If cancer markers are found in a cell the circuit could for example activate a cellular suicide program.
Healthy cells without cancer markers would remain unaffected by this process. Biocomputers differ significantly from their counterparts made of silicon
These visualization tools are prototypes of probes that could some day help researchers better understand the ion channel dysfunctions that lead to epilepsy cardiac arrhythmias
For example the Kv2. 1 channel that this probe binds to leads to epilepsy when it s not functioning properly. n addition the ability to better observe electrical signaling could help researchers map the brain at its most basic levels. nderstanding the molecular
Conventional MRI technology widely used in hospitals can typically resolve details of up to one tenth of a millimeter for example in cross-sectional images of the human body.
In standard hospital instruments the magnetization of the atomic nuclei in the human body is measured inductively using an electromagnetic coil.
and power wearable sensors or medical devices or perhaps supply enough energy to charge your cell phone in your pocketsays James Hone professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University
#Algae cell switch also controls tumor growth Original Studyposted by Layne Cameron-Michigan State on October 15 2014 Scientists have discovered that a protein called CHT7 is a likely repressor of cellular quiescence
and oil production also wields control of cellular growth and tumor growth in humans. Christoph Benning professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Michigan State university and his colleagues unearthed the protein's potential
Its application in cancer research however was a surprise finding that is leading Benning's lab in a new direction. lgae provide us with model organisms that rival
and study algae which have the genomic repertoire that make them relevant in their capacity to drive advances in human medicine. he discovery was made
In terms of human medicine this discovery gives scientists a promising new model to study tumor suppression and growth.
and grow uncontrollably that's exactly what we want to understandsays Benning. hat is the first step of tumor growth. he study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences h
#3, 600 crystals in wearable skin monitor health 24/7 A new wearable medical device that uses up to 3600 liquid crystals can quickly let you know
and its relevance to basic medicine have been demonstrated in the study but additional testing is needed before it can be put to use.
points providing sub-millimeter spatial resolution that is comparable to the infrared technology currently used in hospitals.
#Plants can t run from stress, but they can adapt Scientists have discoveredâ a key molecular cog in a plant s biological clock.
This discovery may have implications for understanding neural circuit dysfunctions that underlie autism in humans. Humans with autism often show a reduced frequency of social interactions
and an increased tendency to engage in repetitive solitary behaviors. Autism has also been linked to dysfunction of the amygdala a brain structure involved in processing emotions.
This discovery which is like a eesaw circuitwas led by postdoctoral scholar Weizhe Hong in the laboratory of David J. Anderson biology professor at Caltech and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The work appears online in the journal Cell. e know that there is some hierarchy of behaviors
and his colleagues say may have some relevance to human behavioral disorders such as autism. n autismanderson says here is a decrease in social interactions
and promoting these perseverative persistent behaviors. tudies from other laboratories have shown that disruptions in genes implicated in autism show a similar decrease in social interaction and increase in repetitive
and social behaviors nd if you don t understand the circuitry you are never going to understand how the gene mutation affects the behavior. oing forward he says such a complete understanding will be necessary for the development of future therapies.
but if you found the right population of neurons it might be possible to override the genetic component of a behavioral disorder like autism by just changing the activity of the circuits#tipping the balance of the seesaw in the other directionhe says.
and turn it into a mineral which prevents the toxic material from leaching into groundwater.
when exposed to extremely high and toxic concentrations of uranium levels that would destroy individual Geobacter cells the biofilms didn t just survive they thrived she adds.
#o-seeums harbor virus that makes cows sick A virus that causes a serious disease in cows
In the United states alone the disease costs the cattle and sheep industry an estimate $125 million annually. y conducting this epidemiological study on a commercial dairy farm in Northern California we were able to demonstrate that the virus overwinters
and we hope for eventually developing controls for the diseasesays coauthor James Maclachlan veterinary professor and viral disease expert.
Bluetongue disease first identified during the 1800s in southern Africa is transmitted by the Culicoides biting midge a tiny gnat sometimes referred to as a o-seeum. he disease mostly sickens sheep
The disease doesn t pose a threat to human health. The name bluetongue derives from the swollen lips and tongue of affected sheep
which may turn blue in the late stages of the disease. The virus that causes bluetongue was isolated first
There was no sign of infection in the dairy cattle being studied. The researchers concluded that those long-lived female midges had been infected with the bluetongue virus during the previous warm-weather season.
