#3-D-printed splint saves infants lifehalf a millennium after Johannes Gutenberg printed the bible researchers printed a 3d splint that saved the life of an infant born with severe tracheobronchomalacia a birth defect that causes the airway
to collapse. While similar surgeries have been preformed using tissue donations and windpipes created from stem cells this is the first time 3d printing has been used to treat tracheobronchomalacia--at least in a human.
Matthew Wheeler a University of Illinois Professor of Animal Sciences and member of the Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering research theme at the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) worked with a team of five
researchers to test 3d printed bioresorbable airway splints in porcine or pig animal models with severe life-threatening tracheobronchomalacia.
If the promise of tissue engineering is going to be realized our translational research must be translated'from our laboratory
and experimental surgery suite to the hospital and clinic Wheeler said. The large-animal model is the roadway to take this device from the bench top to the bedside.
For more than 40 years pigs have served as medical research models because their physiology is very similar to humans.
In addition to tracheobronchomalacia pigs have been biomedical models for muscular dystrophy diabetes and other diseases. The team chose to use two-month-old pigs for this study
because their tracheas have similar biomechanical and anatomical properties to a growing human trachea. Essentially all our breakthroughs in human clinical medicine have been tested initially
or perfected in animal models Wheeler said. Through the use of animal models scientists and doctors are able to perfect techniques drugs and materials without risking human lives.
First Wheeler sent a CT scan of a pig's trachea to Scott Hollister a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan.
and U-M associate professor of pediatric otolaryngology Glenn Green carried out the surgical procedure. After the splint was placed the pigs'tracheobronchomalacia symptoms disappeared All of our work is inspired physician Wheeler said.
Babies suffering from tracheobronchomalacia were brought to ear nose and throat surgeons but they didn't have any treatment options.
They turned to us to engineer a cure. Kaiba (KEYE'-buh) Gionfriddo was six weeks old
when he suddenly stopped breathing and turned blue at a restaurant with his parents. As a result of severe tracheobronchomalacia his heart would often stop beating
and despite the aid of a mechanical ventilator he had to be resuscitated daily by doctors.
April and Bryan Gionfriddo believed their son's chance of survival was slim until Marc Nelson a doctor at Akron Children's Hospital in Ohio mentioned researchers from the University of Michigan were testing airway splints similar to those used in Wheeler's study.
and Drug Administration Hollister and Green used computer-guided lasers to print stack and fuse thin layers of plastic to make up Kaiba's splint.
Soon Kaiba's tracheotomy tube will be removed after a year without any breathing crises. His success story provides hope for other children born with this disorder an estimated 1 in 2100 births.
It's not very rare Wheeler said. It's really not. I think it's very rewarding to all of us to know that we are contributing to helping treat or even cure this disease.
More data from Wheeler's large animal trials will be essential to show the long-term viability of this procedure before it can be used to save the lives of other children born with this disorder.
In future trials Wheeler plans to add stem cells to the splint in order to accelerate healing.
We chose the term'lobes'very carefully says Dr. Dave Mccomas IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the Space science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute.
Above the large crack the glacier last flowed at a speed of twelve metres per day reports Humbert's colleague Dr. Dana Floricioiu from DLR.
The team led by Rice chemist James Tour has built a 1-kilobit rewritable silicon oxide device with diodes that eliminate data-corrupting crosstalk.
To accomplish this the researchers scanned fertilized eggs in a clinical MRI system with a unique imaging technique at an acquisition speed of 12 frames per second.
This method is promising to pave the way for various real-time medical applications Tammer looks ahead.
#H7n9 influenza: History of similar viruses gives cause for concernthe H7n9 avian flu strain that emerged in China earlier this year has subsided for now
but it would be a mistake to be reassured by this apparent lull in infections. The virus has several highly unusual traits that paint a disquieting picture of a pathogen that may yet lead to a pandemic according to lead scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases.
David Morens Jeffery Taubenberger and Anthony Fauci in a paper published in mbio the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology describe the history of H7 viruses in animal and human disease
and point out that H7 influenza has a tendency to become established in bird horse and swine populations and may spillover repeatedly into humans.
