and are under medical treatment because it will be an effective tool to know how many hours of sleep the patient is getting."
which via radio frequency sends"monitoring or results"to the doctor or specialist. He adds that as innovation is noninvasive,
The U s. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated that drug overdoses kill more than 44,000 Americans annually,
Concerned about these alarming statistics, experts at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health Center for Injury Research and Policy challenged a team of Johns Hopkins undergraduate mechanical engineers to design
said Kavi Bhalla, assistant professor at the university Bloomberg School of Public health and one of the team mentors for the project.
a potent narcotic pain reliever that was selected for the project because it tops the list of the most commonly abused prescription drugs.
Andrea Gielen, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Bloomberg School of Public health and one of the team mentors, said she
#Scott & White Memorial Implants Miniaturized, Wireless Monitoring Sensor to Help Manage Heart failure Scott & White Memorial is one of six hospitals in Texas
and the first hospital in the Baylor Scott & White Health system to offer the device.
For more information watch this short video, click New Tech Helping Heart failure Patientse are always looking for new and innovative ways to treat our patient disease process
and improve outcomes for heart failure patients, said Robert Scott III, MD, Director for Advanced Heart failure at Scott & White Memorial. his device will give us the ability to anticipate problems with our patients before they occur,
decreasing their chance of being readmitted to the hospital, and improving their quality of life. emorial implemented the Cardiomems HF System
which is the first and only FDA-approved heart failure monitoring device proven to significantly reduce hospital admissions.
The device is a sensor that is implanted in the pulmonary artery (PA) during a minimally invasive procedure.
Once implanted, the device can measure and transmit PA pressure from the patient back to their healthcare team.
Elevation in PA pressure appears even before changes in weight and blood pressure in the patient,
which are used traditionally as indirect measures of worsening heart failure. The new system allows patients to transmit daily sensor readings from their homes to their health care providers allowing for personalized
and proactive management to reduce the likelihood of hospitalization and onset of debilitating symptoms. eart failure can rob patientsquality of life
and frequently results in repeated hospitalizations, said John Erwin III, MD, cardiologist at Scott & White Memorial. e think that we can provide significantly improved quality of life by partnering with the patient in acting preventatively as opposed to responding
when an adverse event occurs. eart failure occurs when the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the body demands.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 5. 1 million Americans have heart failure
Patients with heart failure are hospitalized frequently, have reduced a quality of life and face a higher risk of death.
#New Smart Insulin Patch May Replace Injections for Diabetics By Beth Ellisonthe mart insulin patchis a thin square a couple of millimetres large.
The research team found that the new patch could reduce blood glucose levels in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes for as long as nine hours.
with further preclinical tests and human clinical trials to come. The future potential of the device is highlighted by co-senior author Zhen Gu, Phd, a professor in the Joint UNC/NC State department of Biomedical engineering:"
"The whole system can be personalized to account for a diabetic's weight and sensitivity to insulin,
diabetes is maintained currently with frequent finger prick tests and insulin shots to control blood glucose levels.
"Injecting the wrong amount of medication can lead to significant complications like blindness and limb amputations,
or even more disastrous consequences such as diabetic comas and death.""This research team have removed the risk of human error by emulating the natural insulin generators of the body beta cells.
The team tested the patch on a mouse model of type 1 diabetes and compared it to injecting insulin as standard.
Regular insulin injections can cause blood glucose levels to plummet dangerously low the patch has been found not to pose this risk.
tell your dentist and even help you stop doing it. What more, the next version of the guard, currently under development, may be able to tell
when he was developing a set of dentures that alert the dentist to an improper fit
and can lead to damaged teeth, headaches, insomnia, and a sore jaw. Most people don even know they do it.