Since pretty much any material can be deposited on the scaffolds the method could be particularly useful for applications in optics energy efficiency and biomedicine.
and other objects. etection of infrared and terahertz light has numerous uses from chemical analysis to night-vision goggles
which can run for years without needing to be wound manually. The new system works like this:
Understanding how the brain s activity can be lexedduring learning could eventually be used to develop better treatments for stroke and other brain injuries.
or the study the research team trained animals (Rhesus macaques) to use a brain-computer interface (BCI) similar to ones that have shown recent promise in clinical trials for assisting quadriplegics
and other important medicines such as oxycodone are derived. Now bioengineers have hacked the DNA of yeast and reprogrammed these simple cells to make opioid-based medicines via a sophisticated extension of the basic brewing process that makes beer.
Led by bioengineering Associate professor Christina Smolke the Stanford team has spent already a decade genetically engineering yeast cells to reproduce the biochemistry of poppies with the ultimate goal of producing opium-based medicines from start to finish in fermentation vats. e are now very close to replicating the entire
opioid production process in a way that eliminates the need to grow poppies allowing us to reliably manufacture essential medicines
while mitigating the potential for diversion to illegal usesays Smolke who outlines her work in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
which is refined further by chemical processes to create higher-value therapeutics such as oxycodone and hydrocodone better known by brand names such as Oxycontin and Vicodin respectively.
However poppies are grown not in significant quantities in the United states creating various international dependencies and vulnerabilities in the supply of these important medicines.
and are refined in factories. his will allow us to create a reliable supply of these essential medicines in a way that doesn t depend on years leading up to good
#Scan baby s fingerprints to track immunizations Michigan State university rightoriginal Studyposted by Kim Ward-Michigan State on August 20 2014more than 2 million childrenâ die each year
because they don t receive their vaccinations on time. Researchers are developing a new system that scans a child sâ fingerprints to track
when vaccinations are due which means parents will need no longer to keep paper documents. In developing countries keeping track of a baby s vaccine schedule on paper is largely ineffective says Anil Jain professor of computer science
and engineering at Michigan State university. aper documents are lost easily or destroyedhe says. ur initial study has shown that fingerprints of infants
and toddlers have great potential to accurately record immunizations. You can lose a paper document
and become a part of the vaccine registry system. Once the electronic registry is in place health care workers simply re-scan the child s fingers to view the vaccination schedule.
They know who has been vaccinated for what diseases and when additional booster shots are needed. The new electronic registry system will help overcome the lack and loss of information
which is the primary problem in the vaccine delivery system in developing countries Jain says.
Collecting fingerprints from fidgety infants isn t easy. Another challenge is their small fingerprint patterns have low contrast between ridges
and valleys. he process can still be improved but we have shown its feasibilityjain says. e will continue to work on refining the fingerprint matching software
in addition to tracking vaccinations says Mark Thomas executive director of Vaxtrac a nonprofit organization supporting Jain s research. olving the puzzle of fingerprinting young children will have far-reaching implications beyond health care
#X-rays show live changes in cystic fibrosis New X-ray technology is allowing doctors to see almost instantly
if treatments for cystic fibrosis are working. Cystic fibrosis affects many of the body s systems but most severely the lungs and currently it can take several months to measure how effective treatment is for the early-fatal lung disease.
Lead researcher Kaye Morgan from Monash University says the imaging method allows doctors to look at soft tissue structures for example the brain airways
and lungs which are effectively invisible in conventional x-ray images. At the moment we typically need to wait for a cystic fibrosis treatment to have an effect on lung health measured by either a lung CT SCAN
or breath measurement to see how effective that treatment is Morgan says. However the new imaging method allows us for the first time to non-invasively see how the treatment is working live on the airway surface.
