metabolites, the intermediates and products of metabolism.

Jan 28, 2020

World’s First Completely Robotic Heart

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

The world’s first completely robotic heart may end the need for transplants from dead humans in as few as 10 years, the hybrid heart made of soft artificial muscles and sensors is hoped to eventually end the need for human transplants.

The hybrid robotic heart is under development and could clear NHS heart transplant waiting lists and save many lives. It is the first hybrid heart made from soft artificial muscles and sensors which are coated in human tissues that are grown in a laboratory.

There are plans partnered with the British Heart Foundation to transplant it into the first person in 2028; the hope is that this hybrid robotic heart will save thousands of lives who would normally have died while waiting for a human organ donor on global waiting lists.

Jan 28, 2020

This month we will be taking a look at the results of a recent human trial where the drug rapamycin was used to treat skin aging with some promising results

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Link to study paper: https://link.springer.com/…/10.1007%2Fs11357-019–00113-y.pdf

Jan 28, 2020

Scientists Build “First Living Robots” From Frog Stem Cells

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

A team of researchers have built what they claim to be the first living robots. The “xenobots,” they say, can move, pick up objects, and even heal themselves after being cut.

The team is hoping the biological machines could one day be used to clean up microplastics in the ocean or even deliver drugs inside the human body, The Guardian reports.

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