#Engineering the Smallest Crack in the World A new procedure will enable researchers to fabricate smaller, faster,
Structures with these well-defined, atomic-sized gaps could be used to detect single molecules associated with certain diseases
particularly those that are characteristic of certain diseases. When light is shined upon structures with extremely small gaps,
This enhanced electromagnetic field, in turn, increases the signal produced by any molecule within the gap. f some disease marker comes in and bridges the gap between the nanostructures
whether the disease was present or not, said Lipomi. While the technique reported in this study can produce nanostructures suitable for optical applications,
#Researchers'"hugely exciting"asthma discovery Cardiff scientists have identified for the first time the potential root cause of asthma and an existing drug that offers a new treatment.
Published today in Science Translational Medicine journal, University researchers, working in collaboration with scientists at King College London
and the Mayo Clinic (USA), describe the previously unproven role of the calcium sensing receptor (Casr) in causing asthma,
a disease which affects 300 million people worldwide. The team used mouse models of asthma and human airway tissue from asthmatic and non-asthmatic people to reach their findings.
Crucially, the paper highlights the effectiveness of a class of drugs known as calcilytics in manipulating Casr to reverse all symptoms associated with the condition.
cigarette smoke and car fumes and airways twitchiness in allergic asthma. ur paper shows how these triggers release chemicals that activate Casr in airway tissue
and drive asthma symptoms like airway twitchiness, inflammation, and narrowing. Using calcilytics, nebulized directly into the lungs,
Director of research and Policy at Asthma UK, who helped fund the research, said: his hugely exciting discovery enables us, for the first time,
to tackle the underlying causes of asthma symptoms. Five per cent of people with asthma don respond to current treatments so research breakthroughs could be life changing for hundreds of thousands of people. f this research proves successful we may be just a few years away from a new treatment for asthma,
and we urgently need further investment to take it further through clinical trials. Asthma research is chronically underfunded;
there have only been a handful of new treatments developed in the last 50 years so the importance of investment in research like this is absolutely essential.
While asthma is controlled well in some people, around one-in-twelve patients respond poorly to current treatments.
the identification of Casr in airway tissue means that the potential for treatment of other inflammatory lung diseases beyond asthma is immense.
for which currently there exists no cure. It is predicted that by 2020 these diseases will be the third biggest killers worldwide.
Professor Riccardi and her collaborators are now seeking funding to determine the efficacy of calcilytic drugs in treating asthmas that are especially difficult to treat,
particularly steroid-resistant and influenza-exacerbated asthma, and to test these drugs in patients with asthma.
Calcilytics were developed first for the treatment of osteoporosis around 15 years ago with the aim of strengthening deteriorating bone by targeting Casr to induce the release of an anabolic hormone.
Although clinically safe and well tolerated in people calcilytics proved unsuccessful in treating osteoporosis . But this latest breakthrough has provided researchers with the unique opportunity to re-purpose these drugs,
potentially accelerating the time it takes for them to be approved for use asthma patients. Once funding has been secured,
the group aim to be trialling the drugs on humans within two years. f we can prove that calcilytics are administered safe
when directly to the lung in people, then in five years we could be in a position to treat patients
and potentially stop asthma from happening in the first place, added Professor Riccardi. The study was part-funded by Asthma UK
the Cardiff Partnership Fund and a BBSRC parking Impactaward d
#Transparent Armor based on Spinel Could Also Ruggedize Your Smart Phone Imagine a glass window that tough like armor,
#Renal failure: location signals for cell division For the kidneys to function flawlessly, millions of cells must be arranged precisely according to a specified blueprint.
The kidneys continuously filter waste and toxic substances from the blood, which are removed then from the body via the urine.