Morgan says this x-ray imaging method would enable doctors and researchers to measure how effective treatments are
and progress new treatments to the clinic at a much quicker rate a key goal of co-authors Martin Donnelley and David Parsons of the CF Gene therapy group at the Women s and Children s Hospital and the University
of Adelaide s Robinson Research Institute. Because we will be able to see how effectively treatments are working straight away we ll be able to develop new treatments a lot more quickly
and help better treat people with cystic fibrosis Morgan says. The new imaging method which was developed using a synchrotron x-ray source may also open up possibilities in assessing how effective treatments were for other lung heart and brain diseases.
The research appears in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Source: Monash University You are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license e
#Test keeps graphene pure enough for electronics Rice university rightoriginal Studyposted by Mike Williams-Rice on August 18 2014it s easy to accidentally introduce impurities to graphene
One common problem for example is presbyopia a type of farsightedness in which the ability to focus on nearby objects is diminished gradually as the aging eyes lenses lose elasticity.
which was developed at UC Berkeley works by adjusting the intensity of each direction of light that emanates from a single pixel in an image based upon a user s specific visual impairment.
The lasers travel long distances and identify dangerous materials present within powders that commonly act as carriers for explosive nitrates and lethal biological agents such as anthrax and ricin.
but could offer insight into human ailments such as strokes migraines and possibly Alzheimer s and Parkinson s diseases.
Some of the most damaging brain diseases can be traced to irregular blood delivery in the brain.
For now though the technique provides a new technique for studying human cerebral-vascular diseases such as stroke and migraines in animal models.
and Parkinson s diseases might elicit #or be caused in part by#changes in blood flow to certain parts of the brain.
NIR-IIA imaging might offer a means of better understanding the role of healthy vasculature in those diseases Hong says. e could also label different neuron types in the brain with bio-markers
Eventually we might be able to use NIR-IIA to learn how each neuron functions inside of the brain. ther coauthors of the study are from Stanford Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical school.
#Wearable vapor sensor can smell diabetes University of Michigan rightoriginal Studyposted by Catharine June-U. Michigan on August 6 2014.
A wearable vapor sensor could monitor diseases such as diabetes and hypertension by picking up airborne biomarkers exhaled
or released through the skin. ach of these diseases has its own biomarkers that the device would be able to sensesays Sherman Fan professor of biomedical engineering at University of Michigan
. or diabetes acetone is a marker for example. ther biomarkers it could detect include nitric oxide and oxygen abnormal levels
of which can point to conditions such as high blood pressure anemia or lung disease. Fan is developing the sensor with Zhaohui Zhong an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and Girish Kulkarni a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering.
The device is faster smaller and more reliable than its counterparts which today are too big to wear.
Beyond disease monitoring the sensor has other applications. It would be able to register the presence of hazardous chemical leaks in a lab
and at worst are toxic are thought to kill more than 700000 people eachâ year. While less than 1 percent of the US pharmaceuticals market is believed to be counterfeit it is a huge problem in the developing world. ne challenge in fighting counterfeiting is need the to stay ahead of the counterfeiterssays Nicholas Kotov professor of chemical engineering who led the University
or a human tumor biopsy#e have to slice the tissue very thin separately image each slice with a microscope
or sparse cell populations such as stem cells or tumor cellsshe says. The new approach builds off a technique known as CLARITY that was developed previously by Gradinaru
The Cell paper focuses on the use of PACT and PARS as research tools for studying disease and development in research organisms.
Using the techniques on a biopsy from a human skin tumor the researchers were able to view the distribution of individual tumor cells within a tissue mass.
In the future Gradinaru says the methods could be used in the clinic for the rapid detection of cancer cells in biopsy samples.
#obbit skull points To down syndrome, not new species New analysis of a 15000-year-old skull and thigh bone shows the original descriptions of the remains may have been skewed.
Instead of the abnormalities marking a new species the bones more likely indicate Down syndrome researchers say.
and according to the researchers contains important features most consistent with a diagnosis of Down syndrome. he skeletal sample from Liang Bua cave contains fragmentary remains of several individualseckhardt says.
and the revised figure falls in the range predicted for a modern human with Down syndrome from the same geographic regioneckhardt says.
But humans with Down syndrome also have diagnostically short thighbones Eckhardt says. Though these and other features are acknowledged unusual he nusual does not equal unique.
