#Drug cocktail might help diabetics make insulin Combining two different medications could help patients with Type 1 diabetes at least partially regain the ability to produce their own insulin.
For a new study, Michael Haller, an endocrinologist at University of Florida, looked for problematic cells of the immune system that could be behind a patient inability to produce insulin
a drug designed to improve the lives of people with certain forms of cancer, to stimulate the production of new
Haller treated 17 adult Type 1 diabetes patients for two weeks with the cocktail therapy and then followed them for a year.
Haller presented his findings this month at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San francisco. PROFOUND RESULTS Conventional diabetes wisdom says that within just a few months of the onset of Type 1 diabetes,
says Mark Atkinson, a co-investigator of the study and member of the department of pathology,
immunology, and laboratory medicine. That the treatment seemed to stimulate insulin production in people with established Type 1 diabetes made the researchers autiously optimistic,
Atkinson says. he results that Dr. Haller saw in his first study are profound. Another new aspect of the study is worked that it with patients who had been diagnosed long with the disease.
Typically, studies examine patients who are diagnosed newly and still have a reasonable number of beta cells producing insulin.
The patients in Haller study had been living with Type 1 diabetes between four months and two years. he model has mostly been to test therapies aimed at beta cell preservation in people who have just been diagnosed,
Haller says. ut obviously, the majority of patients living with the disease have been living with the disease for a long time,
so people become disenfranchised from the research process. Wee interested in making life better for these patients.
COMBINATION THERAPIES Atkinson began considering Thymoglobulin as a treatment for diabetes nearly a decade ago.
He and fellow co-investigator Desmond Schatz, associate chairman of the department of pediatrics, authored a paper advocating a combination approach to treating Type 1 diabetes.
Based on Schatz belief in combination therapies, the group began shepherding a cocktail of Thymoglobulin and Neulasta through early studies done with mouse models. espite tremendous strides in our understanding of the natural history of Type
1 diabetes we are as yet unable to cure and prevent the disease, Schatz says. his study is a step in that direction, toward a biological cure.
The patients in Haller study will be followed for three to five years to see if their bodies will preserve the insulin-producing beta cells.
The researchersnext step will be to recruit patients who have been diagnosed newly with the disease to conduct a larger trial.
Haller says he hopes the approach will help patients manage their disease more easily. f we can confirm the results in a larger effort,
the study could potentially be paradigm-shifting for our field in that it documents we should really be looking at combination therapies in treating Type 1 diabetes,
Haller says. ur ultimate goal is to prevent and cure this disease, but we have to crawl before we walk,
and walk before we run. This study is an important step forward in our efforts to make life easier for patients with Type 1 diabetes. k
#Starvation diet puts worm lifespan on pause Duke university rightoriginal Studyposted by Marla Broadfoot-Duke on June 20 2014the centuries-long search for the fountain of youth has yielded only a few promising leads one
Sherwood s colleague Ryan Baugh an assistant professor of medicine showed that hatching C. elegans eggs in a nutrient-free environment shut down their development completely.
not only for aging but also for cancer says Sherwood. One of the biggest mysteries in cancer is how cancer cells metastasize early
and then lie dormant for years before reawakening. My guess is that the pathways in worms that are arresting these cells
and waking them up again are going to be the same pathways that are in human cancer metastases.
The American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship Award and the National institutes of health supported the research. Source: Duke Universityyou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license n
#Electronic eye sensor watches out for glaucoma Researchers have designed a high-tech, low-power sensor that can be placed permanently in a person eye to track hard-to-measure changes in pressure
and monitor for diseases like glaucoma. The sensor would be embedded with an artificial lens during cataract surgery
and would detect pressure changes instantaneously, then transmit the data wirelessly using radio frequency waves. o one has ever put electronics inside the lens of the eye,
If you can fit this sensor device into an intraocular lens implant during cataract surgery it won require any further surgery for patients.
The research team wanted to find an easy way to measure eye pressure for management of glaucoma,
a group of diseases that damage the eye optic nerve and can cause blindness. Right now there are two ways to check eye pressure,
but both require a visit to the ophthalmologist. At most, patients at risk for glaucoma may only get their pressure checked several times a year,
says Tueng Shen, a collaborator and professor of ophthalmology. MARTERLENSES But if ophthalmologists could insert a pressure monitoring system in the eye with an artificial lens during cataract surgeryow a common procedure performed on 3 million to 4 million people each year to remove blurry vision
or glare caused by a hazy lenshat could save patients from a second surgery and essentially make their replacement lens marterand more functional. he implementation of the monitoring device has to be well-suited clinically
and must be designed to be simple and reliable, Shen says. e want every surgeon who does cataract surgeries to be able to use this.
