#Artificial'skin'Provides Prosthetics With Sensation Using flexible organic circuits and specialized pressure sensors, researchers have created an artificial skin"that can sense the force of static objects.
#Protein Found In Malaria Could Help Stop Cancer Researchers have discovered how a protein from malaria could some day help stop cancer.
While exploring why pregnant women are particularly susceptible to malaria, they found that the mosquito-borne parasite that causes malaria also produces a protein that binds to a particular type of sugar molecule in the placenta.
Researchers found that the same type of sugar molecule also is present in many types of cancer.
They realized that the sugar molecule--oncofetal chondroitin sulfate--could be a target for anticancer drugs,
called VAR2CSA, could provide the tool for carrying such drugs to tumors. It's somehow fitting that a disease as destructive as malaria might be exploited to treat another dreaded disease like cancer."
"Based on our clinical data, we helped validate that this could be applied to melanoma and lung cancers,"said Dr. Nhan Tran, an Associate professor in Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN)' s Cancer and Cell biology Division,
and one of the authors of the study.""This specific type of developmental protein--oncofetal chondroitin sulfate--is expressed in the placenta,
and is expressed also in lung cancer and in melanoma.""Malaria uses VAR2CSA to embed itself in the placenta--hiding itself from the immune system--by binding to oncofetal chondroitin sulfate.
In laboratory experiments, researchers found that if they used the malarial protein, VAR2CSA, and attached an anticancer drug to it,
it would bind with the oncofetal protein in the cancer, delivering the drug to the tumor."
"Scientists have spent decades trying to find biochemical similarities between placenta tissue and cancer, but we just didn't have the technology to find it,
"said project leader Mads Daugaard, an assistant professor of urologic science at UBC and a senior research scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre, part of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute."
"When my colleagues discovered how malaria uses VAR2CSA to embed itself in the placenta, we immediately saw its potential to deliver cancer drugs in a precise, controlled way to tumors.""
""This is an extraordinary finding that paves the way for targeting sugar molecules in pediatric and adulthood human cancer,
and our groups are vigorously pursuing this possibility together, "said Poul Sorensen, a UBC professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and distinguished scientist with the BC Cancer Agency and co-senior investigator on the study y
#Epilepsy Switch Discovered Approximately five percent of people suffers an epileptic attack, during which the nerve cells get out of their usual rhythm and fire in a very rapid frequency, over the course of their lives.
This results in seizures and such synchronous discharges in the brain occur most frequently in the temporal lobe.
Often, a seizure disorder develops after a delay following transient brain damage-for example due to injury or inflammation.
So-called ion channels are involved in the transfer of signals in the brain; these channels act like a doorman to regulate the entry of calcium ions in the nerve cells.
Scientists at the University of Bonn and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) have decoded a central signal cascade associated with epileptic seizures.
If the researchers blocked a central switch in epileptic mice, the frequency and severity of the seizures decreased.
Using a novel technology, it was possible to observe the processes prior to the occurrence of epileptic seizures in living animals."
"It has also been known for a long time that following transient severe brain injury and prior to an initial spontaneous epileptic seizure, the concentration of free zinc ions increases in the hippocampus.
But science has been puzzled about the significance of this phenomenon, "says Prof. Dr. Albert J. Becker from the Institute of Neuropathology of the University of Bonn.
The hippocampus, located in the temporal lobe, is a central switching station in the brain. MTF1 acts like a switch in the brain The team of Prof.
Becker, together with scientists from the departments of Experimental Epileptology and Neuroradiology of the University of Bonn Hospital as well as from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Israel
If the number of zinc ions increases following transient severe brain damage, these ions dock in greater numbers onto a switch, the so-called metal-regulatory transcription factor 1 (MTF1.
This leads to a large increase in the amount of a special calcium ion channel in the nerve cells and overall, this significantly boosts the risk of epileptic seizures.
The scientists demonstrated the fact that the transcription factor MTF1 plays a central role in this connection using an experiment on mice suffering from epilepsy."
we inhibited MTF1 in the epileptic mice and as a result, the seizures in the animals were much rarer
This makes it possible to examine the processes which take place during the development of epilepsy in a living animal."
"If the fluorescence molecules glow, this indicates that the mouse is developing chronic epileptic seizures, "says the molecular biologist Prof.
