#Flexible methane production from electricity and biomass The variable operation modes were the biggest challenge during development says Project Head Siegfried Bajohr of the Engler-Bunte Institute (EBI) of KIT.
From the products of a biomass gasification plant i e. hydrogen carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide the Demosng pilot plant directly produces methane and water by means of a nickel catalyst (SNG operation.
Similar design strategies have great potential for use in a wide variety of human-made systems, from biomedical devices to microelectromechanical components, photonics and optoelectronics, metamaterials, electronics, energy storage
"Potential applications range from battery anodes, to solar cells, to 3d electronic circuits and biomedical devices.""The 3d transformation process involves a balance between the forces of adhesion to the substrate and the strain energies of the bent,
#Neuroprosthetics for paralysis: Biocompatible flexible implant slips into the spinal cord EPFL scientists have managed to get rats walking on their own again using a combination of electrical and chemical stimulation.
But applying this method to humans would require multifunctional implants that could be installed for long periods of time on the spinal cord without causing any tissue damage.
This is precisely what the teams of professors Stéphanie Lacour and Grégoire Courtine have developed. Their e-Dura implant is designed specifically for implantation on the surface of the brain or spinal cord.
The small device closely imitates the mechanical properties of living tissue and can simultaneously deliver electric impulses and pharmacological substances.
An article about the implant will appear in early January in Science. So-called"surface implants"have reached a roadblock;
they cannot be applied long term to the spinal cord or brain, beneath the nervous system's protective envelope,
the implant developed at EPFL is placed beneath the dura mater, directly onto the spinal cord. Its elasticity and its potential for deformation are almost identical to the living tissue surrounding it.
More rigid traditional implants would have caused significant nerve tissue damage during this period of time. The researchers tested the device prototype by applying their rehabilitation protocol
Not only did the implant prove its biocompatibility, but it also did its job perfectly, allowing the rats to regain the ability to walk on their own again after a few weeks of training."
"Our e-Dura implant can remain for a long period of time on the spinal cord or the cortex,
This opens up new therapeutic possibilities for patients suffering from neurological trauma or disorders, particularly individuals who have become paralyzed following spinal cord injury,
"explains Lacour, co-author of the paper, and holder of EPFL's Bertarelli Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology.
it nonetheless includes electronic elements that stimulate the spinal cord at the point of injury. The silicon substrate is covered with cracked gold electric conducting tracks that can be pulled and stretched.
The implant can also be used to monitor electrical impulses from the brain in real time. When they did this
"These include materials science, electronics, neuroscience, medicine, and algorithm programming. I don't think there are many places in the world where one finds the level of interdisciplinary cooperation that exists in our Center for Neuroprosthetics."
"For the time being, the e-Dura implant has been tested primarily in cases of spinal cord injury in paralyzed rats.
But the potential for applying these surface implants is huge--for example in epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and pain management.
#New algorithm will allow better heart surgery experts say A new technique to help surgeons find the exact location of heart defects could save lives,
help them to treat patients more effectively and save health service cash. The development, by researchers at The University of Manchester, will allow noninvasive detection of the origin of heart problems
meaning patients have to spend extra time in the theatre as the surgeon finds the problem.
The more time taken in surgery the more likely problems are to develop, adding extra danger for patients and expense for the NHS.
which will enable medics to exactly find the area of concern before any surgery takes place.
cutting the amount of time in surgery for some patients. In a paper published in PLOS Computational biology,
enabling much more accurate diagnosis. The next stage is to test it in the real world. Henggui Zhang, Professor of Biological Physics at The University of Manchester and lead author of the study,
"The standard way we do electrocardiograms does not provide sufficient information to enable medical professionals to focus in clearly to the area of concern."
That means more time in surgery, more chance for things to go wrong and worse outcomes for patients."
Using this new algorithm ECG map can help diagnose the location of cardiac disorder in a way which is better for the patients and more cost effective for health services
GI & Liver the work brings surgeons one step closer to helping human patients using this regenerative medicine technique.
Tissue-engineered small intestine (TESI) grows from stem cells contained in the intestine and offers a promising treatment for short bowel syndrome (SBS) a major cause of intestinal failure particularly in premature babies and newborns with congenital intestinal anomalies.
