#Solar Tracking: A Key Technology for Unlocking the Full Potential of Utility-Scale PV Quotes for large solar photovoltaic projects in sunny parts of the United states are coming in at an astounding 4. 5 to 5. 5
cents per kilowatt-hour. These projects enjoy economies-of-scale advantages compared to smaller or rooftop-type photovoltaic projects.
Indeed, the so-called"patient-centered medication safeguard"could be a valuable tool for providers who deal with the millions of patients who take multiple medications each day to manage conditions such as high blood pressure, asthma, COPD, heart disease and diabetes.
or instant message may be the patient engagement tool that doctors need to help people with chronic conditions take care of themselves at home.
including medicine, to be able to have glues that would work in an aqueous environment,
#Our osetta Stonegene Could Unlock The Secrets Of Schizophrenia Schizophrenia affects around 1%of the global population
and can cause paranoia, hallucinations and a breakdown in patients'thought processes, with a huge impact on their ability to carry out everyday tasks.
Around 50%of people who suffer with the condition attempt suicide. There are currently relatively few treatments for the condition
My colleagues and I recently discovered that one specific gene may allow us to decode the function of all genes involved in the disease.
when treatments may be most effective in preventing schizophrenia manifesting in the first place. Mental health conditions are among the most challenging medical problems we face as scientists,
partly because of the complexity of the biology underlying thought processes and partly because studying a living brain is very difficult.
However, recent studies have begun to make some headway in understanding the biology of mental health conditions by looking at the gene mutations carried by people diagnosed with such problems.
Origins Of Genetic disease Gene mutations are present in all the cells in the body and can be examined by taking a blood sample.
We now know that many of the genes involved in mental health conditions carry instructions for creating the proteins in the brain synapses.
But despite knowing about hundreds of mutations associated with schizophrenia, we are relatively in the dark about
On the other hand, no single gene mutation necessarily gives rise to a discernible mental health problem. One gene we do have some certainty about is known as isrupted in schizophrenia gene 1 (DISC1.
It relates to a protein that, when mutated, can give rise to a number of mental health conditions including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major clinical depression and autism.
While schizophrenia may be inherited, the probability of inheritance from a mutation carried by one parent alone is relatively low.
In contrast, DISC1 mutations are highly penetrant, meaning that carrying the mutation is highly likely to give rise to the characteristic problem.
Targeting Schizophrenia Vulnerable Period Different parts of the brain may mature at different times but most cortical areas go through a similar sequence of development.
So how can studying DISC1 help us decode what is going wrong with other genes in schizophrenia?
or at least many of the genes identified as risk factors in schizophrenia. DISC1 mutations have also been linked to autism
and Asperger syndrome, suggesting that the developmental effects of DISC1 could also be important for understanding these mental health conditions.
The interaction between gene mutations and brain development may have made it difficult to understand how the long list of risk factors can cause problems in the adult brain.
what the other genes involved in schizophrenia are doing (or doing wrong) during development to give rise to the debilitating condition of schizophrenia o
#Scientists Control Brain cells Using Sound waves The ability to control brain cells with sound waves sounds like science fiction, right?
"When we make the leap into therapies for humans, I think we have shot a better with noninvasive sonogenetics approaches than with optogenetics."
using gene therapy and a therapeutic virus, it may be possible to make target human neurons temporarily susceptible to the ultrasound signal in a clinical setting for certain neurological treatments."
"He added that other possible applications could focus on muscle and insulin-producing cells a
#This Ultrathin"Invisibility Cloak"Makes It Impossible To See Microscopic Objects Scientists have revealed they have developed a minuscule"invisibility cloak"that renders tiny objects impossible to see.
of which is engineering personalized tissue in this case, printing a personalized nerve scaffold for your post-injury healing.
However, it is the culmination of these efforts that may eventually see its way to a hospital near you.
If so, the treatment has the potential to aid more than 200,000 people a year who experience some sort of nerve injury or disease.
The process may be suited aptly for this field of medicine because nerves do not regenerate much after injury
if growth happens at all, it is usually slow and limited. Current treatment options include surgical procedures such as grafts or nerve guidance conduits
"This represents an important proof of concept of the 3d printing of custom nerve guides for the regeneration of complex nerve injuries,
and printer right at the hospital to create custom nerve guides right on site to restore nerve function. n
According to the researchers, thousands of men and even young boys rendered infertile by cancer and other diseases could benefit. his breakthrough opens the way for therapeutic avenues that have been awaited eagerly by clinicians for many years,
said CNRS in a statement. ndeed, no treatment is currently available to preserve the fertility of young,
Yet more than 15,000 young cancer patients are affected throughout the world. Nor is there any solution for the 120,000 adult men who suffer from infertility that cannot be treated using existing technologies.