Dr. Susanne Schoch from the department of Neuropathology at the University of Bonn. The researchers also see a possible potential in this new technology for novel diagnostic approaches in humans s
and break down the blot clots that cause heart attacks and strokes. No only does the minuscule device start working within minutes, it portable,
Christopher Hagemeyer from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, told Rachael Brown at ABC News. Around 80 percent of all strokes occur
If this formation of blood clots, known as thrombosis, happens to block blood flow to the heart,
a heart attack can follow. The longer the brain or heart are oxygenated without blood the greater the risk that vital tissues will begin to die,
it set to make a huge difference to the many heart attack and stoke patients who don actually respond to current treatments.
around half of the 55,000 Australians who experience heart attack or stroke every year cannot use the clot-busting treatments administered by paramedics due to the severe side effects that can cause excessive internal bleeding."
"They administer drugs which are also very fast-acting, but because it's free in the blood stream everywhere it causes side effects like bleeding
as they are attached to the skin with a biocompatible, medical-grade adhesive. The current prototype,
that sort of'range anxiety'could be gone for good-the roads actually charge your car as you drive.
survey shows New figures released by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that fewer Americans are smoking than ever before,
it could lead to the creation of MRI machines that don't require people to lie inside the claustrophobic machine,
They say that ultra-low-power communication systems in wearable devices will transmit signals of much less power than things like MRI SCANNERS and wireless implant devices, with magnetic fields passing freely and harmlessly through biological tissue.
Having been paralysed for more than a decade due to a spinal cord injury, the man was able to identify
Responsible for the majority of marijuana's psychological effects-including the high-THC can also be use to treat symptoms of HIV infection
and cannabidiol-another active compound that has shown promise as a medical treatment-told The New york times. Back in August, researchers from the University of California,
where medicinal compounds from marijuana would be welcomed if they didn come in the form of a plant that could be farmed illegally.
What yeast could also offer is the potential to more efficiently test the medicinal properties of specific active compounds in marijuana,
which have shown promise in treating everything from seizures and inflammation to cancer and parkinson disease.
a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at Icahn School of medicine at Mount sinai, told Tech Insider that using all the compounds in marijuana simultaneously is like"throwing 400 tablets in a cocktail
'"rather than figuring out which component of that cocktail is really beneficial for the specific disease.
"Marijuana is embraced increasingly as medicine, yet there is limited evidence that it is effective against many of the conditions for
such as ejector pins for iphones, watch springs for expensive hand-wound watches, trial medical implants,
Paralysed man walks again via brain waves rerouted to his legs A paraplegic man who was paralysed for five years has walked again on his own two feet,
The anonymous man, who experiences complete paralysis in both legs due to a severe spinal cord injury (SCI), is the first such patient to demonstrate that brain-controlled overground walking after paraplegia due to
SCI is feasible. ven after years of paralysis, the brain can still generate robust brain waves that can be harnessed to enable basic walking,
one of the researchers, Zoran Nenadic from the University of California, Irvine in the US, said in a press release. e showed that you can restore intuitive, brain-controlled walking after a complete spinal cord injury."
such as brain implants, said co-author An Do, an assistant clinical professor of neurology. e hope that an implant could achieve an even greater level of prosthesis control
because brain waves are recorded with higher quality. In addition, such an implant could deliver sensation back to the brain,
enabling the user to feel his legs. r
#A 16-year-old has devised a faster and cheaper way to detect Ebola Oliva Hallisey,
and up to 12 hours from testing to confirmed diagnosis The test provides rapid, inexpensive, accurate detection of Ebola viral antigens based on colour change within 30 minutes in individuals
and up to 12 hours from testing to diagnosis. While Hallisey wasn able to test her invention on real Ebola patients or virus,
The early detection of virus infection is critical for patients, since the faster you start to treat someone the more likely they are to survive.
says her test could also be adapted to detect HIV, Dengue and Yellow fever viruses, Lyme disease, and even certain cancers.
The winners of the fifth annual Google Science Fair were announced live from Google Headquarters in Mountain view
Back in February, a Svartedalens retirement home in Gothenburg implemented a 6-hour work day for their nurses with no changes to wage,
at Gothenburg Sahlgrenska University hospital, orthopaedic surgery has moved to a 6-hour day, as have doctors and nurses in two hospital departments in Umeå to the north,"The Guardian reports.
While impressions of staff being happier and full of energy aren exactly scientific basis for declaring 6-hour work days as'better'than the 8. 7-hour work day endured by the average American,
and a 13 percent increased risk of developing coronary heart disease, while a separate study found that working 49-hour weeks was associated with lower mental health, particularly in women.