TESI may one day offer a therapeutic alternative to the current standard treatment which is intestinal transplantation
Tracy C. Grikscheit MD a principal investigator in The Saban Research Institute of CHLA and its Developmental biology and Regenerative medicine program is also a pediatric surgeon at Children's Hospital Los angeles and an assistant professor of surgery at the Keck School of medicine
and develop a devastating disease called necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) where life-threatening intestinal damage requires removal of large portions of the small intestine.
However in those initial studies--published in July 2011 in the biomedical journal Tissue Engineering Part A--only basic components of the intestine were identified.
and disease and proven it to be fully functional as it develops from human cells said Grikscheit.
#Newly discovered antibiotic kills pathogens without resistance For years, pathogens'resis tance to antibi otics has put them one step ahead of researchers,
which is causing a public health crisis, according to Uni ver sity Dis tin guished Pro fessor Kim Lewis. But in new research,
Lewis and his col leagues present a newly dis cov ered antibi otic that elim
i nates pathogens without encoun tering any detectable resistance--a finding that chal lenges long-`held sci en tific beliefs and holds great promise for treating chronic infec
and Lewis'lab played a key role in ana lyzing and testing the com pound for resis tance from pathogens.
said this marks the first dis covery of an antibi otic to which resis tance by muta tions of pathogens have not been identified.
Lewis said this latest research lays new ground to advance his inno v a tive work on treating MRSA and other chronic infections e
and deal with Ebola infections often work under challenging conditions. Researchers at the DPZ have developed Diagnostics-in-a-Suitcase,
Senegal, the Public health Institute of Guinea, the University of Stirling, Robert Koch Institute, and Twistdx Ltd.
Dr. Ahmed Abd El Wahed, scientist in the Unit of Infection Models at the DPZ, is the innovator of the suitcase laboratory.
since medical staff can identify and isolate confirmed Ebola cases more rapidly, "said Dr. Christiane Stahl-Hennig, the Head of the Unit of Infection Models."
"In remote field hospitals, resources such as electricity and cold storage are often in short supply.""added Dr. Ahmed Abd El Wahed,"The Diagnostics-in-a-Suitcase will
which could lead to new drug design for psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, has been discovered by researchers at Georgia State university.
Their findings are published in the journal Nature Communications this week. The research team has been studying a metabolic pathway called the tryptophan kynurenine pathway,
which is linked to psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, including depression, anxiety, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, AIDS dementia complex, asphyxia in newborns and epilepsy.
The medical potential of this pathway warrants detailed study to provide information about the pathway's enzymes and their regulation.
This pathway produces several neurotransmitter regulators and is responsible for metabolizing nearly 99 percent of the tryptophan in the body.
professor in the Department of chemistry and core member of the Center for Diagnostics and Therapeutics at Georgia State, organized a research team,
"This pathway is associated highly with neurodegenerative diseases and depression.""The researchers took a high concentration of the purified protein,
They will partner with Dr. Andy Miller, director of psychiatry at Emory University, to determine the physiological application of this pathway in humans s
and have been suggested as a possible cause of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, epilepsy or intellectual disability (see this review article for further background).
But they also can be completely benign or have just a subtle effect.""Our findings are intriguing
"These same technologies can now be used to study the brains of people who died from unexplained neuropsychiatric diseases to determine
Co-first author Alice Eunjung Lee, Phd, from the lab of Peter Park, Phd, at the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical school, developed the study's retrotransposon analysis tool,
#New approach may lead to inhalable vaccines for influenza pneumonia The work led by Cathy Fromen
In contrast negatively charged particles of the same composition led to weaker and in some cases undetectable immune responses suggesting that particle charge is an important consideration for pulmonary vaccination.
The findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences also have broad public health implications for improving the accessibility of vaccines.
An inhalable vaccine may eliminate the need for refrigeration which can not only improve shelf life but also enable distribution of vaccines to low-resource areas including many developing countries where there is significant need for better access to vaccines s
#Study pinpoints autism-linked protein for sculpting brain connections A new study by Duke researchers provides a close up of synapse refinement
and identifies a protein that is crucial in this process. Disruptions in the protein called hevin have previously been linked to autism depression
and suicide but the molecule's role in the developing brain was mostly unknown until now.
Interested in the relationship between astrocytes synapse formation and disease Eroglu's group showed in 2011 that hevin triggers the formation of new neural connections.
The balance of those two types of types of connections in the cortex could go awry in neurological diseases such as autism
The group is now studying the molecular mechanisms of hevin and its potential contribution to health and disease.