Yet, according to the Global Burden of Disease study published in the Lancet, of the top ten health risks most are related lifestyle and within our power to change.
Between 1990 and 2013, life expectancy in the UK increased by 6. 2 years for men to 79.1 years
) Chronic Disease And Disability A surprising fact is that, nowadays, fewer than 4%of people are completely free of any health problem,
with more people living with chronic and under-reported illnesses. The number of years lived with disability have increased in almost every country, attributable to the growth of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer, back pain, mental health disorders, dementia, road injuries, HIV
/AIDS and malaria. This has increased also the demand for care. A comparison of years of life lost between regions of the UK, the EU15 group of countries
plus Australia, Canada, Norway and the US, shows that England worst affected region the northwest (with northeast England close behind) is similar to Scotland, Northern ireland and the US.
if we tackled the main health risks that affect us. Globally, the leading ten risks are smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes
alcohol use, high cholesterol, kidney disease, low physical activity, diets low in fruits and vegetables and drug use.
when fighting for funding to tackle a single disease in isolation is no longer effective. Health problems tend to cluster from childhood to adulthood
and then around the end of life They also share both biological and environmental risks.
The main risk factors leading to chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, obesity, smoking and heavy alcohol consumption might result from family problems, social inequality or poverty, beliefs or customs of particular subcultures
Current prevention and interventions programmes and social and health policies aimed at reducing the leading risks might have limited effects.
#Cancer drug Promises To Break down Barrier To HIV Cure Researchers have found a promising way of kicking the AIDS virus out of its hiding place in infected cells,
These so-called eservoirsof what is known as atent virusare the primary barrier to an HIV cure.
and activation of the virus. Research published today in PLOS Pathogens shows the HDAC inhibitor,
romidepsin-a drug currently being used to treat cancer-to be the most potent, and thus successful, inhibitor trialled so far.
Six patients, who had been on antiretroviral treatment for around 10 years, each received three transfusions of romidepsin.
which play an important part in fighting infection. e know that the HIV reservoir needs to be controlled to some extent by T cell responses,
researchers were by no means close to a HIV cure. nless a miracle happens, there not going to be a cure for HIV for at least 10 or even 20 years,
he said. mall studies like this can be very informative for the next study which can then build upon it,
He said romidepsin was a romising agent to check in future studies in combination with immunotherapies or vaccines.
which will use a combined therapy of romidepsin with a HIV vaccine to kill the infected cells. ombination studies are of highest interest now.
But he added there were limitations to current HIV research as it focused only on eliminatig the viral reservoir in the blood. ackling the blood reservoir has been the major focus of cure research to this point
#Drug Treats Protein That May Cause Alzheimer's disease The drug salsalate has been found to prevent and even reverse the development of tau protein tangles in mice with a condition similar to Alzheimer's disease.
While so far the success is only in animals, salsalate has a head start on other potential treatments as it has passed already the safety trials required to be used to treat arthritis.
As society ages, Alzheimer's disease the most common cause for dementia looms ever larger as a prime source of suffering.
Drugs with promise have been identified but progress has been slowed in part by debates over the disease's main culprit.
Debate rages between those who blame the formation of tau protein tangles within neurons, and those who believe a buildup of beta amyloid plaques are the main cause.
and other researchers argue Alzheimer's is actually a complex of diseases with different causes but similar symptoms.
This makes the announcement in Nature Medicine that salsalate inhibits and reverses the acetylation of tau particularly significant.