Wong thought the same thing. earing a mouth guard is less intrusive than spending time in a sleep clinic,
where a dentist or orthodontist can retrieve it, make a diagnosis and suggest treatment. hat kind of information has been unavailable until now,
Yoon said. The mouth guard is an improvement over traditional bruxism therapies, such as behavioral modification training during clinical sessions,
Wong said. he advantage is that the guard extends the treatment beyond the time spent in the clinic,
she said. his promises greater effectiveness and lower cost. Yoon said one population that could stand to benefit from the smart mouth guard is combat veterans with posttraumatic stress,
which can lead to bruxism. But the smart mouth guard potential extends beyond dentistry. The next iteration could be aimed at athletes.
which could give doctors early warning about the possibility of a concussion g
#Warwick Q-Eye Sensor Enables Rapid Identification of Materials in Terahertz Region A new type of sensor,
#DIRHA Prototype Enables People with Disabilities to use Voice as a Remote control to Access Home Devices Based on advanced voice recognition and audio signal processing technology,
The prototype was designed especially for people with disabilities and allows them to use their voice as a remote control to access services
#Researchers Report Completely Transparent Absorbers at Nonoperational Frequencies The manipulation of light has led to many applications that have revolutionized society through communications, medicine and entertainment.
real-time information about a patient, alerting medical professionals if there is a warning sign, for example high blood pressure or swelling.
#Novel Synthetic Biosensor Glows in Response to Conditions that Mimic TB Infection Robert Abramovitch, an MSU microbiologist,
a sulfa-based compound found in many prescription glaucoma drugs, actually turns off the bacterium's ability to invade the immune system.
"We found the compound reduces disease symptoms in mice.""According to Abramovitch, TB may not have eyes and ears,
One of these cues includes the infection's ability to detect ph -or acidity levels-which tells the disease it's being attacked by a host immune cell."
"The compound we found inhibits TB's ability to detect acidic environments, effectively blindfolding the bacterium
globally, carry the infection, but in most cases it lies dormant and the immune system is able to prevent it from spreading in the body."
"The immune system has difficulty clearing the infection and the TB bacterium is just waiting for the immune system to weaken."
"Abramovitch and his research team screened 273,000 different compounds in hopes of finding one that could possibly stop the disease.
By using a synthetic biosensor that glows green in response to conditions that mimic TB infection,
Yet, this elusive compound not only has the potential of preventing the disease from spreading, but Abramovitch suggests that it could help shorten the length of treatment
"Trying to kill TB bacteria isn't the only way of stopping the disease though, Abramovitch added."
disease using conventional X-ray mammography and ultrasound scans. The new ultrasound method will be safer and lower cost than currently-used screening techniques,
and end up at the clinic with health problems. In 2009, Indonesia passed a law banning fires on peat plantations.
US researchers have found that peat fires in the southern states during the summer of 2008 caused a spike in emergency room visits for heart failure and asthma-related respiratory complications.
Finer-grained particles are also harder to block with the simple surgical masks that many people in Asian cities have worn traditionally as protection against air pollution.
raise promise for medicine but also concerns about"home-brewed"illegal drugs. Experts have called for tight control of organisms genetically modified to produce narcotics.
If you brew beer at home, then you are relying on microscopic yeast that turns sugars into alcohol.
and have the yeast do all the chemical steps required downstream to make your target therapeutic drug."
"Morphine plays a vital role in pain relief in many hospitals, but it requires a poppy harvest to manufacture.
The broad concept of using microscopic organisms to make drugs is not new in medicine.
Insulin for people with diabetes has been made in genetically modified bacteria for decades. But there are concerns these latest advances could allow a DIY drug lord to brew illegal narcotics in their home."
"In principle, anyone with access to the yeast strain and basic skills in fermentation would be able to grow morphine producing yeast using a a home-brew kit for beer-making,
#Test unravels history of infection US researchers claim to have developed a single test that is able to identify past exposure to every known human virus infection,
The technique decodes the infection history imprinted in our immune response. The scientists hope that the test will eventually provide important insight into how viruses contribute to development of a range of diseases.
The work was published in the journal Science. During a virus infection, your immune system generates antibodies designed to fight the virus. Each antibody recognises a tiny fragment of the virus
and their interaction is very specific-they fit like a lock and key. Virus-specific antibodies can be long-lived;
often persisting many years after an infection has disappeared. So, your antibody repertoire represents a historical record of all of the viruses that have infected you.
This immunological catalogue has been used for years to identify past virus exposure, but the diagnostic tests routinely used have been limited to one,
or at most a few, different virus strains. Discovering connections Prof Stephen Elledge from the Harvard university Medical school US,
so it allows you to discover connections between different populations or different diseases amongst groups of people."
