For drivers, SARTRE can reduce their stress and increase their comfort. It combines the advantages of public transportation,
#EPICENTROMERE#Unlocking the secrets of cell behaviour Understanding how our cells behave strengthens our ability to tackle genetic diseases and cancer.
Fotolia, 2012 Drinking water with high arsenic levels leads to skin diseases and disorders in blood vessels. It gradually evolves into cancers that can attack the bladder,
lungs and kidneys and induce diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Partial solutions exist for the filtering out of arsenic
but two types of arsenic are found in drinking water. One type of arsenic (As V) is removed easily,
and it is 60 times more toxic. It needs a separate pre-treatment stage to transform it to the less toxic As V. As part of a European union (EU) funded research project, an innovative consortium in Greece,
backed by an EU grant of#833,842, has developed a new adsorbent media that can easily
"Our innovative Aquaszero granules now provide a cost-effective solution to easily remove all traces, even the highly toxic form of arsenic (As III."
#SFERA#New technology combats fake medicines and saves lives Fotolia 2012while human lives and health are the mostimportant concern counterfeiting is a problemthat plagues other industries too.
High on thislist are perfume manufacturers with largesums of money at stake in sales of high-classluxury branded items.
many medicines andalmost all perfumes come in glass containerswhich are hard to protect against thecounterfeiters. Ink-based markings are easilyerased.
On high-speed productionlines the right bottles need to be filled with the right medicines. Obliviously mistakes can be catastrophic.
#ACTINOGEN#Uncovering a hidden source of new antibiotics In recent years, the emergence of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria has created a major health threat, for example through hospital-acquired infections from drug
-resistant'superbugs'such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and the rapidly emerging multi-drug resistant Gram negative hospital infections.
It has allowed also the resurgence of'old'diseases that we thought were things of the past,
such as new strains of tuberculosis against which existing drugs are powerless. It was to meet the unaddressed need for new antibiotics that the ACTINOGEN research project began in 2005
but also for public health budgets and for the European biotechnology industry n
#0. 05mm: a new accuracy standard for industrial robots An EU-funded project brought together industry
Over the course of a two-year EU-funded research project, called Biobroom, Slovakian doctor Peter Tóth uncovered the intricate relationship between the broomrape and the broomrape fly, Phytomyza orobanchia,
#PHARMA-PLANTA#Harnessing plant biotechnology to revolutionise pharmaceutical production The hope is that the drug will prove effective in preventing HIV infection.
the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory agency (MHRA), went further than that. It confirmed, for the first time, that molecules known as monoclonal antibodies the key component of the drug,
the decision opened the way for trials of other plant-derived medicines to treat a range of diseases.
The process of deriving antibodies from these cells is high-tech-and highly expensive. By contrast, the antibodies produced by PHARMA-PLANTA were derived from tobacco plants grown in greenhouses in Germany,
harvested after 45 days and shredded. According to Professor Rainer Fischer, Director of the institute where the GM tobacco was grown, this much simpler,
the new antibody successfully completed its Phase 1 trial, ascertaining its safety, at the end of 2011. It is now set to move into the next phase of testing,
to establish its medical effectiveness. Meanwhile, other diseases for which it is envisaged that GM plants could provide new drugs include cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and others which,
in the words of Professor Ma, are currently"horribly expensive"to treat. As Professor Fischer explains,
#A robot in mind It a new kind of robot, designed for some of the most delicate operations a surgeon can perform.
his is a robotic system for assisting a surgeon during neurosurgery operations. It has been designed for the insertion of instruments like biopsy probes or electrodes for deep brain stimulation through small holes in the head of the patient.
It a new kind of robot, designed for some of the most delicate operations a surgeon can perform.
It accurate to just a few hundred microns, and is far steadier than a surgeon hand.
And that a big help: o maintain a specific orientation and avoid areas that could be just a few milimetres away from the one that you want to go through,
Neurosurgeon Francesco Cardinale is a specialist in epilepsy surgery. He helped the robot engineers at Politecnico di Milano understand what doctors really need.
That includes defining the parameters of the software that plans each operation. One of the system innovative features is the feedback from the robot to the surgeon via the hand-held controller.
He said: he surgeon can control the movements of the active robot using an instrument like that,
and at the same time receive feedback of the sensations that he would have operating directly on the brain.
