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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 2287

Mar 16, 2018

Bionic Kidney To Replace Dialysis

Posted by in categories: aging, bioengineering, bionic, biotech/medical

It’s not uncommon for the press to get hyped up before the long process of refinement and FDA approval. Let’s hope that this one moves along quickly — while demonstrating safety and efficacy.

https://www.troab.com/worlds-first-bionic-kidney-set-replace…-two-years

Mar 16, 2018

Undoing Aging With Aubrey de Grey Part Three

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Parte 3 of the SENS Research Foundation interview by LEAF is out!


Welcome to part three and the final part of our SENS Undoing Aging 2018 interview; we have a few more scientific questions today for Aubrey and his team as well as questions about future developments and taking new therapies to market.

Dr. de Grey, has your position on the relevance of telomere attrition changed since you first devised SENS, especially in the light of the recent results with fibrosis and your involvement with AgeX?

Continue reading “Undoing Aging With Aubrey de Grey Part Three” »

Mar 16, 2018

Hybrid artificial-natural cells bring together the best of both worlds

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Sometimes I think I’m jumping the gun when speculating. Take this further, a better full body replacement?


The more we study natural biological cells, the more we learn about how to control them or build artificial versions. These independent avenues of study have huge potential, but also their limitations. Researchers from Imperial College London have worked out a way to borrow the strengths of each, fusing together living and non-living cells to create tiny chemical factories that might one day aid drug delivery.

In past work, scientists have packaged proteins and enzymes inside artificial casings to better treat conditions like cancer or diabetes. Rather than just using some natural parts, the Imperial College study instead wrapped entire biological cells inside artificial ones.

Continue reading “Hybrid artificial-natural cells bring together the best of both worlds” »

Mar 15, 2018

Blood, Fraud and Money Led to Theranos CEO’s Fall From Grace

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics

“The Theranos story is an important lesson for Silicon Valley,” said Jina Choi, director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office. “Innovators who seek to revolutionize and disrupt an industry must tell investors the truth about what their technology can do today, not just what they hope it might do someday.”


Elizabeth Holmes raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors on the promise that her medical-testing startup Theranos Inc. would change medicine with a single drop of blood. On Wednesday, securities regulators called her a fraud and forced her to give up the company she built.

The lawsuit and settlement announced Wednesday by the U.Securities and Exchange Commission detailed how Holmes and her chief deputy lied for years about their technology, snookered the media, and used the publicity to get investors to hand more than $700 million to keep the closely held company afloat.

Continue reading “Blood, Fraud and Money Led to Theranos CEO’s Fall From Grace” »

Mar 14, 2018

A Year in Space Changed 7% of This Astronaut’s DNA

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, space travel

Spending an extended period of time in outer space takes a toll on the human body. And while NASA was aware of some physical changes that astronauts needed to be prepared for upon coming back to Earth, they were curious to learn further about how extended space time would affect a human body on a molecular level. After one astronaut spent a year in space, NASA was able to determine that the prolonged spaceflight actually altered his DNA.

Astronaut Scott Kelly and his twin brother Mark Kelly took part in NASA’s twin study, a means to compare the human body on Earth to its counterpart following a year in space. While Scott spent a year in space, Mark stayed behind, and upon Scott’s return, NASA was able to track and monitor the ways that spaceflight had altered Scott’s body.

via GIPHY

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Mar 14, 2018

Hospitals use protons to fight cancer

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The difference between traditional radiation and proton therapy is in how the radiation is delivered.

Traditional therapy irradiates tumors with X-ray waves, and all tissue along the beams’ path gets a similar dose of radiation.

Proton therapy instead uses beams of protons, charged subatomic particles that can be controlled with magnets. A small amount of radiation is deposited on the way into the body, most of it goes directly into the tumor, and none passes through the other side.

Continue reading “Hospitals use protons to fight cancer” »

Mar 14, 2018

Ancient DNA Is Rewriting Human (and Neanderthal) History

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

The genomes of the long dead are turning up all sorts of unexpected and controversial findings.

Geneticist David Reich used to study the living, but now he studies the dead.

The precipitating event came in the form of 40,000-year-old Neanderthal bones found in a Croatian cave. So well-preserved were the bones that they yielded enough DNA for sequencing, and it became Reich’s job in 2007 to analyze the DNA for signs that Neanderthals interbred with humans—a idea he was “deeply suspicious” of at the time.

Continue reading “Ancient DNA Is Rewriting Human (and Neanderthal) History” »

Mar 14, 2018

Undoing Aging With Aubrey de Grey Part One

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

The Undoing Aging 2018 Conference is almost here! For the occasion, LEAF has interviewed Dr. Aubrey de Grey and others of the SRF team. Check it out!


As the Undoing Aging 2018 Conference approaches, excitement and interest about the event are growing among both aging scientists and rejuvenation enthusiasts alike. If you’re a regular on our blog, neither Undoing Aging 2018’s main organizer, SENS Research Foundation, nor the main sponsor, Michael Greve’s Forever Healthy Foundation, need much of an introduction, but for the benefit of any newcomers, here’s a brief summary of all you need to know before diving into the questions that we’ve asked the SRF team on behalf of the members of the growing rejuvenation community.

SENS Research Foundation

Continue reading “Undoing Aging With Aubrey de Grey Part One” »

Mar 13, 2018

Particle Accelerator Reveals Ancient Greek Medical Text Beneath Religious Psalms on Parchment

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

If you’re a history buff, you might not know much particle physics. But the two fields share more in common than you’d think. X-rays from a high-energy lab have revealed ancient Greek medical texts that had been stripped and covered with religious writing.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have long been using high-powered x-rays at their Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) to analyze ancient texts. This week, they’ll be revealing the text beneath 10th-century psalms from the St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula. The hidden words were a translation of writings by the ancient Greek doctor Galen.

Synchrotrons might sound complex, but they’re a relatively common kind of particle accelerator. Rather than crash particles together like researchers do at the Large Hadron Collider, the SSRL just accelerates electrons to nearly the speed of light and keeps them traveling around a many-sided polygon. Magnets on the straightaways and bends change the electrons’ directions, which produces a beam of high-energy x-rays.

Continue reading “Particle Accelerator Reveals Ancient Greek Medical Text Beneath Religious Psalms on Parchment” »

Mar 13, 2018

This Man Has an Air Pocket in Place of His Right Brain

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

A ‘BMJ Case Report’ describes an 84-year-old patient who presented with a huge air pocket (pneumocephalus) where his right frontal lobe should be.

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