Antibodies present in a drop of human blood could then be used as bait to go fishing in this phage pool-only bacteriophage that express protein fragments recognised by the antibodies in the blood sample will be caught.
The data showed that the number of virus infections detected in people increased during life.
The study also suggested that those living in the US were exposed to fewer infections than people living in South africa, Thailand or Peru."
the sensitivity of the population to infection or practices in the country",commented Prof Elledge.
The greatest number of virus infections that were detected in any single individual was around 25,
or HIV infection could be massaged up to very respectable levels, I'd be nervous about using it as a diagnostic test to see
if an individual patient has HIV infection.""However, it will be a fabulous tool for looking at virus-disease associations
which are speculative, or even currently unknown. For example, primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) has been reported, controversially, to arise from viral infection,
so it would be great to compare the virome of PBC patients with those without the disease.
Maybe you'd identify a consistent pattern suggesting a specific viral cause.""Indeed any other disease of unknown aetiology-identifying specific virome reactivity could give a major clue as to a causative agent."
"And the technique might also shed light onto why new treatments-immunotherapies-that are being deployed in the fight against cancers work in some individuals and not in others.
Prof Elledge commented:""It's possible that the people that respond to therapy are responding
because they are taking advantage of existing immune responses to viruses, so we are looking at correlation in these patients to previous viral exposures to see
if exposure to a particular virus makes it more likely to respond
#Sweet source for aviation biofuel Researchers have identified a new way to produce aviation fuel from sugarcane biomass that could deliver substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Importantly, the structures are stable enough to be used to make microscopic biomedical contraptions. The research is published in the journal Nature."
L'oreal currently grows skin samples from tissues donated by plastic surgery patients. It produces more than 100
"said Adam Friedmann, a consultant dermatologist at the Harley Street dermatology clinic.""I can understand why you would do it for severe burns or trauma but
"But printed skin has more value in a medical scenario, he thinks.""It would be a great thing to have stores of spare skins for burn victims
#Bionic eye implant world first Surgeons in Manchester have performed the first bionic eye implant in a patient with the most common cause of sight loss in the developed world.
Mr Flynn said he was delighted"with the implant and hoped in time it would improve his vision sufficiently to help him with day-to-day tasks like gardening and shopping.
The Argus II implant manufactured by the US firm Second sight, has previously been used to restore some vision to patients who are blind as a result of a rare condition known as retinitis pigmentosa.
The operation, at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, is the first time it has been implanted in a patient with age-related macular degeneration (AMD)
which affects at least half a million people in the UK to some extent. I met Ray Flynn last month,
on the morning of his surgery and he explained that although his retained his peripheral vision,
and was led by Paulo Stanga, consultant ophthalmologist and vitreo-retinal surgeon at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and professor of ophthalmology and retinal regeneration at the University of Manchester.
In a test, two weeks after surgery, Mr Flynn was able to detect the pattern of horizontal,
vertical and diagonal lines on a computer screen using the implant. He kept his eyes closed during the test
so that the medical team could be sure that the visual information was coming via the camera on his glasses and the implant.
"The implant cannot provide any highly detailed vision -but previous studies have shown it can help patients to detect distinct patterns such as door frames and shapes.
Mr Flynn should learn how to interpret the images from the implant more effectively. Four more patients with dry AMD will receive the implant at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital,
as part of a clinical trial. Prof Stanga said:""We hope these patients will develop some central visual function
Gregoire Cosendai of Second sight Medical Products, described the AMD study as"totally groundbreaking research"."The trial is being held in the Manchester Clinical Research Facility-funded by the National Institute for Health Research and Wellcome Trust,
which aims to bring new drugs and medical devices to patients. Cathy Yelf, of the Macular Society, said:"
and analyse our genes/DNA hold the potential for new and personalised medical treatments. But copying the huge amounts of information involved backwards
#Missing link found between brain, immune system--with major disease implications Vessels directly connecting brain, lymphatic system exist despite decades of doctrine that they don't.
and treatment of neurological diseases ranging from autism to Alzheimer's disease to multiple sclerosis.""Instead of asking,'How do we study the immune response of the brain?''