The robot feedback is amplified to help the surgeon feel his way around the brain. So what kind of operation could be perfomed with this type of robot?
rug-resistant epilepsy, Parkinsons and other motor skill problems like for example dystonia, chronic pain and all types of brain cancer, said Cardinale.
The robot, developed within the EU Robocast project, is a year away from surgical trials.
In the meantime, the engineers are making it even smarter. Giancarlo Ferrigno said there still more work to do:
as in surgical interventions on patients who remain awake. s
#HELIOS makes silicon breakthrough Experts from the Electronics and Information technology Laboratory of The french Atomic energy commission (CEA-Leti) and III-V lab, a joint lab of Alcatel-lucent Bell labs France,
#Playing for health Consider the following health problems, related by three different people:""Every day I said to myself:'
Three very different medical conditions, all hard to treat. Could the virtual exploration of an island be part of the solution for these three patients?
"Under study in Barcelona is the complex disease, Binge Eating Disorder, which leads to a total loss of control when eating.
Fernando Fernández-Aranda is a researcher in Eating Disorders at Bellvitge University Hospital. He said:"
which are not-to states of mind like sadness or anxiety"."In The netherlands, physical ailments are also benefiting form this novel approach.
Game developers, psychologists and therapists worked together on tailoring the right scenarios for both pain rehabilitation and mental health treatments.
so we thought they can provide effective complimentary therapies in different diseases. This videogame is like a bonding factor between patients and their therapists and doctors."
"The search for videogame treatments to some psychological disorders proved to be specially challenging.""At first I found it bizarre that my addiction to gambling could be treated with a videogame.
"Indeed, the videogame identifies boredom, excitement or anxiety in patients-and their cognitive responses-with the help of emotion recognition technologies and biosensors.
Patients are supposed always to play the videogame under medical supervision. And this scientists say, is a huge difference compared to existing commercial videogames that already recognise users'movements."
"explains Stephanie Jansen-Kosterink So how long will it be before you can get a videogame prescription for certain mental disorders or physical rehabilitation?
The research proves therapeutical videogames can be useful for certain patients. Now scientists say it is up to policymakers to play the game.
"There is no problem with acceptability by patients and therapists. There is also no problem with existing technology.
"In the meantime researchers are already searching for new therapeutical applications of this-and other-serious games m
The Consortium has developed the core e-Infrastructure (neugrid) required to develop disease markers on extra large brain imaging datasets.
Core grid-based applications have been integrated of acknowledged utility for early diagnosis and disease marker development.
The DECIDE consortium has implemented onto neugrid a popular tool for the detection of a diagnostic marker for Alzheimer's disease based on PET imaging (gridspm.
Early diagnosis and disease markers to test drugs quickly and efficiently are critical success factors.
Extra large brain imaging datasets are lately available that will allow to develop disease markers. The community of imaging scientists working on Alzheimer's disease need new powerful environments to perform experiments on such datasets.
Who is involved? Four academic partners leaders in imaging neuroscience and based in Brescia (IT), Amsterdam (NL), Stockholm (SW),
and Genève (CH), representing the community working in the fields of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases,
inflammatory diseases including multiple sclerosis, and psychiatric diseases including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Four technical partners based in Archamps (FR), Paris (FR), Bristol (UK),
and Sophia-Antipolis (FR), leaders in the field of biomedical image processing and grid computing for biomedical applications.
A partner with expertise in dissemination, based in Milano (IT. Two international partners based in Los angeles (USA)
The neugrid e-infrastructure is so far the first and only European effort aiming to offer a distributed working environment to computational neuroscientists. neugrid has been developed for the front runner community of neuroscientists working in the field of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases (i e.
but designed generically so as to accommodate new services for other biomedical communities in the short term. neugrid provides integrated and reusable services ranging from simple access to distributed images and clinical data, to advanced imaging pipelines execution and monitoring
The technology could also be applied to medicine, for example, to continuously monitor diabetics or cystic fibrosis sufferers.
and identifying toxic fumes in the air. Another area of application is medical surgery. A doctor could transfer data to
and from a computer just by wearing an electronic bracelet and belt. The PCB (printed circuit board) consists of a Bluetooth module, a small power supply unit,
interfaces connected to sensor modules and an RFID (radio frequency identification) reader. Information is collected from the RFID reader
The doctor, or any user of this technology, can receive the necessary information to support a primary task without further delays or interruptions.
