In a new study published today in Science Translational Medicine, researchers detail how sequencing genetic information in sperm can show
and in about 40 percent of these cases, the male partner is either the sole cause or partially contributing, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
If clinics could tell patients whether they should save their money or go directly to high-cost interventions,
a professor of urology at Cornell University who was not involved with this study.""There certainly is need a potential for this method."
"Sperm harbors a rich population of RNA (C. Bickel/Science Translational Medicine) Krawetz has suspected long that sperm RNA might play a role in infertility.
fertility clinics could also look to see if these 648 RNA elements are present in the semen."
if any are linked with potential genetic disorders. But until then Krawetz says the main goal is to automate RNA sequencing of sperm
#World's first malaria vaccine gets green light from European regulatory agency The world's first malaria vaccine has cleared its last major hurdle on its way to being approved for real-world use.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) the regulatory group in the European union which roughly parallels the FDA gave a positive opinion of the vaccine,
saying it is safe and effective to use in babies at risk for the parasitic disease.
The vaccine RTS S, also called Mosquirix, is the product of British pharmaceutical company Glaxosmithkline and is funded partly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
It's not the only vaccine developed to fight malaria; an experimental malaria vaccine called Pfspz was found to be much more effective at preventing malaria infection.
Yet Mosquirix is the first to make it this far along in the approval process. Mosquirix helps to prevent infection from the Plasmodium falciparum, one of the deadlier malaria parasites.
The vaccine prompts the body to produce a higher amount of antibodies to stop the parasite from infecting the liver.
It's made specifically to combat infection in children and isn't intended for use in adults or travelers.
However, the shot comes with its share of controversy. Early results of a clinical trial of Mosquirix showed that three doses of the vaccine could cut the risk of infection in half for children between between five and 17 months old.
For younger infants between six weeks and 12 weeks, infection was reduced by only 30 percent.
Over time, the effectiveness of Mosquirix waned unless children were given a booster, and children's chances of getting severe malaria or dying did not change at all.
Some scientists are concerned that the potential costs associated with such a complex and somewhat ineffective vaccine may outweigh the benefits.
Still, Africa is need in desperate for a malaria vaccine, even if it's only partially effective.
Malaria infection spread through the blood by mosquito bites kills upwards of 500 000 people each year.
Half the world's population live in areas at risk of infection.""This vaccine could mean children will have only two bouts of malaria a year instead of five,"Dr. Martin De Smet,
a malaria expert at Doctors Without Borders, told the Huffington Post. THE WHO must decide if that is justification enough to recommend Mosquirix to the public h
#Researchers engineered a protein factory inside a living cell for the first time For the first time, scientists have discovered what makes the cell tiny protein-making machines run
and have built their own molecular gadget. They created a ribosome, the factory for proteins within the cell, inside a living cell,
This finding means it may soon be possible to harness these little machines to produce more complex proteins, perhaps one day for use in medicine.
but can still be repurposed to make a specific therapeutic protein, "we would be very happy,
The order points to implementations in medicine, climate science, and aerospace as just some of the early benefits of supercomputing power.
#Ebola vaccine is 100 percent effective in Guinea trial, WHO reports A vaccine is"highly effective"against Ebola, according to the World health organization.
Early results from a trial in Guinea show that the drug protected 100 percent of the people who received it against Ebola.
the vaccine could help end the outbreak in West Africa.""The initial results are exciting and very promising,
There no cure for the virus right now, but infection can be avoided through routine hand-washing
and by using gloves or other barriers that prevent contact with bodily fluids. Ebola doesn spread through the air,
and the hunt for a vaccine continues. Now, it seems that scientists have a real contender on their hands.
4, 000 people with close ties to Ebola patients either received the vaccine immediately or three weeks after the identification of an Ebola patient in their social circle.
no cases of Ebola were reported, starting 10 days after the initial vaccination, which is needed the time period to develop immunity.
There were 16 cases of Ebola in the group that were given the vaccine three weeks later, however."
"The results of this interim analysis indicate that rvsv-ZEBOV might be highly efficacious and safe in preventing Ebola virus disease,
Starting July 26th, all of the study's participants were given the vaccine immediately, instead of putting half in a delayed group.