''Why do multiple sclerosis patients have the immune attacks?''now we can approach this mechanistically. Because the brain is like every other tissue connected to the peripheral immune system through meningeal lymphatic vessels,
"said Jonathan Kipnis, Phd, professor in the UVA Department of Neuroscience and director of UVA's Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG)."
Kipnis also saluted the"phenomenal"surgical skills of Igor Smirnov, a research associate in the Kipnis lab whose work was critical to the imaging success of the study.
Alzheimer's, Autism, MS and Beyond The unexpected presence of the lymphatic vessels raises a tremendous number of questions that now need answers, both about the workings of the brain and the diseases that plague it.
take Alzheimer's disease.""In Alzheimer's, there are accumulations of big protein chunks in the brain, "Kipnis said."
And there's an enormous array of other neurological diseases, from autism to multiple sclerosis, that must be reconsidered in light of the presence of something science insisted did not exist t
as well as lifestyle diseases such as obesity, cancer and mental disorders. The circadian rhythm is also related to seasonal reproduction,
which may overcome various circadian-related diseases and control reproductive activity in animals to provide solutions for food production.
and worked closely with the biologists at ITBM to synthesize molecules for studying structure-activity relationships (SARS)."Through SAR studies on the molecular derivatives of KL001,
which will surely contribute to medical applications, food production and advances in clock research. This has been a wonderful experience for
The relationship between genes and specific traits is complicated more than simple one-to-one relationships between genes and diseases.
but scientists are just beginning to explore how, specifically, genetic variations affect health and disease. Two major statistical challenges to finding these connections involve analysing associations between many different genetic variants and multiple traits,
"But the simple models we use to do this are too simplistic to uncover the complex dependencies between sets of genetic variants and disease phenotypes."
It was observed by a team of researchers including Gilles Hickson, an assistant professor at the University of Montreal's Department of Pathology and Cell biology and researcher at the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre, his assistant Silvana Jananji, in collaboration with Nelio
it can be a source for triggering cancer, for example,"said Hickson. It is well known that microscopic cable-like structures,
and to certain diseases,"said Hickson, who has devoted the last 15 years of his research life to cell biology.
In fact, all cancers are unchecked characterised by cell division, and the underpinning processes are potential targets for therapeutic interventions that prevent cancer onset and spread."
"But before we get there, we must continue to expand our knowledge about the basic processes
Ultimately, this could help the rational design of more specific therapies to inhibit the division of cancer cells,
#Scientists find molecular switch that creates long-term immunity Melbourne researchers have identified a protein responsible for preserving the antibody-producing cells that lead to long-term immunity after infection or vaccination.
Dr Kim Good-Jacobson, Professor David Tarlinton and colleagues from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute discovered the presence of a protein called Myb was essential for antibody-producing plasma cells to migrate into bone marrow,
Their findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Dr Good-Jacobson said plasma cells were created
when the immune system was exposed to pathogens such as viruses or bacteria.""When our immune system encounters a new pathogen,
it can create plasma cells that secrete antibodies to specifically prevent future infections, generating immunity, "she said."
"Our bone marrow is like a long-term storage facility for plasma cells, allowing them to continue producing antibodies to protect against future infections.
Until now, it was known not why some plasma cells moved into the bone marrow, while others remained in the blood stream
and perished after a few days.""The research team discovered that when the gene that produces the protein Myb was removed,
plasma cells were no longer able to move into the bone marrow to provide long-term immunity.""Myb is a type of protein called a transcription factor,
we might be able to encourage the immune system to create long-term immunity for a range of infections."
improving the design of antibodies to better recognise invading pathogens in the future, "she said.""The Myb protein marks the plasma cells that produce high-quality antibodies for preservation."
"Professor Tarlinton said the discovery would mean researchers could now search for the trigger of Myb production
"Now that we know Myb is critical in creating long-term immunity, we can begin dissecting the pathways it uses to mark plasma cells for storage
"Some pathogens, such as malaria, typically trigger the creation of short-lived plasma cells. If we don't create long-lived plasma cells,
we don't develop lasting immunity to the disease. If we can trigger the expression of Myb in plasma cells responding to pathogens
-either by infection or by immunisation-we might be able to convince the immune system to store these plasma cells in the bone marrow to offer protection against future infections
#Researchers create model of early human heart development from stem cells Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley,
who is co-senior author of the study with Dr. Bruce Conklin, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular disease and a professor of medical genetics and cellular and molecular pharmacology at UC San francisco."