#European initiative spearheads medical advances Through the accomplishments of the Healthy Aims project treatments are emerging for the previously untreatable.
Teams of doctors and engineers across Europe are supplying new technologies to improve current medical methods.
A 70 year old patient of the Southampton Hospital in the UK, Anthony Batchelor, has already been subjected to triple bypass surgery,
after he was victim to several heart attacks. He will now receive a defibrillator implant, which should regulate his heart rate.
Pre-surgery measurements are a very important part of the whole treatment; physiological responses like blood pressure or respiratory rate are analysed in comparison to the physical activities of the patient.
Until now the only available method was to ask the patient, but the arrival of a new device allows accurate data to be collected objectively.
north of London, is being used for sufferers of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes or obesity. The device, worn on the waist, can take measurements 24 hours a day,
and strain gauge technology at the nano scale, allowing for micro scale medical systems that can exist on or within the human body without causing further complications.
Marci received an implant in her forearm with electrodes attached to muscle and nerve bundles.
The implant is connected wirelessly with a removable box, which is worn on the forearm. It controls and supplies power to the implant.
The system, named STIMUGRIP, uses accelerometers in a similar fashion to the Activity Monitor. When particular arm movements from the patient are detected by the accelerometers,
the implant sends electrical pulses to stimulate the desired wrist and finger movements. In Mechelen, Belgium, further research is being done on cochlear technologies.
A new generation of implant will greatly improve the quality of life from many deaf people allowing them to converse in louder conditions.
The implant has enabled its recipient, Maurice Vertongen, to listen to music for the first time in 20 years.
The system itself includes an external component (an ear hook similar to traditional hearing aids) and an implant
while the implant has the electronics that send the stimulation pulses. The Healthy Aims project hopes to develop the implant technology extensively enough
so that the accompanying external part becomes obsolete. To meet this aim researchers are working on a battery that can be implanted safely in a human.
The technical advances from the Healthy Aims project allows one to envision a future without deafness,
#The eaves of death for malaria mosquitoes EU-funded researchers have developed three new tools to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
They are now working to bring their low-cost innovations to market quickly a boost to the global battle against this deadly disease.
Over the past two decades global efforts to prevent malaria and treat its victims have contributed to reduce infection dramatically
and save millions of lives. Even so, each year around 200 million people catch malaria, and 600 000 die from the disease, mostly children and women in Africa, according to the World health organization.
Prevention through insecticide-treated bednets and indoor sprays, is one of the best ways to win the battle.
But mosquitoes are becoming resistant to insecticides potentially reversing the gains made so far. In response, the EU-funded MCD project has developed three new weapons against them a special coating that transfers insecticides effectively to mosquitoes landing on it,
The netherlands-based research company specialises in developing products to control disease-transmitting insects. have been working in the field of malaria research for the past 22 years,
and bricks on up to 7 000 houses one that would yield solid scientific evidence that these tools can be deployed broadly to reduce the burden of malaria.
It can take years of exposure to arsenic before clear symptoms may appear, such as pigmentation changes, yperkeratosis'(patches of thickening skin), neurological side effects and signs of possible cancers in major organs (skin
By this time, the chronic disease arsenicosis has set in. Prevention is the only way to stop it, the experts lament.
#Cell phones and risk of brain tumor The ordinance, called the Right to Know law, will start to require retailers to give customers a handout,
said Joel M. Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at University of California, Berkeley School of Public health.
What the law does not require is that consumers be provided information about the specific health risks of being exposed to radiation.
Although Moskowitz said that it is"highly probable"that long-term cell phone use causes brain tumors,
In 2011, the World health organization classified the kind of low energy radiation that cell phones emit as"possibly carcinogenic"because of a link between cell phone use and a type of malignant brain tumor called glioma and a benign brain tumor called acoustic neuroma.
Both types of brain tumors are rare. About 5 in 10,000 adults are diagnosed with glioma in the United states every year,
whereas about 10 in a million people develop acoustic neuromas every year. Although THE WHO classification sounds ominous, it puts cell phones on the same level of cancer risk as caffeine and pickled vegetables.