It involves a fundamental mechanism by which the kidneys heal following renal failure. The scientists now want to investigate
whether plexin B2 and the semaphorins also play a role in the repair of other organisms and in diseases such as cancer
and you are trying to figure out the body immune response to a particular pathogen, for example, Prof Roukes said. his new technique adds another piece of information to aid our identification of molecules,
which could prove useful in biomedical applications, among other uses. i
#More power to the mitochondria: Cells'energy plant also plays key role in stem cell development Researchers at NYU Langone Medical center have discovered that mitochondria, the major energy source for most cells,
also play an important role in stem cell development a purpose notably distinct from the tiny organelle traditional job as the cell main source of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy needed for routine cell metabolism.
Indeed, Lehmann, who also serves as director of NYU Langone Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine and chair of its Department of Cell biology,
a potential boon for diabetics The 340 million diabetes sufferers in the world have plenty to worry about:
Most diabetics need to prick their fingers multiple times a day to draw blood samples
Arizona State university engineering professor Jeffrey La Belle use of biomarkers measurable indicators of wellness or disease in body fluids to diagnose
This noninvasive alternative would be a significant benefit in convenience, comfort and treatment compliance for the more than 340 million people living with diabetes.
Bishop is now cofounder and chief innovation officer of Qualaris Healthcare Solutions, a Pittsburgh-based medical-product development company.
and we look forward to commercializing this technology with one or more leading medical device companies that can benefit by making it easier and painless for diabetics to measure glucose,
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin,
Hyperglycemia, or elevated blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body systems
Earlier this year, Advanced Tear Diagnostics, a medical-products company based in Birmingham, Alabama, licensed the same technology to improve
and funding support from Mayo Clinic in Arizona. The measurements would help in the diagnosis
and treatment of a variety of ocular surface disorders particularly in detecting and differentiating between bacterial and viral infections,
including one of the most common infections, conjunctivitis, also called pinkeye. Advanced Tear Diagnostics is providing $496,
000 for the project over a year time and plans to commercialize the final product.
Azte really is a helpful resource we have here at ASU. r. La Belle promising technology has the potential to improve the diagnosis
monitoring and treatment of a wide range of medical conditions, said Yash Vaishnav, Azte vice president of business development for life sciences. ekcapital is also a great partner.
the biomedical engineers outlined how they had reinforced soft hydrogels via a 3d printed scaffold. Professor Dietmar W. Hutmacher, from QUT Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said nature often used fibre reinforcement to turn weak structures into outstanding mechanically robust ones. uch
is the case with articular cartilage tissue, which is formed by stiff and strong collagen fibres intertwined within a very weak gel matrix of proteoglycans,
The School of Biomedical sciences team was able to observe the presence of the receptors as part of their ongoing research into the growth of human hearts during disease.
The research team primary focus is on how the heart grows normally as well as abnormally in disease. fter hypertension or a heart attack
Professor Thomas said. ut a common end result of this compensatory growth is eventual heart failure, a major cause of death in Australia. uring laboratory tests,
Professor Thomas said the project progressed from animal studies to human investigations through collaborations with the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. sing heart tissue from humans undergoing heart surgery
#Alzheimer pathology and neural activity An international research group including the University of Tokyo, Stanford university and Washington University has discovered that neuronal activity augments the accumulation of amyloid ß that is observed in the brains of patients with Alzheimer disease (AD).
The accumulation of deposits of a protein fragment termed amyloid ß is thought to be the cause of the development of dementia in AD brains.
Neurons in the brain are connected through junctions termed synapses and function by transmitting electrical activity (i e.,
Professor Takeshi Iwatsubo, graduate students Kaoru Yamamoto and Zen-ichi Tanei, Assistant professor Tadafumi Hashimoto and Professor Haruhiko Bito at the University of Tokyo Graduate school of Medicine, Professor
and could ultimately lead to the design of a vaccine to prevent transmission of the virus. This innovative approach could also be part of the solution for one day eradicating the virus. Despite recent advances,
35 million people are infected with HIV-1 worldwide. e found that people infected with the HIV-1 virus have naturally occurring antibodies that have the potential to kill the infected cells.