These results don't mean that the world now has an Ebola vaccine. The vaccine needs to undergo further safety and efficacy testing.
The vaccine is also being tested on frontline health workers, Bertrand Draguez, medical director at Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement."
"These people have worked tirelessly and put their lives at risk every day to take care of sick people,
"he said.""If the vaccine is effective, then we are already protecting them from the virus. i
#Engineers create world's first white laser beam Researchers at Arizona State university have created the world's first white laser beam,
and disease tracking as likely early applications, but said the chip could also be used to power more immersive gaming experiences
Now 59, Mr Baugh recently underwent surgery at Johns Hopkins to remap the remaining nerves from his missing arms,
and amputees who have undergone the same surgery reported being able to feel texture through MPL.
Patients of varying disabilities have tested the arm at the lab and helped push the design forward.
and strength. he long-term goal for all of this work is to have noninvasive no extra surgeries
or implants ways to control a dexterous robotic device, said Mr Robert Armiger, project manager for amputee research at the lab. Researchers envision a kind of cap that an amputee can wear that would feed information about brain activity to the robotic arm.
#HPV Vaccine Is Effective Against Multiple Cancer-Causing Strains The human papillomavirus vaccine, Cervarix, not only has the potential to prevent cervical cancer,
it is also effective against other common cancer-causing stains, according to a recent study. Researchers found that Cervavix was effective aside from just the two HPV types, 16 and 18,
which are responsible for about 70 percent of all cases.""The study confirms that targeting young adolescent girls before sexual debut for prophylactic HPV vaccination has a substantial impact on the incidence of high grade cervical abnormalities,"researcher Dan Apter,
Director, said in a statement. Cervarix, not only has the potential to prevent cervical cancer, but was effective against other common cancer-causing human papillomaviruses, aside from just the two HPV types, 16 and 18,
which are responsible for about 70 percent of all cases. For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from nearly 20,000 young women.
They found that the vaccine was extremely effective in young women who had never been infected with HPV.
It protected nearly all from HPV-16 and-18 and protected 50 to 100 percent against different grades of precancerous transformation of cervical cells caused by other strains of HPV,
including up to 100 percent of those with the immediate precursor grade to cancer. The women were followed for up to four years post-vaccination.
The vaccine was distinctly more effective among ages 15-17 than ages18-25, underscoring the value of vaccinating young adolescents,
said Apter. The study is the final report from the Papilloma Trial Against Cancer in Young Adults (PATRICIA), a multinational clinical trial encompassing 14 countries in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region
North america, and Latin america, and it confirms previous reports in this trial. The overall trial constituted the basis for approval of the Cervarix vaccine in Europe
and the United states. While the trial did not investigate the vaccine's efficacy in males, sexually transmitted HPV causes anogenital and head and neck cancers in both males and females.
HPV-related head and neck cancers now number around 8, 400 in the United states, annually."
"The more adolescents are vaccinated, the closer we will be to eradicating high risk HPV viruses, "Apter said."
"So I think boys should also be vaccinated.""Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women.
In the United states, about 12,000 new cases, and 4, 000 deaths occur annually, according to the SEER database of the National Cancer Institute.
The findings are detailed in the journal Clinical and Vaccine Immunology y
#Mastercard seeks to move digital money fast NEW YORK Mastercard wants to speed up digital payments. The financial services giant has launched just Mastercard Send,
which the company claims as a first-of-its-kind global platform that promises to move funds into your debit accounts in a half-hour
or less, compared to the one to three days that is typically how long automated check clearinghouse transactions take.
#Doctors build mobile tech to save kids'lives Every year, an estimated 3. 5 million children die for no reason other than the impacts of poverty.
These children, ages 5 and younger, die from preventable diseases such as pneumonia, dehydration, diarrhea, and systemic infections that could be treated with antibiotics.
Ninety-nine percent of them live in poor countries. Dr. Barry Finette, founder and CEO of Burlington-based THINKMD,
Sometimes the death of a child from an untreatable medical condition is inevitable even here in Burlington, Finette said.
