Lifeboat Foundation

I cannot wait to see how we can use VR for obtaining additional insights on other central nervous system diseases and disorders such as MS, Dystonia, GBM, etc.

Medical applications for VR continue to spread. Just a few weeks ago I wrote about how Paraplegics can learn to walk again with help from Virtual Reality. Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University and the Siberian State Medical University, in Russia, believe that it could be the future of diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Methods to diagnosis many of these conditions is accomplished by visual assessment in most parts of Russia. The brain scanning technology such as a CAT scan or MRI to confirm the diagnosis is only available in a handful of cities. The VR system being developed would be cheap and easy to roll out across the country.

Continue reading “Parkinson’s Disease Diagnosed with help from Virtual Reality” »

NICE.

Scientists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute, the University of Basel, and the University Hospital Basel have developed and have been testing a device that can screen people with malignant melanoma for a spcific genetic mutation. About half of malignant melanoma cases involve the BRAF gene that results in rapid cell division and drugs targeting this type of cancer are available. The problem is that without knowing if a patient exhibits the mutation, it is dangerous to prescribe the medications since they will not work and will only cause additional problems.

The new device was used to analyze malignant melanoma tissue samples and to find whether the relevant genetic sequence is present. It relies on microscopic cantilevers, some of which have a coating to which the particular genetic sequence sticks to. Other cantilevers have a coating without the sequence. RNA isolated from the biopsy samples was then introduced into the device and the molecules that stuck to the cantilevers made them bend. This bending can be detected, pointing to the presence of the searched for mutation.

Continue reading “Device Detects Malignant Melanoma Type to Prescribe Proper Medication” »

A group of researchers at the University of Tokyo and their collaborators showed that using a virtual reality system to treat phantom limb pain by creating the illusion that patients are moving their absent limbs by will and having them repeat this exercise helped ease their perceived pain.

Iranian researchers built a device that can automatically give injections to patients from distance.

No shock to me.

Diamandis claimed that we are gearing towards a future possible of “interface mind-machine, where in human brain’s consciousness could be uploaded to computer and then transferred to a new body—probably a cultured in the lab. He estimates that it will just take 20–30 years to be realized.

The reality of extended life longevity to almost immortality is actually not too hard to believe these days. After all science and technology never failed to amuse us to make the once impossible possible.

Continue reading “We Might Be Getting Closer To ‘Immortality’ Through Medical Nanotechnology” »

The future frontier for hackers is synthetic biology.

Landmark scientific projects such as the Human Genome Project can encourage international cooperation and bring nations together. However, when security interests and defence research align with the prestige of a landmark project—international competition is all but assured. Synthetic biology is a scientific discipline less than a decade old, and the potential defence and security applications may create a new space race, this time between the USA and China.

The larger concern is not that this race may happen, but that if it does it will politicise and militarise an ethically sensitive area of the life sciences at a time when this frontier technology is critical to maintaining a sustainable world.

Continue reading “The Science of a New Space Race” »

Micro-manufacturing is perfecting quality control.

Biology is the world’s greatest manufacturing platform, according to MIT spinout Ginkgo Bioworks.

The synthetic-biology startup is re-engineering yeast to act as tiny organic “factories” that produce chemicals for the flavor, fragrance, and food industries, with aims of making products more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently than traditional methods.

Continue reading “MIT News: Hacking microbes” »

Hackers new weapon.

Professor John Parrington, from Oxford University, warns that the security services, including the FBI, are increasingly concerned about the spread of gene editing technology by biohackers.

A new tool to battle colon cancer.

Edible ginger-derived nano-lipids created from a specific population of ginger nanoparticles show promise for effectively targeting and delivering chemotherapeutic drugs used to treat colon cancer, according to a study by researchers at the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Wenzhou Medical University and Southwest University in China.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer among men and women in the United States, and the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths among men and women worldwide. The incidence of colorectal cancer has increased over the last few years, with about one million new cases diagnosed annually. Non-targeted chemotherapy is the most common therapeutic strategy available for colon cancer patients, but this treatment method is unable to distinguish between cancerous and healthy cells, leading to poor therapeutic effects on tumor cells and severe toxic side effects on healthy cells. Enabling chemotherapeutic drugs to target cancer cells would be a major development in the treatment of colon cancer.

Continue reading “Nano-lipid Particles From Edible Ginger Could Improve Drug Delivery for Colon Cancer, Study Finds” »