"We identified for the first time a pharmacological approach that reverses all aspects of tau toxicity, "said Gan in a statement."
even though it was administered after disease onset, indicating that it may be an effective treatment option.""When salsalate was given to mice,
Salsalate, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory, does carry risks, particularly an increased danger of heart attacks and strokes. However, these have been assessed as low enough to justify the drug's use against pain from both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis
and to be explored to counteract insulin resistance in TYPE II DIABETES. Tau buildup is observed also in rarer conditions,
including progressive supranuclear palsy and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The same mouse model is used to study Alzheimer's and FTD,
while theye losing weight or reducing their risk or diabetes or heart disease. ealth is not only a physical condition,
like the Virscan blood test, can tell you any infection youe ever had. However, a brand-new test developed by researchers at Washington University in St louis can now detect virtually any virus known to affect humans and animals.
as long as they share a few genetic characteristics with known viruses. According to Kristine Wylie, assistant professor of pediatrics at the university Mcdonnell Genome Institute,
Virocap has the capacity to detect a vast array of viruses, from the big, bad scary ones such as Ebola or SARS, to the everyday rhinoviruses and noroviruses that cause colds and gastrointestinal flu.
Researchers tested Virocap on the blood and stool samples of a small group of children with unexplained fevers.
Clinicians might find a virus they never thought could be causing a disease. When we did a study of kids with fever, for example,
one patient in that study had a virus we never would have looked for in the blood.
People with unexplained fevers are prescribed also often antibiotics if a virus can be detected. Wylie says Virocap could potentially cut down on the overuse of antibiotics.
whether a vaccine would or would not be as effective. It may also help researchers understand why some people carry around viruses asymptomatically. e found on average that people carried about 5. 5 different viral genera that could cause disease in certain people,
Wylie says. n our study of kids, we found that rhinoviruses that cause colds were
if new organs could be printed out and used in surgical operations to save people lives?(Video) As it turns out,
essentially filling in the printed caffoldingwith its biological oncrete This research has obvious implications for medical science.
#Flexible wearable sensor enables 24-hour blood flow monitoring The best medical devices for measuring blood flow today require the patient to first show up at a clinic or hospital,
while he or she is at the clinic, and getting the equivalent of around-the-clock video of that person blood flow throughout the day.
while they go about their daily lives. ay you have diabetic patients and want to be able to monitor changes in specific blood vessels continuously for 24 hours a day,
As a backup, medical tape can ensure the device stays put. undamentally, what we were trying to do was remove the relative motion between the body and detector system,
But once that happens, such devices could help revolutionize medicine by providing an unprecedented amount of data for understanding health conditions such as diabetes, the hardening of arteries,
Such flexible sensors could also be placed on internal organs, surgical tools, or implantable devices. For now, Webb and his colleagues continue to refine the heat-mapping blood flow device with the goal of making it smaller.
#FDA approves first 3d printed drug Aprecia Pharmaceuticals owns Spritam (levetiracetam), a solid oral pill to treat epileptic seizures.
Levetiracetam is prescribed already widely for epilepsy. Aprecia said the new delivery formulation is designed to help patients who struggle with current dosage forms,
MIT invention3d printing has previously been used to make medical devices and replicate organs for preclinical studies,
but this is the first FDA approval of a drug product. Aprecia formulation platform, which it calls Zipdose technology,
and other high-dose medicines that rapidly disintegrate with a small amount of liquid, and says it has exclusive rights to pharmaceutical applications of the technology.
#Immune cell binding nanoparticle could lead to new sepsis treatment A nanoparticle that binds to immune cells in the body has been shown to tune down inflammation and offer a potential first-of-a-kind treatment for sepsis.
Sepsis is the single most frequent cause of death in hospitalised patients, causing 8 million deaths each year.
Supportive care is given, underlying infections treated, but there is no effective treatment. Researchers sprinkled a plastic nanoparticle with sialic acid ligands that modulated macrophage immune cells.
This produced a therapeutic response in mouse models of sepsis, in human lung cells and an ex vivo human lung model.
Sepsis occurs when chemicals released into the bloodstream to fight an infection trigger an inflammatory cascade that can damage organs. e saw increased survival in mice
and senior author of a new study in Science Translational Medicine. ou need to get macrophages under control quickly in sepsis.
and are important in regulation of immune responses in diseases like inflammation, molecular biologist James Paulson at the Scripps Research Institute in the US told this publication. he authors exploit Siglec function by attaching sialic acids to nanoparticles that exploit the function of Siglecs and control inflammation,
so we are getting a targeting effect using the nanoparticle that you couldn get with a soluble antibody,
Cutting off the cycle of inflammation could allow sepsis but also a frequent complication called ARDS to be treated.