We just have to give them a little push by adding a tiny molecule that acts as a can opener to force the viral envelope to expose regions recognized by the antibodies,
The experiments were conducted with serum samples from the AIDS and Infectious diseases Network (SIDA-MI) cohort of the Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ.
however, wild-type HIV-1 virus, responsible for the vast majority of infections in the world, still contains these proteins,
The antibodies that are naturally present after the infection can then target the infected cells
For decades, scientists have been trying to devise a vaccine to block HIV infection, which causes AIDS.
then kill the infected cells with this molecule and the already present antibodies, argues Finzi,
The discovery by Finzi team could help develop a two-part vaccine to prevent HIV infection:
through antibodies that are easy to generate and using this new family of molecules. Furthermore, this discovery opens the way for the development of strategies to eliminate the viral reservoirs of individuals already infected.
As the spool pulls, the CNT ribbon is dragged between two surgical blades. While the blades appear straight to the naked eye
#Pressure-monitoring stockings to prevent wounds in diabetics Diabetics often have little feeling in their feet
This can result in unnoticed wounds that then develop into abscesses. Many diabetics have to have toes
or feet amputated. Now, a novel kind of pressure stocking developed by Fraunhofer researchers is set to help protect against wounds via an integrated sensor system that sends a warning
when pressure is too high. Diabetes patients often suffer from nerve and circulation problems in the feet,
which reduce their perception of pain. They literally don know when it time to take the load off their feet.
Diabetics, however, don notice that their toes, heels or the balls of their feet are loaded too heavily the foot receives no relief,
Even small uneven areas or shoe pressure can lead to open wounds or damaged tissue on the foot.
In-stocking sensors provide three-dimensional pressure readings To ensure that poorly healing wounds don occur in the first place,
40 very fine, dielectric elastomer sensors measure compression load and distribution for diabetes patients taking over the job usually performed by the nerves in their feet. xisting systems on the market measure the pressure distribution
which then informs the diabetes patient that it is time to change foot position or weight distribution. ith the current prototype,
lost contact with NASA. here were human operators On earth who were experts in diagnosis and repair,
and quantify infection by parasitic worms in a drop of blood. This next generation of UC Berkeley Cellscope technology could help revive efforts to eradicate debilitating filarial diseases in Africa by providing critical information to health providers in the field. e previously showed that mobile phones can be used for microscopy,
but this is the first device that combines the imaging technology with hardware and software automation to create a complete diagnostic solution,
The UC Berkeley engineers teamed up with Dr. Thomas Nutman from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases (NIAID),
where health officials have been battling the parasitic worm diseases onchocerciasis (river blindness) and lymphatic filariasis. The video Cellscope,
May 6) in the journal Science Translational Medicine. his research is addressing neglected tropical diseases, said Fletcher. t demonstrates
but treatable, diseases. Battling parasitic worms River blindness is transmitted through the bite of blackflies and is the second-leading cause of infectious blindness worldwide.
Lymphatic filariasis, spread by mosquitoes, leads to elephantiasis, a condition marked by painful, disfiguring swelling.
It is the second-leading cause of disability worldwide and like river blindness, is highly endemic in certain regions in Africa.
The antiparasitic drug ivermectin, or IVM, can be used to treat these diseases, but mass public health campaigns to administer the medication have been stalled because of potentially fatal side effects for patients co-infected with Loa loa,
which causes loiasis, or African eye worm. When there are high circulating levels of microscopic Loa loaworms in a patient,
treatment with IVM can potentially lead to severe or fatal brain or other neurologic damage.
The standard method of screening for levels of Loa loa involves trained technicians manually counting the worms in a blood smear using conventional laboratory microscopes
representing a major setback in the efforts to eradicate river blindness and elephantiasis. Next generation Cellscope uses video, automation For this latest generation of the mobile phone microscope, named Cellscope Loa, the researchers paired a smartphone with a 3d printed plastic base where the sample of blood
whether it is safe to administer IVM. he availability of a point-of-care test prior to drug treatment is a major advance in the control of these debilitating diseases,
such as premature ovarian failure and polycystic ovarian syndrome, conditions that both result in hormone imbalances and infertility in women.