As reported in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, researchers built a prototype that uses radio frequency for wireless power and data transfer.
A thin, circular antenna spans the perimeter of the deviceoughly tracing a person irisnd harnesses enough energy from the surrounding field to power a small pressure sensor chip.
The chip communicates with a close-by receiver about any shifts in frequency which signify a change in pressure.
The team has tested successfully the sensing device embedded in the same flexible silicon material that used to create artificial lenses in cataract surgeries.
This increased intraocular pressure is the main factor in glaucoma, which causes vision loss and ultimately blindness. ftentimes damage to vision is noticed late in the game,
and we can treat patients effectively by the time they are diagnosed with glaucoma, Shen says. r, if medications are given,
there no consistent way to check their effectiveness. As a result many patients with the disease aren diagnosed early enough
or aren on an accurate treatment plan. Both cataracts and glaucoma affect a similar aging population
so it seems a natural pairing to place a pressure monitoring device in a new lens during cataract surgery.
MAKING IT COST-EFFECTIVE The team is working on downscaling the prototype to be tested in an actual artificial lens.
patients and surgeons would be really eager to adopt it. The researchers, including Brian Otis, associate professor of electrical engineering and also of Google Inc,
The device controls blood sugar in patients with type 1 diabetes using doses of both insulin
prevent hypoglycemia and automatically adapt to the very different needs of adultsome of whom were very insulin-sensitivend adolescents,
says principal investigator and senior author Edward Damiano of the Boston University department of biomedical engineering. here no current standard-of-care therapy that could match the results we saw. ne of the key virtues of this device is its ability to start controlling the blood sugar instantly,
Damiano, and El-Khatib previously published a 2010 Science Translational Medicine report that described successful use of the first-generation system in controlling the blood sugar of adults for 27 hours.
But that study took place in a controlled hospital inpatient environment where participants essentially stayed in bed for the whole period
contracting a typical illness like a cold or upset stomach can dramatically change the need for insulin over a period of days to weeks.
BETTER CONTROL Both of the studies reported in the New england Journal of Medicine paper compared data reflecting five days on the bionic pancreas system with five days of participantsusual care using their own insulin pumps.
They were accompanied by a study nurse 24 hours a day and slept in a hotel,
The adolescent trial enrolled 32 participants, ages 12 to 20, attending a camp for young people with type 1 diabetes,
while the incidents of low blood sugar also dropped. he fear of hypoglycemia can limit attempts to bring the average blood sugar into the range that dramatically reduces the risk of long-term complications,
Fewer instances of hypoglycemia on the bionic pancreas also reduced the need for carbohydrate doses to raise blood sugar.
OT HAVING TO THINK ABOUT DIABETES 24/7damiano, whose 15-year-old son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 11 months,
explains what having a device like this could mean to patients. he most practical difference would be not having to think about diabetes 24/7,
not having to constantly make decisions about things that those of us without type 1 never have to think about. nother real problem that would be relieved is the fearear of going to bed at night
but still had significant episodes of hypoglycemia. nd another extremely frustrating aspect of diabetes that would be eliminated completely by this device is the enormous sense of failure
and provide a bridge to the often-promised but still elusive cure for type 1 diabetes.
the University of Massachusetts Medical center in Worcester, the University of North carolina at Chapel hill, and Stanford Universitynd will begin on June 16 at MGH.
/The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases, the Helmsley Charitable trust, and the Charlton Fund for Innovative Research in Diabetes supported the study.
Several members of the research team have been issues or applied for patents related to the development of the bionic pancreas.
#Telehealth consults improve child abuse exams Telehealth consultations for clinicians at rural hospitals improve their ability to provide forensic examinations for sexual abuse, according to new research.
Published in the journal Child abuse & Neglect, the study shows that clinicians with access to expert nurses provided more thorough
and to make an accurate diagnosis. roviding telehealth support really improves the quality of these forensic exams,
a forensic nurse practitioner and research nurse at the Betty Irene Moore School of nursing at University of California,
Davis."The assumption that hospital nurse staffing can be reduced to save money, without adversely affecting patient outcomes, may be foolish at best
istockphoto) University of Southampton Nurse staffing, education tied to hospital death rate ith this technology, we can help children who might otherwise not receive this level of care.
