Lifeboat Foundation

A new efficient system of cancer treatment using vitamin k3 (Vk3)-loaded copper zinc ferrite nanoparticles having therapeutic capabilities, could benefit millions of cancer patients worldwide.

With the ever-increasing prevalence of cancer cases worldwide, newer approaches to cancer therapy are increasingly needed to tackle the problem. Since conventional cancer therapies such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery have significant drawbacks such as resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs, adverse effects and lower efficacy, development of nanotherapies that can target hypoxic (when oxygen is not available in sufficient amounts at the tissue level) tumors, with minimum side-effects is necessary.

At present, magnetic hyperthermia-based cancer therapy (MHCT) therapy has been shown to be therapeutic. However, in most cases, it is not as effective due to the generation of lower levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in a hypoxic tumor microenvironment (TME) and low heat transmission.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have unveiled a surprising discovery that holds the potential to reshape the landscape of electrochemical devices. This new insight opens the door for the creation of cutting-edge materials and paves the way for enhancements in sectors like energy storage, neuromorphic computing, and bioelectronics.

Electrochemical devices rely on the movement of charged particles, both ions, and electrons, to function properly. However, understanding how these charged particles move together has presented a significant challenge, hindering progress in creating new materials for these devices.

In the rapidly evolving field of bioelectronics, soft conductive materials known as conjugated polymers are used for developing medical devices that can be used outside of traditional clinical settings. For example, this type of material can be used to make wearable sensors that monitor patients’ health remotely or implantable devices that actively treat disease.

Dr. Joni L. Rutter, Ph.D., (https://ncats.nih.gov/director/bio) is the Director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS — https://ncats.nih.gov/) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) where she oversees the planning and execution of the Center’s complex, multifaceted programs that aim to overcome scientific and operational barriers impeding the development and delivery of new treatments and other health solutions. Under her direction, NCATS supports innovative tools and strategies to make each step in the translational process more effective and efficient, thus speeding research across a range of diseases, with a particular focus on rare diseases.

By advancing the science of translation, NCATS helps turn promising research discoveries into real-world applications that improve people’s health. The NCATS Strategic Plan can be found at — https://ncats.nih.gov/strategicplan.

Continue reading “Dr. Joni L. Rutter, Ph.D. — Director, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences — NIH” »

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in your lower neck. It produces hormones that help regulate your metabolism, temperature and energy levels.

Thyroid cancer develops when cells within the thyroid mutate and grow abnormally. Thyroid cancer symptoms can be subtle early on and sometimes are blamed on an infection or a seasonal allergy. Thyroid cancer is highly treatable using a variety of methods.

Fear of Russian escalation has paralyzed the West. What’s needed is forceful localized countermoves.

Scientists use AI-powered brain-computer interface (BCI) to decipher speech.

Brain chips, a current research focus, are used for recording brain activity and treating several neurodegenerative diseases. In May this year, a man who lost the ability to talk because of a motorcycle incident stood up after 12 years thanks to brain implants that provided a bridge for communication between his brain and spinal cord.

Another area in which brain implants have shown significant potential is deciphering speech. Decoding brain signals to speech.

Continue reading “Brain implants and AI help voiceless patients to speak up” »

To address the HIV surveillance needs of the global community, the Applied Biosystems HIV-1 Genotyping Kit with Integrase offers broad genotyping coverage of HIV-1 Group M subtypes from extracted viral RNA from plasma and dried blood spot (DBS) samples to detect resistance to protease inhibitors, nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, and integrase inhibitors.

This HIV-1 resistance kit harnesses gold-standard Sanger sequencing technology to amplify and reliably sequence the diverse and rapidly evolving HIV-1 virus.

This product employs assays for HIV-1 genotyping licensed from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Microglia exhibit both maladaptive and adaptive roles in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases and have emerged as a therapeutic target for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, including those affecting the retina,” wrote the researchers. “Replacing maladaptive microglia, such as those impacted by aging or over-activation, with exogenous microglia that enable adaptive functions has been proposed as a potential therapeutic strategy for neurodegenerative diseases. To investigate the potential of microglial cell replacement as a strategy for retinal diseases, we first employed an efficient protocol to generate a significant quantity of human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC)-derived microglia.”

“Our understanding of microglia function comes predominantly from rodent studies due to the difficulty of sourcing human tissue and isolating the microglia from these tissues. But there are genetic and functional differences between microglia in mice and humans, so these studies may not accurately represent many human conditions,” explained lead author Wenxin Ma, a PhD, biologist at the Retinal Neurophysiology Section, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health.

“To address this concern, researchers have been growing human microglia from human stem cells. We wanted to take this a step further and see if we could transplant human microglia into the mouse retina, to serve as a platform for screening therapeutic drugs as well as explore the potential of microglia transplantation as a therapy itself,” added senior author Wai Wong, vice president of retinal disease, Janssen Research and Development.

Efforts to restore speech to people silenced by brain injuries and diseases have taken a significant step forward with the publication of two new papers in the journal Nature.