The evidence as a whole is complex and the implications of past outbreaks for predicting the future course of the current H7n9 epizootic an epidemic among animals are uncertain write the authors.
The outbreak of H7n9 earlier this year led China to temporarily close scores of live poultry markets in an effort to limit the spread of the virus
. Although this previously unrecognized strain of avian influenza A has now been associated with 132 confirmed human infections and 39 related deaths (as of June 14) the rate at
which new cases are recognized has dwindled in recent weeks. In their minireview Morens Taubenberger and Fauci point out that
H7n9 also shares many characteristics with another influenza strain that continues to spillover into humans:
highly pathogenic avian influenza H5n1. Among other commonalities both viruses have a clinical picture that includes bilateral pneumonia acute respiratory distress syndrome
and multi-organ failure and it appears they are both currently unable to easily infect most humans but cause severe disease in individuals with uncharacterized genetic susceptibilities.
The fact that many H7 viruses tend to infect conjunctival cells is also cause for concern.
Some but not all cases of human H7 infection feature prominent signs and symptoms in the eyes including itching swelling
The possibility that H7n9 might infect pigs is particularly troubling as swine are considered a mixing vessel for viruses--a breeding ground for novel viral reassortants like the 2009 H1n1 pandemic influenza strain commonly known as swine flu.
Although avian influenza viruses have not caused widespread human transmission in 94 years of surveillance there have been numerous instances of avian influenza spillover
Regardless of its future H7n9 certainly holds lessons for preventing human and animal pandemics. All the unknowns surrounding the virus make a strong case for enhancing basic and applied research into the evolution of influenza viruses and for better integration of influenza virology within human and veterinary public health efforts.
We have a unique opportunity to learn more of influenza's many secrets and thereby enhance our ability to prevent
and control an important disease that seems destined to appear again and again in multiple guises far into the foreseeable future write the authors.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Society for Microbiology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Science Policy and the Politics of Denormalization published in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public health analyzed the evidence for these claims
There is however a case for such bans--it rests on the duty of government acting in the name of public health to restrict smoking
Ronald Bayer Phd Mailman School professor of Sociomedical Sciences and senior author of the Health Affairs paper says this change in attitudes was also a sign that bans might be self-enforcing requiring little intervention
and American Cancer Society--were indifferent or skeptical to initiatives of the state and local activists.
But as Dr. Bayer notes the health risk of exposure is far less certain than some supporters claimed.
In the argument for smoking bans in parks and on beaches the most striking aspect according to Dr. Bayer is the assertion that just the act of smoking in public poses a threat to the well-being of children
Protecting children has been uncontested an premise of public health and the evidence clearly supports the claim that children model the behavior of a parent or other close adult.
and hospitality industries and of people who invoke threats of Big brother writes Dr. Bayer. While the rules for bans on smoking in public are gaining in popularity
and the evidence may help to reduce tobacco-related illness and death in the short term Dr. Bayer and co-author Kathleen E. Bachynski suggest that healthcare policymakers will need to make a stronger case with more conclusive evidence to gain the public trust.
Likewise advocates for smoking bans should be more candid about the limits of the arguments
or contestable evidence of third party harms public health officials should assert boldly that the challenge of tobacco related morbidity
Beach and park bans represent measures that contribute to those goals said Dr. Bayer. Tobacco is the number-one preventable cause of death in the United states
The above story is provided based on materials by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public health. Note:
and late first exposure to solid food for infants appears to be associated with the development of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1dm) according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics a JAMA Network publication.
The infant diet has been of particular interest in the origin of the disease according to the study background.
Brittni Frederiksen M p h. Colorado School of Public health University of Colorado Aurora and colleagues examined the associations between perinatal and infant exposures especially early infant diet and the development of T1dm.
Newborn screening of umbilical cord blood for diabetes susceptibility in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region was performed at St joseph's Hospital in Denver
Our data suggest multiple foods/antigens play a role and that there is a complex relationship between the timing and type of infant food exposures and T1dm risk.
and causes increases in algal blooms greenhouse gases and insects like mosquitoes that carry disease.