The originally reported traits are not so rare as to have required the invention of a new hominin species. nstead the researchers build the case for an alternative diagnosis:
Down syndrome one of the most commonly occurring developmental disorders in modern humans. hen we first saw these bones several of us immediately spotted a developmental disturbancesays Eckhardt ut we did not assign a specific diagnosis
Over the years several lines of evidence have converged on Down syndrome. he first indicator is craniofacial asymmetry a left-right mismatch of the skull that is characteristic of this and other disorders.
Here too the brain size they estimate is within the range expected for an Australomelanesian human with Down syndrome.
LB1 s short thighbones not only match the height reduction seen in Down syndrome Eckhardt says but when corrected statistically for normal growth they would yield a stature of about 1. 26 meters
and not in the other Liang Bua skeletal remains further evidence of LB1 s abnormality. his work is presented not in the form of a fanciful story
Here the signs point rather clearly To down syndrome which occurs in more than one per thousand human births around the world. e
and social problems associated with hunger and malnutrition. Now with the completely sequenced African rice genome scientists
and more resistant to environmental stress in West african environments than Asian varieties Wing says. African rice already has been crossed with Asian rice to produce new varieties under a group known as NERICA which stands for New Rice for Africa.
because many of the genes code for traits that make African rice resistant to environmental stress such as long periods of drought high salinity in the soils
One example would be adding disease resistance genes from all of the wild rice varieties to a species of cultivated rice creating a new super-crop that is resistant to diseases and pests.
which is used now in the medical field to detect biomarkers in the early stages of disease.
The findings show promise for people suffering from posttraumatic stress and other mental anguish, says Gale Lucas, a social psychologist at University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies.
It also presents compelling reasons for doctors to start using virtual humans as medical screeners. The honest answers acquired by a virtual human could help doctors diagnose
and treat their patients more appropriately. Virtual humans For the study, which will appear in Computers in Human Behavior,
a virtual human application that can be used to identify signals of depression and other mental health issues through real-time sensing and recognition of nonverbal behaviors.
or act as roleplaying partners for training health professionals. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the US ARMY funded the research.
#How a missile detector can stop malaria in its tracks Scientists have found a new use for an antitank Javelin missile detector:
published in the journal Analyst, could set a new gold standard for malaria testing. MISSILES AND PARASITES The heat-seeking detector,
a test that can catch malaria at its early stages is critical. ur test detects malaria at its very early stages,
so that doctors can stop the disease in its tracks before it takes hold and kills.
We believe this sets the gold standard for malaria testing, Wood says. here are some excellent tests that diagnose malaria.
However, the sensitivity is limited and the best methods require hours of input from skilled microscopists,
and that a problem in developing countries where malaria is most prevalent, he adds. FOUR-MINUTE COUNT DOWN As well as being highly sensitive,
the new test has a number of advantagest gives an automatic diagnosis within four minutes,
The disease, which is caused by the malaria parasite, kills 1. 2 million people every year. Existing tests look for the parasite in a blood sample.
However the parasites can be difficult to detect in the early stages of infection. As a result the disease is spotted often only when the parasites have developed
and multiplied in the body. Professor Leann Tilley from the University of Melbourne says the test could make an impact in large-scale screening of malaria parasite carriers who do not present the classic fever-type symptoms associated with the disease. n many countries only
people who display signs of malaria are treated. But the problem with this approach is that some people don have typical flu-like symptoms associated with malaria,
and this means a reservoir of parasites persists that can reemerge and spread very quickly within a community,
she says. ur test works because it can detect the malaria parasite at the very early stages
They then assessed the colonies for visual signs of illness and related the illness data with the presence
or absence of parasites or viruses. In the Newfoundland colonies the researchers found the parasite Nosema apis a species that has been displaced by Nosema ceranae elsewhere
and the pathogens black queen cell virus and deformed wing virus. espite the presence of these parasites and pathogens colony losses in Newfoundland are very lowâ##similar to the mortality rates reported in the United states
The team found that the Newfoundland bees which were suffered otherwise healthy from K-wing a descriptive condition of the asymmetrical positioning of the wings that previously was known not to be associated with any identifiable pathogen.