#Ebola Vaccine Demonstrates 100%Protection in Latest African Trial According to an unusual new study, published last week in the world most prestigious medical journal Lancet, the deadly outbreak
might finally come to an end a vaccine, developed by the Public health Agency of Canada and manufactured by the American pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dome, was shown just to confer 100%protection against the disease,
starting mere 10 days after receiving a single shot. his will go down in history as one of those hallmark public health efforts,
said Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious disease Research and Policy in Twin cities, Minnesota,
who wasn involved in the study. e will teach about this in public health schools. he vaccine,
which consists of the Vesicular stomatitis virus (pathogenic in livestock, but harmless in humans) with the Ebola surface protein stitched onto it,
the researchers opted for a design called ring vaccination, whereby only the contacts, and the contactscontacts, of new Ebola patients were vaccinated.
This type of approach has never been used in a formal vaccine study ever before. The rings, also called clusters, were randomized such that 48 of them received the vaccine right after a new Ebola case sprung up in their community,
while the other 42 received a shot only three weeks afterwards. Of the 2, 380 people who were assigned to the latter group,
16 got infected. In the second group consisting of 2 014 people the count of new Ebola cases was zero,
The Director-General of THE WHO Margaret Chan called for further studies to clear up any lingering doubts about the vaccine efficacy,
while current statistics on the epidemic are the most promising in well over a year last week only four new cases were observed in Guinea
#Artificial blood vessels become resistant to thrombosis Scientists from ITMO University developed artificial blood vessels that are not susceptible to blood clot formation.
The results of the study were published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Surgery, associated with cardiovascular diseases, such as ischemia,
often require the implantation of vascular grafts artificial blood vessels, aimed at restoring the blood flow in a problematic part of the circulatory system.
which results in compulsory and lifelong intake of anticoagulants among patients and sometimes may even require an additional surgical intervention.
they actively release medicine into the blood. The lifetime of such grafts is determined often by the amount of drug stored within the graft
but to any kind of implants. You just need to take the right kind of drug. For example, after the implantation of an artificial ureter, urease crystals often start to grow inside
and doctors do not know how to deal with this problem. It is possible to apply a similar drug-containing coating that dissolves urease.
The same approach may be used for kidney or liver surgery but these are plans for the future,
#Molecular spies to fight cancer Tracking the tumor: PNA-antibodies detect initially the diseased cells (red)
and accumulate at the tumor site. Afterwards the radioactively labeled probes (blue) selectively bind to them by specific base pairing.
Modern imaging methods allow the scientists thus to visualize the tumor. Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), in cooperation with colleagues at the University of Zurich and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, have tested for the first time successfully a new tumor diagnosis method under near-real conditions.
The new method first sends out an antibody as a pyto detect the diseased cells and then binds to them.
This antibody in turn attracts a subsequently administered radioactively labeled probe. The scientists could then clearly visualize the tumor by utilizing a tomographic method.
This procedure could improve cancer treatment in the future by using internal radiation. The human immune system forms antibodies that protect the body from pathogens.
Antibodies can also, however, be produced in a laboratory to precisely bind to tumor cells. They are used in cancer research to detect
and fight malignant tumors. For example, antibodies can serve as transport vehicles for radionuclides, with which the affected regions can be visualized
or can even be damaged. Until recently, a stumbling block has been their large molecular mass. his causes them to circulate in the body for too long before they reach the diseased cells
explains Dr Holger Stephan from the Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer Research at HZDR. his is a disadvantage
because organs that are affected not by the disease are exposed to radiation. It also makes the exact localization of the tumor in the body more difficult
because the resulting images are less sharp. ogether with colleagues at the University of Zurich and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum,
the researchers from Dresden therefore chose an alternative strategy. y using what is known as re-targeting the antibodiestask is divided into two steps, Dr Kristof Zarschler, a member of Stephan team,
explains. n a figurative sense, we first send spies out in advance, over a longer period of time,
to scout out the enemy the tumor cells. The piesthen share their position with their troops,
which we subsequently send out so that they will directly reach their target with the radioactive material.