Up to 25%of patients with severe sepsis develop ARDS and up to half of these patients will die.
noted Paulson. he usual challenges are there regards moving to the clinic, but the novel therapeutics like this present additional manufacturing challenges
and might encounter an extended regulatory approval process, he adds. The new drug was developed by Queens University Belfast, UK,
and its efficacy in sepsis models was shown in collaboration with Trinity college Dublin, Ireland t
#Doctors can now put drugs straight into brains Doctors can now inject drugs straight into people brains,
after making a major discovery in breaking through the barrier that keeps the nervous and circulatory systems apart.
A team from the Canadian National Research Council has made carrier molecules that help disease-fighting ones break through,
where they can then release the therapeutics they need, straight into the nervous system. Doctors have been trying to get through the barrier
because the impact of the drugs would be so much more immediate and powerful if it went straight into the brain.
and grown in a lab. Those drugs can eventually be used to treat brain diseases, doctors hope,
#'Brain training'game helps people with schizophrenia live a normal life Patients who played the game regularly for a month were four times better than non-players at remembering the kind of things that are critical for normal, day-to-day life,
People recovering from schizophrenia suffer serious lapses in episodic memory which prevent them from returning to work
Schizophrenia affects about one in every hundred people and results in hallucinations and delusions (Rex) his kind of memory is essential for everyday learning
and everything we do really both at home and at work. We have formulated an ipad game that could drive the neural circuitry behind episodic memory by stimulating the ability to remember where things were on the screen,
Schizophrenia affects about one in every hundred people and results in hallucinations and delusions it is estimated to cost the NHS about £2bn a year in treatment alone,
with wider costs for society such as lost work. Although the main symptoms can be treated with antipsychotic drugs,
there is no proven drug therapy for treating losses in episodic memory, which has led scientists to find ways of training the brain through computer-based games. e need a way of treating the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as problems with episodic memory,
but slow progress is being made towards developing a drug treatment, Professor Sahakian said. o this proof-of-concept study is important
The study, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, involved 22 schizophrenia patients who played the game for eight hours over a period of four weeks
Importantly, the patients with schizophrenia enjoyed playing the game and were motivated to continue. The group that played the game was approximately four times better in terms of their memory than the group that did not,
used in conjunction with medication and current psychological therapies, this could help people with schizophrenia minimise the impact of their illness on everyday life. i
#Lexus Hoverboard is real, lets people glide around using magnets and liquid nitrogen Lexus has unveiled the first working hoverboard,
Dr John Coates, a fellow in neuroscience and finance at the University of Cambridge who specialises in the biology of risk taking and stress, said he is now getting bout one call a weekfrom financial institutions,
A firm called Equivital makes a chest-mounted wearable sensor that measures heart rate, stress, breathing, skin temperature and body position.
what it takes to cope with stress in much the same way that a sports star medical information might be handed over
#Biomedical 3d printing Company Signs Agreement with Xilloc for Licensing, Sale of 3d printed Bones in Europe (3ders. org) NEXT 21 K. K,
. an innovative Japanese biomedical 3d printing company, has created a 3d bone printer capable of producing artificial bone structures for humans.
Xilloc needs to go through registration for on an EU-level on 93/42/EEC (Medical device Directive MDD.
Custom-Fit Knee Replacements Dr. Ralph Liebelt is one of the few surgeons in the country to use 3d printed, custom-fit knee replacements.
because doctors are not making holes in the bones and there less bleeding. Liebelt, with Triangle Orthopaedic Associates, said about 20 percent of patients with traditional methods are satisfied not with the results of knee surgery.
He explained that doctors performing knee replacement surgery typically insert a standard off-the-shelf implant then decide how much bone to remove
in order to make it fit. His technology from Conformis uses a 3d printer to produce a jig specifically built for an individual patient.
particularly off the femur, compared with a traditional implant. l
#Neri Oxman Reveals Mushtari, World First 3d printed Photosynthetic Wearable (Engineering. com) Neri Oxman, architect and designer, has revealed the world first 3d printed photosynthetic wearable mbedded with living matter.