The new work from the Rice lab of chemist James Tour appears online today in the journal Advanced Materials.
#Second door discovered in war against mosquito-borne diseasesin the global war against disease-carrying mosquitoes scientists have believed long that a single molecular door was the key target for insecticide.
For many years pyrethroid insecticides have been deployed in developing countries to fend off diseases such as malaria dengue fever and more.
Mosquitoes don't die from the toxin per se. They die from sodium overdose. With the door jammed wide open their cells gulp down sodium which overexcites their nervous system and eventually leads to paralysis and death.
In the last decade growing resistance in mosquitoes has been detected in many countries. At the molecular level resistance appears as mutations in the primary receptor in the sodium channel that allow mosquitoes to survive exposure to the insecticide.
One of the keys to the success of this research was our cloning of a mosquito sodium channel for the first time said Ke Dong MSU insect toxicologist and neurobiologist and the paper's senior author.
which allowed Dr. Du to perform electrophysiological experiments with the clone. The team then spent nearly two years to discover the new pyrethroid-binding site she added.
It could have broad impacts in agriculture and medicine that affect people's lives especially in developing countries.
Sheng Yang He a Howard Hughes Medical Institute-Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator and an MSU University Distinguished Professor in the DOE Plant Research Laboratory and Plant
Additional co-authors include researchers from Mcmaster University (Canada) the Russian Academy of Sciences and Bayer Cropscience (Germany.
The research was funded in part by the National institutes of health. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Michigan State university.
and how many flowers they produce is one vital sign of their health said Pau an assistant professor in Florida State's Department of Geography.
We studied flowers because their growth is a measure of the reproductive health and overall growth of the forests and because there is long-term data on flower production available Pau said.
A new study by scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical center and the University of California Davis adds to their previous research implicating insulin's role in lactation success. The study is the first to describe how the human mammary gland
and carbohydrates for nourishing the newborn baby says Dr. Nommsen-Rivers. Considering that 20 percent of women between 20 and 44 are prediabetic it's conceivable that up to 20 percent of new mothers in the United states are at risk for low milk supply due to insulin dysregulation.
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers and her colleagues were able to use a noninvasive method to capture mammary gland RNA--a chain of molecules that are blueprints for making specified proteins--in samples of human breast milk.
I/II clinical trial with a drug used to control blood sugar in type 2 diabetes to determine
While a drug is not an ideal way to solve the problem of sub-optimal glucose metabolism impairing breastfeeding according to Dr. Nommsen-Rivers it is excellent for establishing proof-of-concept through the use of a placebo controlled randomized clinical trial.
and exercise are more powerful than any drug. After this clinical trial we hope to study those interventions.
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers began her quest to understand why so many U s. mothers today struggle with low milk supply
when she was a doctoral student at the University of California Davis. The lead author of the study is Danielle Lemay Phd of the University of California Davis Research center.
The above story is provided based on materials by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
A new study by scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical center and the University of California Davis adds to their previous research implicating insulin's role in lactation success. The study is the first to describe how the human mammary gland
and carbohydrates for nourishing the newborn baby says Dr. Nommsen-Rivers. Considering that 20 percent of women between 20 and 44 are prediabetic it's conceivable that up to 20 percent of new mothers in the United states are at risk for low milk supply due to insulin dysregulation.
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers and her colleagues were able to use a noninvasive method to capture mammary gland RNA--a chain of molecules that are blueprints for making specified proteins--in samples of human breast milk.
I/II clinical trial with a drug used to control blood sugar in type 2 diabetes to determine
While a drug is not an ideal way to solve the problem of sub-optimal glucose metabolism impairing breastfeeding according to Dr. Nommsen-Rivers it is excellent for establishing proof-of-concept through the use of a placebo controlled randomized clinical trial.
and exercise are more powerful than any drug. After this clinical trial we hope to study those interventions.
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers began her quest to understand why so many U s. mothers today struggle with low milk supply
when she was a doctoral student at the University of California Davis. The lead author of the study is Danielle Lemay Phd of the University of California Davis Research center.
The above story is provided based on materials by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
By combining this trait with other plant traits such as improved disease resistance the researchers expect that there is potential to produce improved seeds for agriculture.