"Together with his partner, pediatrician Dr. Barry Heath, Finette has developed a smartphone-based medical intelligence platform that allows community health workers without medical training to diagnose
what doctors are able to achieve among themselves.""Although the literature is not robust, if you take 100 physicians
Finette, 58, is a professor of pediatrics, microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and director of the Global Health and Humanitarian Opportunity Program.
Heath, 64, is a professor of pediatrics, and chief of inpatient and critical care pediatrics at The University of Vermont Children's Hospital.
The two have known each other for 26 years, crossing paths as young pediatricians and then as co-workers at the University of Vermont Medical center.
About seven years ago Finette decided on a major diversion from his work at UVM Medical center as a researcher and in the emergency room critical care unit for children."
"I took a sabbatical, "Finette said.""I wanted to look into global health and humanitarian work."
and Tropical Medicine and another diploma in international humanitarian assistance from Fordham University in New york and the United nations in a program called the Center for International Humanitarian Cooperation."
"In the redthe medical intelligence platform Finette and Heath have developed is called Medsinc. It works by asking a series of questions about a child's physical condition, focusing on heart rate and respiratory rate, the two vital signs Finette cares about most."
The health care worker measures the circumference of the child's upper arm.""The more malnourished they are,
Fever, cough, diarrhea? Does your child have blueness around the mouth, coughing? Vomiting? If they are vomiting, how often?
"One doctor for 60,000 peoplethe challenge Finette faced as he contemplated making a dent in the overwhelming toll of disease on poor children was primarily a shortage of skilled healthcare professionals."
"In Burlington, there's one doctor for every 300 or 400 people. In general in the United states there's one physician for every 500 or 600 people."
"There are typically many more community health care workers. Finette couldn't train 500 new doctors, but he could arm 500 community health care workers with a tool that would make them the next best thing to a doctor."
"So that's where I came up with this idea of developing this medical intelligence platform anybody can be trained to use,
"Finette said.""Asking 20 to 25 questions on the history of the patient, taking some vital signs, some basic physical examination,
then pushing a button and saying, 'This child appears to be in respiratory distress, and it's this severe.
Finette found that many health care workers were ill-equipped to accurately determine those vital signs. Many of the workers, for example, don't have watches.
"Although this application is ordained to have impact in resource-poor areas of the world without access to quality health care
or health care at all, there's application in middle and upper income countries for a similar version of the platform,
or for triage in doctors'offices. Doctor in a boxjohn Rosenblum, founder of Green Mountain Logic,
"When kids spend three hours waiting to be treated for a simple cough we think there's lots of use for Medsinc in the hands of lower level medical personnel under the supervision of doctors,
to"put a doctor in a box.""""That was my dream and the reason I got involved with software was wanted
because I to participate in creating artificial intelligence software that would behave as a doctor, "Rosenblum said."
""We're not trying to replace doctors, "he said.""We're simply handing these to a preexisting workforce of health care volunteers who are already in place
but don't have the capacity to assess and treat sick children.""For Barry Finette, the global vision for Medsinc begins where the need is greatest."
"Yes, we want to provide appropriate health care to children who need it.""Contact Dan D'Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia. com. Follow him on Twitter at www. twitter. com/Dandambrosiovt.
and hopefully increase understanding of disease in the long run. Many other devices have marked their presence for helping the people suffering from tremors like pen grips
Dr. Jill Ostrem, a neurologist at the University of California San francisco Medical center, commented t totally novel.
It doesn cure the disease they still have tremor but it a very positive change.
suffer from tremors and Parkinson disease. Anupam Pathak, the founder of Lift Lab, appreciated the shift of a four-person startup in San francisco to the colossal Google campus in Mountain view which has encouraged them to enhance their creativity.
It is involved also in developing a contact lens for measuring glucose levels in tears for diabetics
and researching the role of nanoparticles in blood in diseases detection. Clinical trials have revealed that the spoon reduces shaking by about 76 percent.
and devise therapies to alleviate them s
#CERN Scientists Welcome Two New Particles To The Atomic Family CERN Large hadron collider in Europe, the giant atom-smashing machine, has discovered two new subatomic particles.