The position of numerous health organizations, including the American Cancer Society and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is measured even more,
stating that current evidence is not conclusive and more research is needed."("Since 2011), I don't think any evidence has come along that would necessarily move from this uncertain designation to something on one side or the other...
In reality we are in a very gray zone with the evidence, "said Jonathan M. Samet,
chairman of preventive medicine at University of Southern California who led THE WHO panel that determined the classification.
Many large studies have failed to detect an association between cell phone use and brain tumors. One study of nearly 360,000 adults in Denmark did not find an increase in the number of brain tumors even among those who had been using a cell phone for at least 13 years.
However, as Samet said, THE WHO panel took into account studies that suggested that those who used cell phones did have higher rates of certain brain tumors.
The Interphone study is the largest study to date looking at cell phones and brain tumors. It involves 13 countries,
including Canada, the United kingdom, Denmark and Japan. Researchers asked more than 7, 000 people who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor
and 14,000 healthy people about their previous cell phone use. The study found no association between cell phone use
and glioma rates except in the group of participants who reported using their cell phone for at least 1, 640 hours in their lifetime without a headset.
Those participants were 40%more likely than those who never used a cell phone to have a glioma.
However authors of the Interphone study stated that people with brain tumors might be more likely than healthy people to exaggerate their cell phone use
and brain tumor risk in the study might not be real.""It's quite plausible that there would be excess reporting in people who suffered a life-threatening disease.
They are looking for an explanation for this tragic circumstance, "said David A. Savitz, professor of epidemiology at Brown University,
who was involved not in the Interphone study. Another set of studies by researchers in Sweden also looked at reported cell phone use among people diagnosed with glioma
and compared them to healthy peers. A recent analysis found that people who used a mobile phone were 30%more likely to have a glioma,
and those whose use had lasted at least 25 years were three times more likely. The researchers also found that users of cordless phones
had 40%to 70%higher glioma risk.""There are individual studies and findings that do produce a risk,
we would have more consistent results from epidemiological data. These pictures are compatible with perhaps a weak or moderate risk,
Another argument against the possibility that cell phones cause cancer is that there has not been an increase in the incidence of brain tumors in the United states,
Although there has been an increase in brain tumors among 20 to 29-year-old females in the United states,
In addition to the lack of strong evidence showing a link between cell phone use and brain tumors,
whether there are health risks associated with cell phone use. The COSMOS study is looking at cell phone records
000 people who were diagnosed with brain tumors at 10 to 24 years of age with 2, 000 healthy young people.
"said Eugene S. Flamm, chairman of the department of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine."
"However because these warnings are not going to be accompanied by information about specific health risks, "some people will be concerned about this
if users are worried about the possibility of health risks, including using a headset and texting instead of talking g
#Factory Dairy farms on the Rise in Asia The expansion of industrial dairy farms in Asia could lead to severe consequences for the environment, public health, animal welfare and rural economies, according to a policy paper by Brighter Green.
#Hospital Sustainability Spending on the Rise Fifty-four percent of global health care professionals say their hospitals currently incorporate sustainability into purchasing decisions
and 80 percent expect that to be the case in two years according to a Harris Poll commissioned by Johnson & johnson. The global findings are similar to those of US health care providers where 52 percent say their hospitals currently incorporate sustainability into purchasing
According to respondents their hospitals have plans in place for minimizing environmental impact when using or disposing of medical products.
Globally respondents report their hospitals prioritize sustainability purchasing as follows: About eight in 10 respondents say sustainable products help protect hospital staff
and more than half say green initiatives help improve health outcomes and are an important factor for patients
when choosing a hospital. Health care professionals also agree it makes good financial sense for hospitals to go green both in the US (79 percent) and globally (69 percent) and report a strong commitment to sustainability from top hospital management
at 67 percent in the US and 60 percent globally. In regard to purchasing US respondents report the most important sustainability considerations are followed energy efficient devices by recyclable packaging latex free devices products designed for multi-use devices free of heavy metals
which showed that hospitals were placing greater emphasis on green products used in patient care and throughout their facilities.
to treat glaucoma and corneal neovascularization two of the world s leading eye diseases. The microneedles range in length from 400 to 700 microns
and could provide a new way to deliver drugs to specific areas within the eye relevant to these diseases.