The goal of sustainable intensification is to increase food production from existing farmland says the article in the journal's Policy Forum by lead authors Dr Tara Garnett and Professor Charles Godfray from the University
Lead author Dr Tara Garnett from the Food Climate Research Network at the Oxford Martin School said:'
''Sustainability requires consideration of economic environmental and social priorities'added Dr Michael Appleby of the World Society for the Protection of Animals.'
Some of the characters involved have worked previously to deny the reality of the hole in the ozone layer acid rain and the link between tobacco and lung cancer.
Six targets proposedthis is why Dr. Marco Steinacher Prof. Fortunat Joos and Prof. Thomas Stocker are proposing a combination of six different specific global and regional climate targets in their work
For this reason researchers at the University of Santiago de compostela compared the mineral and toxic elements of organic and conventional milk taken from over thirty farms located in the northeast of the Iberian peninsula.
although no differences were found in the quantity of toxic compounds such as cadmium which were detected also in very low concentrations.
In Spain the lack of sufficient iodine in some kinds of milk is especially relevant for children due to the importance of iodine in neurological development
and Prof Damien Roussel at the Ecology of Natural and Man-impacted Hydrosystems laboratory in France looked for the first time at how the king penguin chicks'mitochondria in skeletal muscle the main heat producing tissue in birds function during fasting in the winter.
#Workers at industrial farms carry drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestocka new study found drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestock in the noses of industrial livestock workers in North carolina but not in the noses of antibiotic-free livestock workers.
The drug-resistant bacteria examined were Staphylococcus aureus commonly known as Staph which include the well-known bug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).
New Staph strains are emerging in people who have close contact with livestock animals and for this reason have been given the name livestock-associated Staph.
While everyone in the study had direct or indirect contact with livestock only industrial workers carried antibiotic-resistant Staph with multiple genetic characteristics linked to livestock.
The study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health the University of North carolina at Chapel hill the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help the George washington University and the Statens Serum Institute
published July 2 by the journal PLOS ONE confirms earlier findings in Iowa and raises concern about antibiotics use in livestock production.
Many industrial livestock operations raise animals in large conferment buildings and use antibiotics including non-therapeutically in animals'feed
and water to promote their growth. Previous studies have detected strains of drug-resistant S. aureus from livestock first among farm workers and subsequently in hospital and community settings in Europe.
In the United states such strains have been detected among industrial livestock operation workers in Iowa and now North carolina making scientists concerned that these bacteria could follow a similar trajectory into the community.
North carolina is a major livestock producer ranking second behind Iowa in hog production in the United states. S. aureus can cause a range of illnesses in humans from minor to life-threatening skin bloodstream
respiratory urinary and surgical site infections. Like most illnesses caused by bacteria S. aureus infections are treated with antibiotics.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention some Staph cannot be killed by antibiotics meaning they are resistant.
MRSA is a strain of Staph bacteria that is resistant to methicillin and certain first-line antibiotics called beta-lactams.
Infections with drug-resistant strains like MRSA can be particularly difficult to treat. The study was based on interviews
and nose swabs that were collected and analyzed from individuals who worked at two different types of livestock operations in North carolina.
At industrial livestock operations animals are grown in large confinement buildings using antibiotics. At antibiotic-free livestock operations animals are grown without the use of antibiotics typically outdoors on pasture.
Researchers tested the S. aureus isolated from nose swabs for resistance to a range of antibiotics
and for genetic markers considered to indicate that the bacteria may have come from livestock. This study shows that these livestock-associated strains are present among workers at industrial livestock operations
and that these strains are resistant not just to methicillin but to multiple antibiotics--including antibiotics that are used to treat human infections said Christopher Heaney Phd corresponding author of the study and assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public health. Workers were not experiencing Staph infections at the time of the study but when antibiotic resistant bacteria do cause infections they can be harder to treat.
Researchers found that S. aureus that were multidrug-resistant were roughly twice as prevalent among individuals exposed to the industrial compared to the antibiotic-free livestock operation environment
and S. aureus that were resistant to tetracycline--an antibiotic that has been used in industrial livestock production
since the 1950's--were 19 times as prevalent among industrial compared to antibiotic-free livestock operation workers.