I didn't know anyone with a peanut allergy. At school peanut butter and jam sandwiches were standard fare for lunches.
#After Celgene Deal, Juno Revs Armored CAR For Ovarian Cancer Trial Juno Therapeutics has built remarkable momentumncluding last week much-dissected $1 billion deal with Celgenepon
early success treating leukemia and lymphoma patients with a first generation of experimental T cell therapies developed by its academic partners.
Now, with one of those partners, Seattle-based Juno (NASDAQ: JUNO) is about to start another landmark trial:
which some call rmored CARS. he basic idea behind T cell immunotherapy is to use a patient own immune cells as the medicine.
engineered to become better cancer killers, and reinserted into the patient. CAR stands for chimeric antigen receptor,
an upcoming Phase 1 trial will treat patients with relapsed ovarian cancer, one of many solid-tissue tumors that are expected to be a much higher hurdle for the field of cell-based immunotherapy.
Though T cells still have much left to prove in blood-borne cancers, which are relatively rare,
scientists want to use the technology to target a cancer like ovarian, which will kill an estimated 14,000 women in the U s. this year. he big question is, an you cross over to solid tumors?'
'says Renier Brentjens, the director of cellular therapeutics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New york and a Juno scientific founder.
Brentjens will begin to answer his own question soon. He tells Xconomy that in August
or September he will begin treating ovarian cancer patients with armored CAR-T cells, engineered to send out a chemical signal that recruits the patientsnon-engineered T cells to come join the attack. ee going full force forward,
says Brentjens. That extra boost is one of three main modifications. The cells will also zero in on a tumor cell target called MUC16
and they will carry a self-destruction switch that clinicians can trigger in case the cells get too aggressive, hit unintended targets,
Those modifications are meant to overcome some of the challenges solid tumors present, although Brentjens cautions not to expect the same results that CAR-T cells have shown so far in leukemia and lymphomaemission rates well above 50 percent.
Just as it did with some of the blood-cancer programs now under Juno roof, Sloan Kettering will run the trial.
Juno has license to the technology, says Juno chief financial officer Steve Harr. The trial is important on two fronts.
T cell therapies have treated relatively rare blood-borne cancers. If that the extent of the treatment reach,
it would still be a medical breakthrough. But researchers, doctors, and patients dream of the cells attacking solid tumors,
which account for about 90 percent of all cancers. The American Cancer Society estimates that ovarian cancer is the fifth-deadliest in the U s. he animal data have been compelling,
and we want to get this into patients, says Harr. The Sloan Kettering trial won be the first test of engineered T cells in solid tumors.
In a tiny six-person study reported in April, CAR-T cells from the University of Pennsylvania appeared to be safe.
But the university, which has an exclusive partnership with Novartis (NYSE: NVS), reported the cells showed no effect on the tumors.
And Juno partner, Seattle Children Hospital, has started just a Phase 1 CAR-T trial for children with neuroblastoma,
a cancer that develops from immature nerve cells. In the case of Brentjens cells, the protein that signals to other T cells to help with the attack, could be the difference.
His cells use interleukin-12, or IL-12, a so-called cytokine that has powerful immune stimulation properties. f we can safely deliver the cytokine
and help turn on the rest of the immune system, and do that locally instead of systemically, it would be a major advance,
Brentjens says by restricting the secretion of IL-12 to the area right around the tumor,
In an earlier CAR-T trial at Sloan Kettering, to treat non-Hodgkin lymphoma, two patients suffered a cytokine storm
For example, people with a lot of tumor mass in their bodies might need to be monitored more closely.
Overall, however, Brentjens cautions that no one can yet predict which patients might respond favorably to T cell therapy.
Researchers at the University of California, Los angeles published work late last year that showed why certain patients responded well to a different kind of cancer immunotherapyn antibody called pembrolizumab (Keytruda.
customisable system other researchers and technologists can use to benefit those who have motor neuron diseases (MND) and quadriplegia.
The updated agreement now includes"new-generation semiconductors, GPS navigation systems, medical products which include magnetic resonance imaging machines, machine tools for manufacturing printed circuits, telecommunications satellites and touchscreens".
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