and co-infection in the same bee is common. ccording to Ostiguy the team will continue to investigate the relationships between various pathogens
and pathogens of honey bees. n addition to Ostiguy researchers from Acadia University Forestry and Agrifoods Agency Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Agriculture and Agrifood Canada Dalhousie University and University
And that has held back certain medical therapies. MAGIS: The new method Unlike the calutron, which requires huge amounts of energy to maintain a magnetic field with electromagnets,
cancer therapies, and nutritional diagnostics. The new method also has the potential to enhance our national security.
which uses no metals or toxic materials, for use in power plants, where it could make the energy grid more resilient and efficient by creating a large-scale way to store energy for use as needed. he batteries last for about 5,
While previous battery designs have used metals or toxic chemicals, Narayan and Prakash wanted to find an organic compound that could be dissolved in water.
when diabetics, wounded veterans, or older people are prone to lose their sight. The Braille studies will be presented in Seattle this September at the 18th International Symposium on Wearable computers (ISWC.
and pathogens that can have an environmental impact if not properly managed. While turning the manure into clean water makes environmental sense
That limits their usefulness for applications like weapons and chemical detection and medical imaging and diagnosis, says Jay Guo,
Though ultrasound detectors existncluding those used in medical imaginghe researchers made their own sensitive one in the form of a microscopic plastic ring known as a microring resonator.
traditional approaches see producers pay hefty fees to have hauled toxic wastewater off to treatment plants,
Reguera, along with lead authors and graduate students Allison Speers and Jenna Young, evolved Geobacter to withstand increasing amounts of toxic glycerol.
Together, the bacteria appetite for the toxic byproducts is inexhaustible. hey feast like theye at a Las vegas buffet
which social information processing is disruptedâ##like autism spectrum disorderâ ##and may lead to new strategies for improving social cognition in several psychiatric disorders.
According to study author Larry Young of the department of psychiatry at Emory University this is the first study to demonstrate that variation in the oxytocin receptor gene influences face recognition skills.
He and colleagues point out the implication that oxytocin plays an important role in promoting our ability to recognize one another yet about one-third of the population possesses only the genetic variant that negatively impacts that ability.
which is disrupted in disorders such as autism. Additionally this study is remarkable for its evolutionary aspect.
which was funded by grants from the US National institute of mental health and the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs as well as the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation and National Alliance for Autism Research.
and medical devices to structural components for the automotive civil and aerospace industries. he cellulose nanocrystals represent a potential green alternative to carbon nanotubes for reinforcing materials such as polymers and concrete.
Such sensors could be used for monitoring in traffic security environmental science health care and infrastructure applications. or the future Wang and his research team plan to continue studying the nanogenerators
#New transistors offer high output at low voltage A new type of transistor could pave the way for fast computing devices that would use very low energy including smart sensor networks and implanted medical devices.
while draining the battery requires frequent replacement surgery. The researchers led by Suman Datta professor of electrical engineering tuned the material composition of the indium gallium arsenide/gallium arsenide antimony
#Rapid TB test could be ready in 18 months A new rapid tuberculosis test shortens diagnosis time on one of the world s deadliest diseases from several weeks to a few hours.
The disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria attacks the lungs or other organs and is spread through the air when an individual with active form of TB coughs or sneezes.
One in ten cases progress to the active disease which presents symptoms such as a chronic cough coughing up bloody sputum (mucus) fever night sweats and weight loss.
If left untreatedâ##a common scenario in developing countries lacking the infrastructure or resources to efficiently screen and follow up with infected patientsâ##a person with active TB has only a 50 percent chance of survival.
Jeffrey Cirillo professor in the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology at Texas A&m Health Science Center (TAMHSC) College of Medicine and his team have discovered a new method to spot the bacteria that causes
TB a profound advance in point-of-care diagnosis of the disease. e ve identified a fluorescence substrate that reacts with the bacteriacirillo says. his gives us a very sensitive signal that wouldn t be possible otherwise. nce sputum samples
and deliver the diagnosis. here isn t a diagnostic tool comparable to this in terms of allowing patients to rapidly determine
It has not been previously possible to target a specific TB enzyme as a diagnostic for this disease.
Chemistry has letters of support from the World health organization Doctors Without Borders and the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
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