Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 318
Dec 2, 2023
Anthrobots: Scientists build tiny biological robots from human tracheal cells
Posted by Dalton Daniel in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI
Researchers at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have created tiny biological robots that they call Anthrobots from human tracheal cells that can move across a surface and have been found to encourage the growth of neurons across a region of damage in a lab dish.
The multicellular robots, ranging in size from the width of a human hair to the point of a sharpened pencil, were made to self-assemble and shown to have a remarkable healing effect on other cells. The discovery is a starting point for the researchers’ vision to use patient-derived biobots as new therapeutic tools for regeneration, healing, and treatment of disease.
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Dec 1, 2023
These Tiny, Wound-Healing Robots Start Life As Just 1 Human Cell
Posted by Zola Balazs Bekasi in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, robotics/AI
Regenerative medicine might just have had a new tool added to its arsenal: Scientists have created tiny biological robots out of living human cells. Though they may be small, the self-assembling bots are mighty, with a study demonstrating their potential for healing and treating disease.
The team had already proven their biological robotics chops back in 2020 with the creation of Xenobots, made from frog embryonic cells. They even managed to design Xenobots so that they could reproduce in a way that no living animal or plant does, something that had never been seen before.
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Dec 1, 2023
Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: biotech/medical
Dec 1, 2023
Afterlife hope with project launched to combine AI and DNA to revive loved ones
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: biotech/medical, Ray Kurzweil, robotics/AI
Ray Kurzweil and a host of other ambitious scientists are trying to take major next steps with AI — the revival of the dead. Within three decades, he hopes to create a ‘dad bot’ in the flesh.
Dec 1, 2023
The first CRISPR cure might kickstart the next big patent battle
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, genetics
Vertex Pharmaceuticals plans to sell a gene-editing treatment for sickle-cell disease. A patent on CRISPR could stand in the way.
Dec 1, 2023
Enterprise Knowledge: A Unifying Technological Vision for the Future of Radiology
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI
Additionally, GAI helps radiologists cross-reference comorbidities in a way that was not possible before. For instance, people with certain types of autoimmune arthritis have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (atherosclerosis, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes). These conditions might seem unrelated, but if a CT scan reveals calcifications in the coronary arteries, GAI can facilitate informing the radiologist and treating physician of this important biomarker. These types of added value are not just consumer conveniences. As potentiators of clinical research and effectuators of episodes of care, they can save the lives of patients.
Leaning into the whole.
Dec 1, 2023
Cancer patients with opioid use disorder face obstacles to treatment
Posted by Shubham Ghosh Roy in category: biotech/medical
A cancer diagnosis can greatly disrupt treatment with methadone, a medication used to treat patients with opioid use disorder, according to a perspective piece published in the New England Journal of Medicine by University of Pittsburgh researchers.
Through the lens of a specific patient treated with methadone for many years and later diagnosed with head and neck cancer, the authors discuss how segregating methadone distribution from general medical care is problematic and emphasize the need to integrate opioid use disorder treatment and improve patient access.
Before his cancer diagnosis, the patient was afforded a 28-day supply of take-home methadone doses, which he self-administered and, per clinic and federal regulations, returned to the clinic every 28 days for monitoring and refills.
Dec 1, 2023
Common Blood Pressure Drug Increases Lifespan, Slows Aging in Animals
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, food, life extension
The hypertension drug rilmenidine has been shown to slow down aging in worms, an effect that in humans could hypothetically help us live longer and keep us healthier in our latter years.
Previous research has shown rilmenidine mimics the effects of caloric restriction on a cellular level. Reducing available energy while maintaining nutrition within the body has been shown to extend lifespans in several animal models.
Whether this translates to human biology, or is a potential risk to our health, is a topic of ongoing debate. Finding ways to achieve the same benefits without the costs of extreme calorie cutting could lead to new ways to improve health in old age.
Dec 1, 2023
Molecular movie captures DNA repair from start to finish
Posted by Dan Breeden in category: biotech/medical
An international team of researchers has used time-resolved ultrafast crystallography to follow the progress of DNA repair by a photolyase enzyme. The work is ‘the first structural characterisation of a full enzyme reaction cycle,’ says Manuel Maestre-Reyna, who led the research.
Photolyases repair DNA damage caused by ultraviolet light in bacteria, fungi, plants and some animals including marsupials. Humans and other mammals don’t contain these enzymes, but we too incur light-induced damage. One common outcome is the formation of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs), where two adjacent pyrimidine bases (thymine or cytosine) fuse together via a four-membered cyclobutane ring. ‘CPD formation is the main cause of skin cancer, and sunburnt skin always contains CPD lesions’, says Maestre-Reyna, a biochemist at the Institute of Biological Chemistry in Taipei, Taiwan.