And as we reported earlier this month, we probably shouldn even be forced to clock on at 9am anyway,
#Scientists discover new gene that increases Alzheimer's disease risk An immune system gene that associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer disease has been identified by researchers in the US.
which is one of the key drivers of the disease. Not only could the discovery lead to quicker diagnoses and better identification of at-risk patients,
but researchers suggest that by manipulating the IL1RAP immune pathway they could figure out how to either slow the progression of the disease,
and fighting an important cause of progression in Alzheimer's disease,"said one of the team, Andrew Saykin from the Indiana University School of medicine.
Previous research has linked another genetic factor to the development of Alzheimer's disease-the APOE e4 allele.
they found that the IL1RAP variant had an even stronger effect on the progression of the disease than APOE e4.
which triggers the production of pro-inflammatory proteins in response to infection, tissue damage, or stress.
'and the focus of heavy investigation in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases,"said one of the researchers, Vijay K. Ramanan.
the presence of the IL1RAP variant was associated with an overall greater likelihood of progression from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease.
and fighting an important cause of progression in Alzheimer's disease,"said Saykin n
#China now spends more on science than the EU, will soon overtake the US On Monday,
Chinese scientist Youyou Tu was awarded jointly the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of a new malaria therapy.
In addition to Tu's malaria drug, Artemisinin, China has pioneered also development of solar and wind technology, and is working on trains that will reach 500 km h.
any of these factors could be therapeutic targets to extend healthspan. What we have to do now is figure out which ones are amenable to targeting.
which racers with disabilities pilot advanced assistive devices. racks are excellent for this use case
"It's a totally new approach to cancer, and we're working to test it in human patients
it can actually turn leukaemia cells into cancer killers. The antibody in question binds to a receptor called TPO-or thrombopoietin-which is found on most acute myeloid leukaemia cells.
which suggests that it could work as a targeted cancer therapy. And for some reason, the NK cells also didn't seem to attack all cancer types-only their former brethren.
That's both good and bad, as it means they're more specific and are less likely to have side effects.
But they're pretty keen to get the therapy into clinical trials soon.""We're in discussions with pharmaceutical companies to take this straight into humans after the appropriate preclinical toxicity studies,
"said Lerner. The team is also screening for antibodies that could have a similar effect on other cancer types.
The new approach is incredibly exciting, and we really hope it lives up to its potential l
#Scientists finally figure out the structure of a key cancer-driving enzyme It been a long time coming,
an enzyme complex known to play a crucial role in the development of several types of cancer.
which has been linked to the development of lymphoma, leukaemia, and brain tumours, plus a number of congenital diseases that affect a person growth."
"Our findings bring us one step closer to understanding the chemistry of how PRC2 functions in normal cells
and how mutations in the gene cause disease,"said one of the team, Xin Liu, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical centre.
and therefore triggering the development of cancer and disease has been practically impossible. But now, for the first time, Liu and his colleagues have reproduced the 3d atomic structure of PRC2 crystals,
using an imaging technique called x-ray crystallography. This means we can finally compare exactly how it behaves in normal and diseased cells,
researchers are looking at the potential of such drugs as a treatment for several types of lymphoma."
#New electronic sensor can detect ovarian cancer in your breath Your breath says more about you than you might think-not just how inebriated you are or
A new type of sensor that can'sniff out'traces of ovarian cancer in a patient's breath has been developed by researchers in Israel,
and painless way to screen for the disease. We've seen the idea of a breathalyser being used to detect different types of cancer before,
but what makes this new technology stand out is the amount of data that can be captured,
which are matched then up to various diseases.""Changes in metabolism that accompany a specific illness cause changes in the composition and/or concentration of VOCS in the breath,
"lead researcher Nicole Kahn from the Technion-Israel Institute of technology told Jordan Rosenfeld at Mental Floss.
Based on some initial testing, Kahn and her colleagues were able to correctly detect ovarian cancer in 82 percent of cases,
only high-risk patients are tested for ovarian cancer to reduce the chance of false positives, and seeing as most women don get symptoms until the disease is advanced quite,
it means many cases go undetected until it too late. With further research, Kahn thinks the same technique could be used to test for different types of cancer,
as well as other diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. She also says there's still room for improvement in making the sensors smaller
and more sensitive before they're ready for clinical use. Ovarian cancer currently accounts for around 3 percent of cancers among women
and with around 200,000 cases reported in the US each year, it's one of the rarer forms of the disease.