"This technology could help us quickly screen for drugs likely to generate cardiac birth defects, and guide decisions about
"Screening for drug toxicity To test the potential of the system as a drug-screening tool,
a drug known to cause severe birth defects. They found that at normal therapeutic doses, the drug led to abnormal development of microchambers, including decreased size,
problems with muscle contraction and lower beat rates compared with heart tissue that had not been exposed to thalidomide."
"We chose drug cardiac developmental toxicity screening to demonstrate a clinically relevant application of the cardiac microchambers,
The most commonly reported birth defects involve the heart, and the potential for generating cardiac defects is of utmost concern in determining drug safety during pregnancy."
and other UC Berkeley researchers publicly debuted a system of beating human heart cells on a chip that could be used to screen for drug toxicity.
cells along the edge experienced greater mechanical stress and tension, and appeared more like fibroblasts,
which is an imperfect model for human disease.""The researchers pointed out that while this study focused on heart tissue,
This breakthrough was published yesterday in the scientific journal PLOS Pathogens and will be presented at the upcoming IAS 2015 conference in Vancouver.
The findings pave the way for future HIV prevention or cure strategies. The study's goal was to determine how HIV manages to compromise antiviral responses in the initial period of infection,
also called the acute infection stage, during which the virus establishes itself in the body.
The acute infection is considered a critical period in determining the complexity, extent and progression of the disease.
It is also during this stage that HIV establishes latent infection in long-lasting cellular reservoirs.
These viral reservoirs, which harbour the virus out of sight from the immune system and antiviral drugs, represent the primary barrier to a cure."
"An important component in this process is a group of proteins collectively called type 1 Interferons,
which are the immune system's first line of defence against viral infections and are known to have a beneficial role in the early stages of HIV infection,
"says Dr. Cohen, Director of the Human Retrovirology research unit at the IRCM.""The problem is that HIV has developed mechanisms to suppress the Interferon response and, until now,
"Most of the Interferon is produced by a very small population of immune cells called pdcs (plasmacytoid dendritic cells), responsible for providing immediate defence against infections.
when they recognize the presence of a pathogen, they secrete Interferon. The Interferon then triggers a large array of defence mechanisms in nearby cells, creating an antiviral state that prevents the dissemination and, ultimately,
and leads to persistent infection, "adds Dr. Bego.""We found that HIV, through Vpu, takes advantage of the role played by BST2 by maintaining its ability to activate ILT7 and limit the production of Interferon,
""The hope for a definitive cure and an effective vaccine has been frustrated by HIV's endless propensity to subvert the host's defences
despite antiretroviral therapy,"describes Dr. Cohen, who also leads Cancure, a team of leading Canadian researchers working towards an HIV cure."
"Our findings can provide tools to enhance antiviral responses during the early stages of infection.
By blocking Vpu's action, we could prevent early viral expansion and dissemination, while also allowing pdcs to trigger effective antiviral responses.
We believe that such interventions during primary infection have the potential to limit the establishment and complexity of viral reservoirs,
or wiped out during early periods of infection, will bring us closer to ending HIV/AIDS,
this new study will advance research for an HIV cure
#Malaria's key to the liver uncovered Scientists uncover a port of liver entry for malaria parasites in a report published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.
If these results hold up in humans, drugs that target this entry protein might help prevent the spread of disease.
Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium falciparum, which is transmitted to humans via mosquito bite. Recent efforts to limit parasite transmission and increase treatment coverage has reduced the number of malaria-related deaths,
but the parasite still causes roughly 200 million new infections and half a million deaths worldwide each year.
The first stop for malaria parasites in humans is the liver where a few organisms multiply into tens of thousands,
which are released then into the bloodstream. Passage through the liver is essential for the parasite to establish a productive infection and cause disease,
and the bug's entry route has been traced to specialized liver cells called Kupffer cells. But exactly how the parasite traverses these cells is not clear.
A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health now find that a Kupffer cell protein called CD68 is needed for parasite passage and efficient liver infection,
If this reduction is sufficient to substantially limit blood infections (and thus disease CD68 may represent a potential new drug target in the fight against malaria a
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