The researchers fall back on the cetuximab antibody as the scout, which binds selectively to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).
In various types of tumors, there is an increase in this molecule formation or it might be found in a mutated form,
which then leads the cells to grow and multiply uncontrolled. Clear Visualizationthe Dresden researchers combined the antibody with a peptide nucleic acid (PNA) derivative
which Prof Gilles Gasser and Prof Nils Metzler-Nolte developed together with their respective working groups in Switzerland
and Germany. t is a very stable synthetic variant of DNA, says Holger Stephan. imilar to a single strand of DNA,
it consists of a certain sequence of the four organic bases. Complementary PNA with matching sequence binds to it in a highly precise and stable manner.
the scientists first injected the PNA-EGFR antibody into tumor-bearing mice and gave this pytime to accumulate at the tumor site.
They then administered the PNA counterpart, labeled with the radioactive substance technetium-99m. mages we took using single photon emission computed tomography show that both the antibody
and its counterpart located each other quickly, says Zarschler, pleased with the results. The tumor could
thus be visualized clearly within a short period of time. urthermore, the radioactively labeled probes had disappeared already from the bloodstream after sixty minutes,
we can overcome limitations of conventional, radioactively marked antibodies. According to the researchers, it will, however, take some time before the combination of PNA antibodies
and their matching PNA counterparts can be used in diagnosing tumors in humans. ur results however show that the PNAS we tested are suitable candidates for further preclinical studies, Stephan sums up.
They could provide new possibilities not only for visualizing diseased cells but also for fighting them. f the method is proven to work,
it could also be used to transport therapeutically effective radioactive substances to the tumor in order to irradiate it from within
and ultimately damage it. o
#New insight into how the immune system sounds the alarm T cells are the guardians of our bodies:
, cancer or infections), or to silence it when it mistakenly attacks the body itself (e g.,
, autoimmune disorders or allergies. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered that T cell triggering relies on a dynamic protein network at the cell surface,
in Nature Immunology. his is a completely new principle for how T cell activity is controlledhether it ignores
in order to recognize and eliminate diseases. Lillemeier team is working to identify new principles that determine
#Nanoparticles used to breach mucus barrier in lungs Proof-of-concept study conducted in mice a key step toward better treatments for lung diseases Nanotechnology could one day provide an inhaled vehicle to deliver targeted therapeutic genes
that therapeutic genes may one day be delivered directly to the lungs to the levels sufficient to treat cystic fibrosis (CF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,
asthma and other life-threatening lung diseases. o our knowledge, this is the first biodegradable gene delivery system that efficiently penetrates the human airway mucus barrier of lung tissue,
. a biomedical engineer and faculty member at the Center for Nanomedicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. A report on the work appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 29.
Unfortunately, Suk notes, this essential protective mechanism also prevents many inhaled therapeutics, including gene-based medicine,
from reaching their target. His team experiments with human airway mucus and small animals, Suk adds,
Suk says their work with nanoparticles grew out of failed efforts to deliver treatments to people with lung diseases.
In patients with CF, for instance, they experience a buildup of excess mucus caused by impaired ciliary beating, resulting in an ideal breeding ground for chronic bacterial infection and inflammation.
but it also makes the airway mucus harder to overcome by inhaled therapeutic nanoparticles. Most of the existing drugs for CF help clear infections but do not solve the disease underlying problems.