Srishti Bhagat and Nicole Calakos of Duke Neurology Department; Louis-Jan Pilaz and Debra Silver of Duke's Molecular genetics and Microbiology Department;
and Daniel Wilton and Beth Stevens of Boston Children's Hospital Department of Neurology Harvard Medical school.
#Researchers uncover key cancer-promoting gene One of the mysteries in cancer biology is how one protein,
TGF-beta, can both stop cancer from forming and encourage its aggressive growth. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have uncovered a key gene that may explain this paradox
and provide a potential target for treatment. TGF-beta is known as a tumor suppressor, meaning it necessary to keep cells in check
and growing normally. But at some point, its function flips and it becomes a tumor promoter, fostering aggressive growth and spread of cancer.
The researchers identified Bub1 as a key gene involved in regulating TGF-beta receptor. The study is published in Science Signaling. ur data that Bub1 is involved at the receptor level is unexpected completely,
. Ruth Tuttle Freeman Research Professor of radiation oncology and radiology and co-director of the Center for Molecular Imaging at the University of Michigan Medical school. ub1 is well-known for its role in cell division.
We think this may explain the paradox of TGF-beta as a tumor promoter and a tumor suppressor,
Researchers also have known that Bub1 is expressed highly in many different types of cancer. Because Bub1 is found in many types of cancer
developing a drug to target it could potentially impact multiple cancers. A compound to target Bub1 has been developed
but is not ready for testing in patients. Initial lab testing suggests that a Bub1 inhibitor can very specifically target Bub1 without causing damage to other parts of the cell. hen you look at gene expression in cancer,
Bub1 is in the top five. In addition, Bub1 expression levels correlate with outcome in patients with lung and breast cancer.
Doctors have begun routinely using a device known as the Pea pod to measure the body composition of the infants.
With this information health care workers can then personalize the baby's nutritional supplements to help with appropriate weight gain.
Charles Simmons, MD, chair of the Department of Pediatrics and director of the Division of Neonatology, says,
health care workers have performed hundreds of analyses of breast milk. Simmons, the Ruth and Harry Roman Chair in Neonatology in honor of Larry Baum said the information from both analyses should ultimately lead to healthier weight gain, better neurological outcomes and shorter hospital stays
for babies in the neonatal intensive care unit. Cedars-Sinai received the Pea pod in late spring and has begun just using it on a regular basis.
when babies were placed on their backs to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, the incidence of plagiocephaly--commonly known as flat head--have risen dramatically.
Ellen Mack, RNC, MN, neonatal clinical nurse specialist, said the babies are evaluated constantly to determine
because with the lower surface tension we expect less risk of head flattening and less risk for pressure ulcers."
#New cells may help treat diabetes In the new study published Jan 28 in the journal PLOS ONE the UI team led by Nicholas Zavazava MD Phd UI professor of internal medicine reprogrammed human skin cells
When these cells were transplanted into diabetic mice the cells secreted insulin and reduced the blood sugar levels of the mice to normal or near-normal levels.
Although the cells were not as effective as pancreatic cells in controlling blood sugar levels Zavazava says that the results are an encouraging first step toward the goal of generating effective insulin-producing cells that can be used to potentially cure type 1 diabetes.
This raises the possibility that we could treat patients with diabetes with their own cells says Zavazava who also is a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research center at the UI.
which will accelerate treatment of diabetes. In type 1 diabetes a person's immune system attacks
and destroys the pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin. Although it is possible to treat type 1 diabetes with pancreas transplants from deceased donors the demand for transplants far exceeds the availability of donated organs.
Zavazava's team is among several groups aiming to create an alternative source of insulin-producing pancreatic cells that can be transplanted into patients with type 1 diabetes.
However the UI study is the first to use human ips cells to create the insulin-producing cells.
but would also mean patients could receive transplants without needing to take immunosuppressive drugs. Using ips cells rather than embryonic stem cells as a starting point also avoids the ethical concerns some people have with using embryonic stem cells.
and gradually corrected the blood sugar levels in the diabetic mice over a period of several months.
This meant they were able to remove very immature (undifferentiated) cells that could form tumors.
None of the mice developed tumors from the transplanted cells s
#New technology enables ultra-fast steering and shaping of light beams A team of engineers has developed a new acousto-optic device that can shape
#Diabetes debate: Triglycerides form in liver despite insulin resistance In type 2 diabetics insulin fails to suppress blood sugar production by the liver
while paradoxically allowing the production of hepatic triglycerides. This combination results in multiple health risks including high blood sugar and fatty liver disease.