Provided by advanced practice nurse practitioners and sexual assault nurse examiners with more than 10 years of experience evaluating abuse,
many examiners are prone to assess normal variations as injuries from trauma. n the other hand,
eliminating the added stress for children of having to testify in court. Telehealth offers support and built-in peer review for nurses, physicians,
and other clinicians practicing in relative isolation. The telehealth network uses secure teleconferencing equipment to link UC Davis nurses with rural clinicians.
The systems provide video and audio as well as images from colposcopes (magnifying devices used to examine genitalia) and other equipment.
This advanced technology essentially puts expert nurses in the room with examining clinicians. TELEHEALTH NETWORK To test whether telehealth improved care, the researchers brought in independent experts to review examinations from eight rural hospitals, five
of which had access to telehealth consults. The experts reviewed the health records for 183 patients, 101 of
whom were treated at telehealth hospitals, evaluating the thoroughness, accuracy, and overall quality of these exams.
and accuracy scores were all significantly higher in the telehealth hospitals. The team hopes these findings will spur other hospitals to expand their telehealth capabilities. f we create a statewide network,
we can really improve the quality of these exams in rural communities, says Miyamoto. e can provide a service for many children who don receive this level of care
Mark twain Medical center, Northern Nevada Medical center, and the California Department of public health Material, Child & Adolescent Health Program.
It also has the potential to inspect food and even scan for tumors. Junichiro Kono a physicist at Rice university says the potential to replace magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology in screening for cancer
and other diseases is one of the most exciting possible applications. The potential improvements in size ease cost and mobility of a terahertz-based detector are phenomenal Kono says.
With this technology you could conceivably design a handheld terahertz detection camera that images tumors in real time with pinpoint accuracy.
And it could be done without the intimidating nature of MRI technology. Because terahertz waves are much smaller in energy than visible light finding materials that absorb
#Marijuana may change sperm shape in young men Using cannabis appears to affect the size and shape of spermnd perhaps put young men fertility at riskccording to a new study.
249 men from 14 fertility clinics in the UK and asked them to fill out detailed questionnaires about their medical history and their lifestyle.
to have used cannabis in the three month period prior to ejaculation. ur knowledge of factors that influence sperm size
yet faced with a diagnosis of poor sperm morphology, many men are concerned to try and identify any factors in their lifestyle that could be causing this,
although our data suggests that cannabis users might be advised to stop using the drug if they are planning to try
in which immune system decline contributes to increased susceptibility to disease as we age. By outlining how prolonged fasting cycleseriods of no food for two to four days at a time over the course of six monthsill older and damaged immune cells
Prolonged fasting also lowered levels of IGF-1, a growth-factor hormone that Longo and others have linked to aging, tumor progression,
and cancer risk. KA is the key gene that needs to shut down in order for these stem cells to switch into regenerative mode.
a new immune system. 72-HOUR FAST Prolonged fasting also protected against toxicity in a pilot clinical trial in
assistant professor of clinical medicine at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital. ore clinical studies are needed,
The V Foundation and the National Cancer Institute of the National institutes of health funded the clinical trails I
explains Chay Kuo, an assistant professor of cell biology, neurobiology and pediatrics at Duke university. In a study with mice, his team found a previously unknown population of neurons within the subventricular zone (SVZ) neurogenic niche of the adult brain, adjacent to the striatum.
Studies of stroke injury in rodents have noted SVZ cells apparently migrating into the neighboring striatum.
They reported that interestingly in Huntington disease patients, this area seems to lack the newborn interneurons. his is a very important and relevant cell population that is controlling those stem cells,
He says perhaps there will be a way to combine behavioral therapy and stem cell treatments after a brain injury to rebuild some of the damage.