Livestock-associated methicillin and multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus is present among industrial not antibiotic-free livestock operation workers in North carolina was written by Jessica L. Rinsky Maya Nadimpalli Steve Wing
Devon Hall Dothula Baron Lance B. Price Jesper Larsen Marc Stegger Jill Stewart and Christopher D. Heaney.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Insecticide causes changes in honeybee genes, research findsnew research by academics at The University of Nottingham has shown that exposure to a neonicotinoid insecticide causes changes to the genes of the honeybee.
The study published in the online journal PLOS ONE supports the recent decision taken by the European commission to temporarily ban three neonicotinoids amid concerns that they could be linked to bee deaths.
There is growing evidence connecting the decline in the honeybee population that pollinates one-third of the food that we eat
and insecticides but this is the first comprehensive study to look at changes in the activity of honeybee genes linked to one of the recently banned neonicotinoids imidacloprid.
The study led by Dr Reinhard Stã ger Associate professor in Epigenetics in the University's School of Biosciences was conducted under field realistic conditions
and increase the activity of genes involved in breaking down toxins most likely to cope with the insecticide.
Dr Stã ger said: Although larvae can still grow and develop in the presence of imidacloprid the stability of the developmental process appears to be compromised.
Should the bees be exposed to additional stresses such as pests disease and bad weather then it is likely to increase the rate of development failure.
Different groups of cattle received implants Ionophores and Beta-adrenergic agonists. These biotechnologies help cattle grow more efficiently.
Dr. Kim Stackhouse National Cattleman's Beef Association Director of Sustainability said animal agriculture has reduced emissions through the use of technologies.
and from Misha an African elephant euthanized in 2008 due to declining health at Utah's Hogle Zoo in Salt lake city. The analysis revealed that various tissues that formed at the same time have the same carbon-14 levels
When S. littoralis caterpillars drop from a plant they are highly vulnerable to predators and pathogens in the soil as well as to starvation.
It's a spectacular finding that by implementing these simple tobacco control policies governments can save so many lives said lead author David Levy Phd professor of oncology at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center
In addition to some 7. 4 million lives saved the tobacco control policies we examined can lead to other health benefits such as fewer adverse birth outcomes related to maternal smoking including low birth weight
and reduced health-care costs and less loss of productivity due to less smoking-related disease Levy said.
If these high-impact tobacco control measures were implemented even more widely millions more smoking-related deaths would be averted said Douglas Bettcher MD director of the department of noncommunicable diseases at WHO.
By taking the right measures this tobacco epidemic can be prevented entirely. THE WHO FCTC was developed in response to the globalization of the tobacco epidemic.
Since THE WHO FCTC came into force in 2005 175 countries and the European union have become parties to it.
The above story is provided based on materials by Georgetown University Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
prevent certain diseasesscientists using sophisticated imaging techniques have observed a molecular protein folding process that may help medical researchers understand
and treat diseases such as Alzheimer's Lou Gehrig's and cancer. The study reported this month in the journal Cell verifies a process that scientists knew existed
but with a mechanism they had never been able to observe according to Dr. Hays Rye Texas A&m Agrilife Research biochemist.
This is a step in the direction of understanding how to modulate systems to prevent diseases like Alzheimer's.
Over the past 20 years he said researchers have linked that aggregation process pretty convincingly to the development of diseases--Alzheimer's disease Lou gehrig's disease Huntington's disease to name a few.
There's evidence that diabetes and cancer also are linked to protein folding disorders. One of the main roles for the molecular chaperones is preventing those protein misfolding events that lead to aggregation
and not letting a cell get poisoned by badly folded or aggregated proteins he said.
Rye's team focused on a key molecular chaperone--the HSP60. They're called HSP for'heat shock protein
when we need to like for a patient who has one of the protein folding diseases he said.
Rye collaborated on the research with Dong-Hua Chen and Wah Chiu at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Damian Madan and Zohn Lin at Princeton university Jeremy Weaver at Texas A&m
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