For years to gain insight into this phenomenon researchers focused on the role of altered insulin action in the liver in the production of triglycerides.
I. Shulman the George R. Cowgill professor of medicine and cellular & molecular physiology--developed a novel method to measure the rate of triglyceride production from fatty acids in three types of animals:
The findings also explain the longstanding paradox of why insulin therapy does not exacerbate but instead reduces fatty liver disease in patients with type 2 diabetes.
These results provide new insights into the pathogenesis of nonalcoholic liver disease and provides new approaches to treat fatty liver disease
which is now the most common liver disease in the world said Shulman. Shulman and his team plan to apply similar methodology to translate their findings to insulin-resistant patients with type 2 diabetes hyperlipidemia and fatty liver disease e
#'Crispr'science: Newer genome editing tool shows promise in engineering human stem cells In a recent online report on the work in Molecular Therapy the Johns Hopkins team says the findings could streamline
and speed efforts to modify and tailor human-induced pluripotent stem cells (ipscs) for use as treatments
or in the development of model systems to study diseases and test drugs. Stem cell technology is quickly advancing
and we think that the days when we can use ipscs for human therapy aren't that far away says Zhaohui Ye Ph d. an instructor of medicine at the Johns hopkins university School of medicine.
This is one of the first studies to detail the use of CRISPR in human ipscs showcasing its potential in these cells CRISPR originated from a microbial immune system that contains DNA segments known as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.
The engineered editing system makes use of an enzyme that nicks together DNA with a piece of small RNA that guides the tool to where researchers want to introduce cuts or other changes in the genome.
Linzhao Cheng Ph d. a professor of medicine and oncology in the Johns hopkins university School of medicine; and their colleagues pitted CRISPR against TALEN in human ipscs adult cells reprogrammed to act like embryonic stem cells.
and studying disease. The researchers compared the ability of both genome editing systems to either cut out pieces of known genes in ipscs
As model genes the researchers used JAK2 a gene that when mutated causes a bone marrow disorder known as polycythemia vera;
SERPINA1 a gene that when mutated causes alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency an inherited disorder that may cause lung and liver disease;
However when using these genome editing tools for replacing portions of the genes such as the disease-causing mutations in JAK2
and potential cures for human diseases says Cheng g
#Computing: Common'data structure'revamped to work with multicore chips Today hardware manufacturers are making computer chips faster by giving them more cores or processing units.
a research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical center (BIDMC) has uncovered previously unknown steps in the development of insulin resistance, a hallmark of type 2 diabetes.
therapies for type 2 diabetes.""We wanted to understand what was initially happening to cause the body to become unresponsive
"explains senior author Evan Rosen, MD, Phd, of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at BIDMC and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical school."
However, epidemiological and molecular data have suggested that events leading to insulin resistance might also take place in the nucleus,
or too many nutrients from the mother can lead to a person becoming obese or diabetic in adulthood,
Most importantly, these data tell us that we have an awful lot still to learn about the basic mechanisms by which diabetes is triggered
which we can approach drug therapy for this disorder
#Byproducts from bacteria awaken dormant T-cells HIV viruses Dental and medical researchers from Case Western Reserve University found another reason to treat periodontal disease as soon as possible.
They discovered that byproducts of bacteria in gum disease, called metabolic small chain fatty acid (SCFA),
can work together to wake up HIV in dormant T-cells and cause the virus to replicate.
Their findings help explain why people with the HIV-infections and periodontal disease have higher levels of the virus in their saliva than HIV patients with healthy gums.
The researchers speculate that byproducts from other bacteria infections in other diseases might change gene expression using similar mechanisms.
For dental patients with HIV their findings further support how important it is to treat bacterial infections in gum disease early.
This interaction by SCFA and T-cells surprised co-investigators Fengchun Ye, assistant professor of biological sciences at the Case Western Reserve University School of dental medicine,
In the interaction between gum disease and HIV, five SCFA byproducts from two prevalent oral bacteria--Porphyromonas gingivalis (Pg) and Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn)--are involved in activating resting immune T-cells carrying latent (inactive
and respond to inflammation to ward off an infection in the body.""As long as someone is healthy,
Last year, Ye and Karn discovered that one SCFA--butyric acid--induced a chain of events that reactivate the virus associated with Kaposi's sarcoma, the most common malignancy in HIV patients.