The questions ahead are both upstream from the new Chat+neurons and downstream, Kuo says.
and punches its way into cells Researchers have discovered how the deadly Ebola virus disease that many fear may be used for bioterrorismmashes its way into healthy cells and turns them into virus factories.
and also identifies an important target to block the infection process. After Ebola is engulfed by the cell,
The result is a remarkable new understanding of Ebola infection. By understanding the process, researchers say they are significantly closer to being able to stop Eboland perhaps other viruses with similar structures as well. nce you have visualized the molecular shape changes that these structures undergo upon cell entry,
Researchers say the new optical approach is ideal for children and for patients with electronic implants, such as pacemakers, cochlear implants,
and deep brain stimulators that are used to treat Parkinson disease. The magnetic fields in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) often disrupt either the function or safety of implanted electrical devices.
associate professor of radiology at Washington University in St louis. t roughly akin to spotting the rush of blood to someone cheeks
and monitor brain disease and therapy. Portable scans Another commonly used method for mapping brain function is positron emission tomography (PET),
multiple scans performed over time could be used to monitor the progress of patients treated for brain injuries, developmental disorders such as autism,
neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson, and other diseases. Unlike fmri and PET, DOT technology is designed to be portable,
so it could be used at a patient bedside or in the operating room. ith the new improvements in image quality, DOT is moving significantly closer to the resolution
and when the heart is stopped temporarily during cardiac surgery. Better image quality For the current study, published online in Nature Photonics,
Researchersinterests in these networks have grown enormously over the past decade as the networks have been tied to many different aspects of brain health and sickness, such as schizophrenia, autism and Alzheimer disease.
going forward, could make optical neuroimaging much more useful in research and the clinic. While DOT doesn let scientists peer very deeply into the brain,
The National institutes of health, Autism Speaks, a Fulbright Science and Technology Phd Award, and a Mcdonnell Centre for Systems neuroscience grant funded the research s
#How an app might help screen kids for autism A new video analysis tool may help spot early signs of autism.
tracks and records infantsactivity during videotaped autism screening tests. Results show the program is as effective at spotting behavioral markers of autism as experts giving the test themselves,
and the software performs better than non-expert medical clinicians and students in training. ee not trying to replace the experts,
says Jordan Hashemi, a graduate student in computer and electrical engineering at Duke university. ee trying to transfer the knowledge of the relatively few autism experts available into classrooms and homes across the country.
We want to give people tools they don currently have because research has shown that early intervention can greatly impact the severity of the symptoms common in autism spectrum disorders.
THREE TESTS The study focused on three behavioral tests that can help identify autism in very young children.
In one test, an infant attention is drawn to a toy being shaken on the left side
GENERAL PRACTITIONERS he great benefit of the video and software is for general practitioners who do not have trained the eye to look for subtle early warning signs of autism
says Amy Esler, an assistant professor of pediatrics and autism researcher at the University of Minnesota,
which will appear online in the journal Autism Research and Treatment. he software has the potential to automatically analyze a child eye gaze, walking patterns,
Esler says. hese signs would signal to doctors that they need to refer a family to a specialist for a more detailed evaluation.
it could be useful immediately in homes and clinics. Neither, however, expects it to become widely usedot because clinicians, teachers,
which connects researchers from disparate fields to experts in computer programming to help analyze large data sets. ee currently working with autism experts at Duke Medicine to determine what sorts of easy tests could be used on just a computer
The research has shown that the earlier autism can be spotted, the more beneficial intervention can be.
If there is too much barrier damage before intravenous medicine is administered to a stroke patient, that medicine could seep out of the bloodstream and into the brain, causing major damage.
The drug tpa is given now to patients only within 4. 5 hours of a stroke onset
says study leader Richard Leigh, assistant professor of neurology and radiology at Johns hopkins university School of medicine. Described in the journal Stroke
the brain is open to infection, inflammation, and hemorrhage. Ischemic stroke patients are at risk of bleeding into the brain
when there is damage to the barrier. TIMING IS EVERYTHING In an ischemic stroke, a blood clot is stuck in a vessel, cutting off blood flow to a portion of the brain,
When patients come to the hospital within a few hours of suffering an ischemic stroke, doctors quickly give intravenous tpa,
hoping it will dissolve the clot without causing additional damage. In roughly 30 percent of stroke patients
however, there is already too much damage to the blood-brain barrier and the drug causes bleeding in the brain, severe injury,
But doctors haven known with any precision which patients are likely to suffer a drug-related bleed.