A couple of recently approved drugs designed to target the underlying cause of CF require daily treatment for the entire lifetime
This could eventually become an effective therapy for the lungs of patients, regardless of the mutation type.
and are capable of rapidly penetrating human airway mucus freshly collected from patients visiting the Johns Hopkins Adult Cystic fibrosis Program directed by Michael Boyle,
production of therapeutic proteins for several months, Suk says, adding that the nanoparticles did not appear to show any adverse effects,
and that treatment of human disorders with nanowrapped therapies is years away a
#Small tilt in magnets makes them viable memory chips UC Berkeley researchers have discovered a new way to switch the polarization of nanomagnets,
put stress on power generators and lead to instabilities in the power system. Grid coordinators have the daily challenge of forecasting the need for
M d.,Ph d.,who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical school and Boston Children Hospital,
creating an asymmetrical stress that makes the membranes fold. Zhang Jiang and Jin Wang, X-ray staff at the APS,
#Real-time data for cancer therapy In the battle against cancer, which kills nearly 8 million people worldwide each year,
doctors have in their arsenal many powerful weapons, including various forms of chemotherapy and radiation.
however, is good reconnaissance a reliable way to obtain real-time data about how well a particular therapy is working for any given patient.
Magnetic resonance imaging and other scanning technologies can indicate the size of a tumor, while the most detailed information about how well a treatment is working comes from pathologistsexaminations of tissue taken in biopsies.
Yet these methods offer only snapshots of tumor response and the invasive nature of biopsies makes them a risky procedure that clinicians try to minimize.
Now, researchers at MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research are closing that information gap by developing a tiny biochemical sensor that can be implanted in cancerous tissue during the initial biopsy.
The sensor then wirelessly sends data about telltale biomarkers to an external eaderdevice, allowing doctors to better monitor a patient progress
and adjust dosages or switch therapies accordingly. Making cancer treatments more targeted and precise would boost their efficacy
while reducing patientsexposure to serious side effects. e wanted to make a device that would give us a chemical signal about what happening in the tumor,
says Michael Cima, the David H. Koch (1962) Professor in Engineering in the Department of Materials science and engineering and a Koch Institute investigator who oversaw the sensor development. ather than waiting months to see
if the tumor is shrinking, you could get an early read to see if youe moving in the right direction.
Two MIT doctoral students in Cima lab worked with him on the sensor project: Vincent Liu, now a postdoc at MIT,
and Christophoros Vassiliou, now a postdoc at the University of California at Berkeley. Their research is featured in a paper in the journal Lab on a Chip that has been published online.
allowing doctors to better monitor a patient progress and adjust or switch therapies. Photo courtesy of the researchers.
Measurements without MRI The sensors developed by Cima team provide real-time, on-demand data concerning two biomarkers linked to a tumor response to treatment:
ph and dissolved oxygen. As Cima explains, when cancerous tissue is under assault from chemotherapy agents,
you can see the response chemically before you see a tumor actually shrink, Cima says.
In fact, some therapies will trigger an immune system reaction, and the inflammation will make the tumor appear to be growing,
even while the therapy is effective. Oxygen levels, meanwhile, can help doctors gauge the proper dose of a therapy such as radiation,
since tumors thrive in low-oxygen (hypoxic) conditions. t turns out that the more hypoxic the tumor is,
the more radiation you need, Cima says. o, these sensors, read over time, could let you see how hypoxia was changing in the tumor,
so you could adjust the radiation accordingly. The sensor housing, made of a biocompatible plastic,
is small enough to fit into the tip of a biopsy needle. It contains 10 microliters of chemical contrast agents typically used for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
and an onboard circuit to communicate with the external reader device. Devising a power source for these sensors was critical,
a radiologist and director of the Center for Systems Biology lab at Massachusetts General Hospital who is familiar with the research. hatever you can do right then and there without any complicated testing,
he says. ee making these sensors out of materials that are in these kinds of long-term implants,
so we can use them to monitor tumor response, Cima says. e did a little bit of that in these experiments,
While the primary application of these sensors would be cancer care, Cima is also eager to collaborate with researchers in other fields, such as environmental science. or example,
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