"The impact on waking up T-cells and activating HIV replication was a"double whammy"find that contributes to understanding the little-known microbiome in HIV disease,
That prompted the researchers to investigate the mechanism that drives the replication of the virus in gum disease.
HIV antiviral therapy prevents active HIV cells from replicating and doesn't affect the quiet viruses in sleeping T-cells.
As long as the patient is free of gum disease, the virus sleeps and remains in check, Karn said d
#Blood test for prostate cancer investigated Mitchell believes the technique will be transformative in providing improved cancer diagnostics that can both predict treatment outcomes and monitor patient responses to therapy.
In a large retrospective study of blood samples the researchers showed that the method called a liquid biopsy could accurately distinguish prostate cancer from normal controls without prior knowledge of the genetic signature of the tumors and with over three times the sensitivity of current prostate specific-antigen
Based on the reported data and work in progress I believe the'liquid biopsy'will revolutionize cancer diagnostics
not only before a patient begins therapy but also following patient responses to therapy said Mitchell the paper's corresponding author and professor of Pathology Microbiology and Immunology.
The study collected serum from more than 200 patients with prostate cancer and more than 200 controls.
The samples included PSA levels and prostate tissue biopsy grading called the Gleason score. The researchers reported that the technique distinguished prostate cancer from normal controls with 84-percent accuracy and cancer from benign hyperplasia and prostatitis with an accuracy of 91 percent.
Because the method quantifies the inherent chromosomal instability of cancer and can be followed as a function of time without having to do an invasive tissue biopsy it is called a liquid biopsy.
It's been known for many years that dying cells including tumor cells shed DNA into the bloodstream.
But only recently has technology notably next-generation sequencing made it possible to reliably distinguish
and quantify cancer-specific DNA from normal controls by the identification and chromosomal location of billions of specific DNA fragments present in blood as cell-free DNA.
The prostate cancer study identified 20 hotspots of greatest chromosomal instability as additions or deletions in less than 0. 5 percent of the total DNA present in human chromosomes.
While researchers around the world are working on their own liquid biopsies Mitchell said the group's technique takes a broader approach.
It examines the entire genome rather than known specific gene point mutations. Robust mutation panels vastly improve monitoring
since cancer cells are constantly deleting chromosomal DNA and liquid biopsies with only one or two mutations will allow cancer cell escape variants to go undetected he said.
Since the entire genome was surveyed the researchers were able to identify a non-coding region of the genome as a hotspot which may be generating previously unrecognized chromosomal control elements in prostate cancer.
The other 19 hotspots were involved rich in genes in replication and cell control processes that are highly relevant to cancer.
Since cell-free DNA has a relatively short half-life in the circulation sequencing of cell-free DNA soon after therapy may be used to detect minimal residual disease in solid tumors Mitchell said.
The researchers reported similar results in a study of breast cancer at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.
Mitchell further predicted that liquid biopsies will quantify immediate tumor responses to therapy y
#New technology focuses diffuse light inside living tissue In the Jan 5 issue of Nature Communications Wang the Gene K. Beare Professor of Biomedical engineering at Washington University in St louis reveals for the first time a new
technique that focuses diffuse light inside a dynamic scattering medium containing living tissue. In addition they have improved the speed of optical focusing deep inside tissue by two orders of magnitude.
This improvement in speed is an important step toward noninvasive optical imaging in deep tissue and photodynamic therapy.
or plan for the next one or rule out therapies that are unlikely to remain effective for long said Duke graduate student Pablo Gainza-Cirauqui who co-authored the paper.
and in humans to treat viral infections that antibiotics are powerless to cure. My kids are now 15 and 13
The percentage of infections caused by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus that have proven resistant to treatment has risen steadily from just over 2 percent in 1975 and 29 percent in 1991 to more than 55 percent today--resulting in more than 11000 deaths in the U s. each year a higher death
The drugs called propargyl-linked antifolates show promise as a treatment for MRSA infections but have yet to be tested in humans.
The researchers are now using their algorithm to predict resistance mutations to other drugs designed to combat pathogens like E coli and Enterococcus.
We might even be able to coax a pathogen into developing mutations that enable it to evade one drug
Their computational approach could be especially useful for forecasting drug resistance mutations in other diseases such as cancer HIV
and influenza where raising resistant cells or strains in the lab is more difficult to do than with bacteria the researchers say.
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