Most stroke patients, Leigh notes, don get to a hospital within the window for optimal tpa use
if he or she has visible bleeding before administering tpa. Leigh says his computer program, working with an MRI scan, can detect subtle changes to the blood-brain barrier that are otherwise impossible to see.
doctors should consider changing their practice. f we could eliminate all intracranial hemorrhages, it would be worth it,
the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and the Seton Healthcare Family supported the research.
and efficacy requirements for using this wireless charging system in commercial medical devices. But it has the potential to eliminate bulky batteries
and lead to a type of medicine where physicians treat disease and alleviate pain with electronics instead of drugs. e need to make these devices as small as possible to more easily implant them deep in the body
and create new ways to treat illness and alleviate pain, says Ada Poon, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Stanford university.
and drug delivery systems to apply medicines directly to affected areas, Poon says. The work creates the potential to develop lectroceuticaltreatments as alternatives to drug therapies,
says William Newsome, professor of neurobiology and director of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. Newsome, who was involved not in Poon experiments
Either way, far-field electromagnetic waves have been ignored as a potential wireless power source for medical devices. Near-field waves can be used safely in wireless power systems.
Some current medical devices like hearing implants use near-field technology. But their limitation is implied by the name:
In the experiment, Poon used her midfield transfer system to send power directly to tiny medical implants.
we can safely transmit power to tiny implants in organs like the heart or brain,
Theye hopeful it could be a tool to detect mood shifts in people with bipolar disordernd perhaps changes seen in conditions like PTSD and Parkinson disease.
because they hope it will yield a biological marker to prioritize bipolar disorder care to those who need it most urgently to stabilize their moodsspecially in regions of the world with scarce mental health services.
Bipolar disorder affects tens of millions of people worldwide, and can have devastating effects, including suicide. hese pilot study results give us preliminary proof of the concept that we can detect mood states in regular phone calls by analyzing broad features and properties of speech,
Because other mental health conditions also cause changes in a person voice the same technology framework developed for bipolar disorder could prove useful in everything from schizophrenia and posttraumatic stress disorder to Parkinson disease,
the researchers say. RESULTS SO FAR The first six patients all have a rapid-cycling form of Type 1 bipolar disorder
and a history of being prone to frequent depressive and manic episodes. The researchers showed that their analysis of voice characteristics from everyday conversations could detect elevated and depressed moods.
The researchers study patients as they experience all aspects of bipolar disorder mood changes from mild depressions and hypomania (mild mania) to full-blown depressed and manic states.
Over time, they hope to develop software that will learn to detect the changes that precede the transitions to each of these states.
Applications for HIV and cancer In a random access memory chip, similar logic circuits manipulate electrons on a nanometer scale, controlling billions of compartments in a square inch.
As an example, Yellen points to cells afflicted by HIV or cancer. In both diseases, most afflicted cells are active
and can be targeted by therapeutics. A few rare cells, however, remain dormant, biding their time and avoiding destruction before activating
and bringing the disease out of remission. With the new technology, the researchers hope to watch millions of individual cells,
pick out the few that become dormant, quickly retrieve them and analyze their genetic activity. aybe then we could find a way to target the dormant cells,
ur technology can offer new tools to improve our basic understanding of cancer metastasis at the single cell level,
That process, known as syneresis, defeats the purpose of defining the space doctors hope to fill with new tissue. f the transition gellation temperature is one or two degrees below body temperature
and a medical degree in a joint program with nearby Baylor College of Medicine. hese chemical crosslinks are attached by phosphate ester bonds,
the Keck Center Nanobiology Training program of the Gulf coast Consortia and the Baylor College of Medicine Medical scientist Training program supported the research.
The breakthrough of knowing where the gene pools that created your DNA were mixed last has massive implications for lifesaving personalized medicine
Medical screening Elhaik coauthor Tatiana Tatarinova developed a website making GPS accessible to the public. o help people find their roots,
an associate professor of research pediatrics at the Keck School of medicine of the University of Southern California. e were surprised by the simplicity and precision of this method.
this kind of screening has huge, important medical implications. The discovery of a certain genotype might indicate the potential for a genetic disease
and suggest that diagnostic testing be done. Also, as scientists learn more about personalized medicine, there is evidence that specific genotypes respond differently to medicationsaking this information potentially useful
when selecting the most effective therapy and appropriate dosage. The investigators are currently designing a study to correlate pharmacokineticshe time course of drug metabolismith genotype.
Additional researchers contributed to the study from Johns hopkins university University of Pennsylvania, University of Arizona, and other research institutions around the world.
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