#Patients Will Swallow 3d printed Tadpole Endoscope That Provides Diagnosis of Cancers A team from the Institute of Precision Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong kong has developed 3d printed tadpole-like devices that can improve diagnosis
of various cancers by entering the patient stomach and wirelessly transmitting images of what it sees.
and relatively noninvasive solution that could improve cancer diagnosis. Developed to be swallowed just like a large pill (it is a bit bigger than a small coin),
which allows it to be guided deftly around the entire stomach by the doctor and the 3-printed shell,
Simon Rothman at venture capital firm Greylock Partners says a key to helping this thriving sector is nbundlingbenefits such as health care
doctors and government departments that can provide assistance. They) can also send weather forecasts and disaster alerts to subscribers,
#The Rising Costs of Prescription drugs The health care industry is trapped between serving its patients and enabling pharmaceutical innovation.
On back-to-back days in late September, a specialty tuberculosis drug saw its price raised 2, 600 percent,
while a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for life-threatening infectious diseases experienced a 5, 000 percent overnight increase.
or by specialists in specific medical fields. Rodelis Therapeutics acquired the rights to TB drug cycloserine in August,
and subsequently raised the price from $500 for 30 capsules to $10, 800. The day after the price hike, Rodelis agreed to return the drug patent to its former owner, the nonprofit Chao Center for Industrial Pharmacy and Contract Manufacturing,
acquired the infectious disease drug Daraprim in August. Turing then raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13. 50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
non-life threatening issues (think Viagra) rather than common illnesses like high blood pressure and asthma. The pharmaceutical industry seems to be caught between a rock
The cost of medications for asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes went up more than 10 percent each,
the asthma drug Albuterol sulfate went up more than 3, 400 percent and the antibiotic Coxycycline jumped 6, 300 percent.
Professor of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Chicago, there are just not enough players in the generic specialty drug market that have the capability to manufacture these drugs.
If the drug in question is the backbone of a specific therapy, laboratories need increased access to confirm efficacy
Conti and her team studied the launch price of new oncology drugs from 1996 to 2012.
Most health care experts, including those Laboratory Equipment spoke with favor lengthening patent protection, not making it shorter. atent protection is one of the ways government facilitates innovation in drugs,
because they are the best medication to serve the population or illness. They will get the premium from that so they don have to gauge consumers.
Ken Holroyd, Assistant Vice chancellor for Research at Vanderbilt University Medical center, agreed that companies would probably feel less pressure
denying seniors access to many medicines, said Thrope. nd, artificially low prices could deprive drug companies of future funds to invest in the risky, expensive research that leads to better treatments and cures.
Essentially, government-led negotiations in Part D could stall the pipeline of new drugsne that has benefited highly from the plan previously,
Additionally, the number of diabetes drugs in development jumped from 34 to 142, and 29 arthritis drugs in the pipeline became 92.
Thorpe insists that prescription drugs are not just about price. he most useful way to look at whether we are getting value for our dollar is the actual treatment.
With diabetes or hypertension, it important to look at the total medical care costs of treating those conditions,
by helping seniors manage their chronic illness, Part D has saved Medicare $12 billion annually in costly hospitalizations and nursing home stays.
University of Chicago Conti agrees that Medicare Part D has been a success, and would like to see the model extended to other arms of Medicare.
Despite the complicated physiology involved, NC State biomedical engineer Greg Sawicki and Temple University postdoctoral researcher Ben Robertson show that
this development can also reduce potentially harmful waste from LEDS generally made from toxic elements.
CDS have lower toxicity and better biocompatibility, meaning they can be used in a broader variety of applications.
a compound comprised of a two toxic elements. The ability to create QDS in the form of CDS from food
as the food and beverages themselves are not toxic. Ds derived from food and beverage waste are not based on common toxic elements such as cadmium and selenium,
which makes their processing and disposal more environmentally friendly than it is for most other QDS.
In addition to being broken toxic when down, cadmium selenide is also expensivene website listed a price of $529 for 25 ml of the compound. ith food
the mobile eye-test device developed by MIT spinout Eyenetra is coming to hospitals, optometric clinics, optical stores,
such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. The app then displays the refractive powers, axis of astigmatism,
and pupillary distance required for eyeglasses prescriptions. In July, the startup launched Blink, an on-demand refractive test service in New york,
According to the World health organization, uncorrected refractive errors are the world second-highest cause of blindness. Eyenetra originally invented the device for the developing world specifically
for poor and remote regions of Africa and Asia, where many people can find health care easily.
If the glasses shift, for instance, optical aberrations disrupt the viewing, potentially causing headache, fatigue, and nausea.
Eyenetra teamed up with the LV Prasad Eye Institute and Lotus Eye Institute and Hospital, among other clinical partners,
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