Glaucoma affects about 2. 2 million people in the United states and is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide.
The goal is to develop time-release drugs that could replace daily administration of eye drops.
A painless microneedle injection made once every three to six monthsâ##potentially during regular office visitsâ##could improve treatment outcomes by providing consistent dosages
In the second disease corneal neovascularization corneal injury results in the growth of unwanted blood vessels that impair vision.
##The power of microneedles for treating eye conditions is the ability to target delivery of the drug within the eye##says Mark Prausnitz professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering at the Georgia Institute of technology.##
##Research for two studies both published in the journalâ#Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science was done using animal modelsâ
##and could become the first treatment technique to use microneedles for delivering drugs to treat diseases in the front of the eye.
Glaucoma results from elevated pressure inside the eye that can be treated by reducing production of the aqueous humor fluid in the eye increasing flow of the fluid from the eye or both.
Glaucoma is controlled now by the use of eye drops which must be applied daily. Studies show that as few as 56 percent of glaucoma patients follow the therapy protocol.
The first study shows that the microneedle therapy would inject drugs into space between two layers of the eye near the ciliary body
which produces the aqueous humor. The drug is retained near the injection side because it is formulated for increased viscosity.
In the animal model researchers were able to reduce intraocular pressure through the injections showing that their drug got to the proper location in the eye.
Because the injection narrowly targets delivery of the drug researchers were able to bring about a pressure reduction by using just one percent of the amount of drug required to produce a similar decline with eye drops.
The researchers hope to produce a time-release version of the drug that could be injected to provide therapy that lasts for months.##
##The ultimate goal for us would be for glaucoma patients visiting the doctor to get an injection that would last for the next six months until the next time the patient needed to see the doctor##Prausnitz says.##
##If we can do away with the need for patients to use eye drops we could potentially have better control of intraocular pressure and better treatment of glaucoma.##
##For the second study researchers took a different approach to treat corneal neovascularization. They coated solid microneedles with an antibody-based drug that prevents the growth of blood vessels
and then inserted the coated needles near the point of an injury keeping them in place for approximately one minute until the drug dissolved into the cornea.
In an animal model placement of the drug halted the growth of unwanted blood vessels for about two weeks after a single application.
Eye injections with hypodermic needles much larger than the microneedles are used routinely to administer compounds into the center of eye.
These injections are tolerated well and Prausnitz expects the use of microneedles would also not cause significant side effects.##
so injections into the eye are becoming more common##says Henry F. Edelhauser emeritus professor of ophthalmology.##
For the glaucoma drug for instance the needle is only about half a millimeter long which is long enough to penetrate through the sclera the outer layer of the eye to the supraciliary space.
Hans Grossniklaus professor of ophthalmology at Emory University contributed to the study. Yoo C. Kim Henry F. Edelhauser and Mark R. Prausnitz hold microneedle patents and Mark Prausnitz and Henry Edelhauser have significant financial interest in Clearside
Biomedical a company developing microneedle-based products for ocular delivery. This potential conflict of interest has been disclosed and is overseen by Georgia Institute of technology and Emory University.
##since it was discovered in 1972â##has been that we can t culture the human viruses in a cell culture dish##says Stephanie Karst associate professor in the molecular genetics and microbiology department at University of Florida College of Medicine.##
We can t study how it replicates we can t test therapeutics and we can t generate live virus vaccines.##
##Noroviruses are intestinal viruses that cause violent vomiting and diarrhea. People ill with the virus remain contagious up to three days after they seem to recover.
Although a vaccine for these viruses is in clinical trials there is still no medication to combat them.
That s in part because researchers have not been able to culture human noroviruses so they can test potential treatmentsâ##until now.
In the United states alone human noroviruses cause 19 million to 21 million cases of illness everyâ#year
and contribute to 56000 to 71000 hospitalizations and 570 to 800 deaths mostly in young children and older adults.
and protect it from pathogens. But the new study published in the journal Science demonstrates that the virus targets B cells a type of white blood cell common in the intestine.##
and that this interaction stimulates viral infection of the B cell##Karst says.####This is a really exciting emerging theme.
These viral infections are enhanced by the presence of bacteria in the gut.####Ultimately this system should open up new avenues for norovirus vaccine
and antiviral drug development.####Source: University of Floridayou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license l
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