However, it causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system, and so new techniques to battle it would have a significant impact n
#Researchers create lithium-air battery that could be 10x more powerful than lithium-ion A new lithium-air battery created by researchers at the University of Cambridge points the way to the ultimate battery packs of the future,
And any parents who are concerned about the possible effects of vaccines have their hearts in the right place
when they try to seek out relevant medical information on the Internet. Unfortunately, as many of us are aware,
and now a broad study of anti-vaccination websites helps to explain why. Researchers from the Johns hopkins university Bloomberg School of Public health analysed close to 500 anti-vaccination websites
and found that they deliver a distorted mixture of pseudoscience and misinformation to parents seeking information about vaccines.
According to the researchers, more than two thirds of anti-vaccination websites present nonscientific information and other forms of misinformation as cientific evidenceto support the view that vaccines are dangerous to children,
and nearly one third of sites reinforce the idea through the use of anecdotes and stories.
Facebook pages and health sites perpetuate an alarming mixture of misinformation about vaccines and use a range of persuasive techniques to get the reader on side.
Almost two thirds of the sites suggested that vaccines cause autism, and more than 40 percent claim theye responsible for rain injury The majority present information as scientific when it doesn actually qualify for that distinction.
In addition to condemning vaccines, the sites also promote some positive behaviours, such as healthy eating (recommended by 18.5 percent of anti-vaccination sites),
and the benefits of breastfeeding (5. 5 percent) and eating organic food (5. 2 percent). The study, presented this week at the American Public health Association annual meeting in Chicago,
may help actual scientists such as doctors and health care workers better understand how to reach and communicate with parents who are concerned genuinely about any perceived risks of vaccination
(and who may be exposing themselves to potentially dangerous misinformation on these kinds of sites). he biggest global takeaway is need that we to communicate to the vaccine-hesitant parent in a way that resonates with them
and is sensitive to their concerns, said Meghan Moran, an associate professor in the Bloomberg School department of health, behaviour and society. n our review,
we saw communication for things we consider healthy, such as breastfeeding, eating organic, the types of behaviour public health officials want to encourage.
I think we can leverage these good things and reframe our communication in a way that makes sense to those parents resisting vaccines for their children. i
#Solar cooling system keeps water at 9 degrees Celsius for up to three months Maintaining food in places where high temperatures prevail,
using little energy at a low cost, it is now possible with Mexican technology, thanks to the creation of a solar cooling system designed by Susana Elvia Toledo Flores.
The prototype developed in the Research Department in Zeolites, at the Institute of Science of the Meritorious University of Puebla (BUAP), in center Mexico,
and medicine, bringing them better quality of life,""says Toledo Flores. The project was presented at the International Congress of Solar energy at Germany y
What's more, they have demonstrated the practicality of this approach by identifying a novel molecule that blocks a key enzyme used by the hepatitis C virus."Our dream is to provide a do-it-yourself method--one that can be applied by anyone,
a farmer could identify a novel combination that treats plant infections. He adds that the next step is to determine the most efficient way to screen the thousands
#Possible progress against Parkinson's and good news for stem cell therapies Parkinson's, which affect as many 10 million people in the world,
Current treatments include medications and electrical implants in the brain which causes severe adverse effects over time
and fail to prevent disease progression. Several studies have indicated that the transplantation of embryonic stem cells improves motor functions in animal models.
However, until now, the procedure has shown to be unsafe, because of the risk of tumors upon transplantation.
the researchers tested for the first time to pre-treat undifferentiated mouse embryonic stem cells with mitomycin C a drug already prescribed to treat cancer.
The first one, the control group, did not receive the stem cell implant. The second one, received the implant of stem cells
which were treated not with mitomycin C and the third one received the mitomycin C treated cells.
After the injection of 50 000 untreated stem cells, the animals of the second group showed improvement in motor functions
These animals also developed intracerebral tumors. In contrast, animals receiving the treated stem cells showed improvement of Parkinson's symptoms
and survived until the end of the observation period of 12 weeks post-transplant with no tumors detected.
Four of these mice were monitored for as long as 15 months with no signs of pathology. Furthermore, the scientists have shown also that treating the stem cells with mitomycin C induced a fourfold increase in the release of dopamine after in vitro differentiation."
"This simple strategy of shortly exposing pluripotent stem cells to an anticancer drug turned the transplant safer,
by eliminating the risk of tumor formation, "says the leader of the study Stevens Rehen, Professor at UFRJ and researcher at IDOR.
and physicians to propose a clinical trial using pluripotent stem cells treated with mitomycin C prior to transplant to treat Parkinson's patients and also other neurodegenerative conditions."
"Our technique with mitomycin C may speed the proposal of clinical trials with pluripotent cells to several human diseases,
#One dollar blood test using gold nanoparticles outperforms PSA screen for prostate cancer, study suggests The simple test developed by University of Central Florida scientist Qun"Treen"Huo holds the promise of earlier detection of one of the deadliest cancers among men.
It would also reduce the number of unnecessary and invasive biopsies stemming from the less precise PSA test that's now used."
"It's fantastic, "said Dr. Inoel Rivera, a urologic oncologist at Florida Hospital Cancer Institute,
which collaborated with Huo on the recent pilot studies.""It's a simple test. It's much better than the test we have right now,
"When a cancerous tumor begins to develop, the body mobilizes to produce antibodies. Huo's test detects that immune response using gold nanoparticles about 10,000 times smaller than a freckle.
certain cancer biomarkers cling to the surface of the tiny particles, increasing their size and causing them to clump together.
whether a patient has prostate cancer and how advanced it may be. And although it uses gold,
we're hoping most people can have this test in their doctor's office. If we can catch this cancer in its early stages,
the impact is going to be big.""After lung cancer, prostate cancer is the second-leading killer cancer among men, with more than 240,000 new diagnoses and 28,000 deaths every year.
The most commonly used screening tool is the PSA, but it produces so many false-positive results--leading to painful biopsies
and extreme treatments--that one of its discoverers recently called it"hardly more effective than a coin toss."
D c. Huo's team is pursuing more extensive clinical validation studies with Florida Hospital and others,
including the VA Medical center Orlando. She hopes to complete major clinical trials and see the test being used by physicians in two to three years.
Huo also is researching her technique's effectiveness as a screening tool for other tumors."
"Potentially, we could have a universal screening test for cancer, "she said.""Our vision is to develop an array of blood tests for early detection and diagnosis of all major cancer types,
and these blood tests are all based on the same technique and same procedure.""Huo co-founded Nano Discovery Inc.,a startup company headquartered in a UCF Business Incubator,
The company manufacturers a test device specifically for medical research and diagnostic purposes s
#Engineers gain control of gene activity by synthetically creating key component of epigenome The new technology allows researchers to turn on specific gene promoters
or the risk for genetic disease and it could provide a new avenue for gene therapies and guiding stem cell differentiation.
"Some genetic diseases are straightforward --if you have a mutation within a particular gene, then you have said the disease
Isaac Hilton, postdoctoral fellow in the Gersbach Lab and first author of the study.""But many diseases, like cancer, cardiovascular disease or neurodegenerative conditions, have a much more complex genetic component.
Many different variations in the genome sequence can affect your risk of disease, and this genetic variation can occur in these enhancers that Tim has identified,
where they can change the levels of gene expression. With this technology, we can explore what exactly it is that they're doing
and how it relates to disease or response to drug therapies.""Gersbach added, "Not only can you start to answer those questions,
'Office inkjet printer could produce simple tool to identify infectious disease, food contaminants Consumers are one step closer to benefiting from packaging that could give simple text warnings
when food is contaminated with deadly pathogens like E coli and Salmonella, and patients could soon receive real-time diagnoses of infections such as C. difficile right in their doctors'offices,
saving critical time and trips to the lab. Researchers at Mcmaster University have developed a new way to print paper biosensors,
simplifying the diagnosis of many bacterial and respiratory infections. The new platform is the latest in a progression of paper-based screening technologies
simple answer in the form of letters and symbols that appear on the test paper to indicate the presence of infection or contamination in people, food or the environment."
or in the doctor's office,"says John Brennan, director of Mcmaster's Biointerfaces Institute,
For patients suspected of having infectious diseases like C. diff, this technology allows doctors to quickly
and simply diagnose their illnesses, saving time and expediting what could be lifesaving treatments. This method can be extended to virtually any compound,
when a specific disease biomarker is present--is enough to ensure it remains immobilized and therefore stable.
which would include rapid detection of cancer or monitoring toxins in the water supply,"says Brennan."
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