Lifeboat Foundation

An AI-powered brain implant helps a quadriplegia patient regain sensations and movement for the first time after a diving accident in 2020. Can this implant work for other paralysis patients?

Scientists at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research have re-established the connection between the brain, body, and spinal cord of a person living with quadriplegia (paralysis of all four limbs and trunk) due to a diving accident in 2020.

Continue reading “AI-powered brain implant restores a paralyzed man’s ability to feel and move” »

A study in the Lancet Oncology journal found that AI-supported breast cancer screenings saved radiologists time that could be used for more complex diagnoses.

A process of surgically joining the circulatory systems of a young and old mouse slows the aging process at the cellular level and lengthens the lifespan of the older animal by up to 10%.

Published in the journal Nature Aging, a study led by researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, found that the longer the animals shared circulation, the longer the anti-aging benefits lasted once the two were no longer connected.

The findings suggest that the young benefit from a cocktail of components and chemicals in their blood that contributes to vitality, and these factors could potentially be isolated as therapies to speed healing, rejuvenate the body, and add years to an older individual’s life.

If there’s one thing the Covid pandemic taught us, it’s that viruses shouldn’t be underestimated.

People are, therefore, taking note after scientists discovered a whole new range of giant virus-like particles (VLP) that have taken on “previously unimaginable shapes and forms.”

The microscopic agents, resembling everything from stars to monsters, were found in just a few handfuls of forest soil.

A model of human cortical development could be used to instruct novel computational learning approaches. Alysson Muotri, Phd, Sujeeth Bharadwaj, PhD, Weiwei Yang, and Gabrial Silva, MSc, PhD, discuss the promise, the problems, and the potential when biology and artificial intelligence meet. Recorded on 10/14/2021. [3/2022] [Show ID: 37556]

00:00 Start.
00:17 Introduction — Alysson Muotri, PhD, UC San Diego.
11:51 An Information Theoretic Approach to Learning — Sujeeth Bharadwaj, PhD, Microsoft.
30:44 An Alternate Approach to Collectively Solving Intelligence: Machine Learning to Artificial Intelligence — Weiwei Yang, Microsoft.
47:54 Organoids May Have Just the Right Amount of Complexity to Make Sense of the Brain — Gabriel Silva, MSc, PhD, UC San Diego.

Continue reading “Brain Organoids and Robotics / AI — Sanford Stem Cell Symposium” »

Biofilms are highly resistant communities of bacteria that pose a major challenge in the treatment of infections. While studying biofilm formation in laboratory conditions has been extensively conducted, understanding their development in the complex environment of the human respiratory tract has remained elusive.

A team of researchers led by Alexandre Persat at EPFL have now cracked the problem by successfully developing organoids called AirGels. Organoids are miniature, self-organized 3D tissues grown from stem cells to mimic actual body tissues and organs in the human body. They represent a paradigm shift in the field, enabling scientists to replicate and study the intricate environments of organs in the laboratory.

Developed by Tamara Rossy and her colleagues, the AirGels are bioengineered models of human lung tissue that open up new possibilities in infection research. They revolutionize infection research by accurately emulating the physiological properties of the airway mucosa, including mucus secretion and ciliary beating. This technology allows scientists to study airway infections in a more realistic and comprehensive manner, bridging the gap between in vitro studies and clinical observations.

Thoughts?

Wearable electronic devices are playing a rapidly expanding role in the acquisition of individuals’ health data for personalized medical interventions; however, wearables cannot yet directly program gene-based therapies because of the lack of a direct electrogenetic interface. Here we provide the missing link by developing an electrogenetic interface that we call direct current (DC)-actuated regulation technology (DART), which enables electrode-mediated, time-and voltage-dependent transgene expression in human cells using DC from batteries. DART utilizes a DC supply to generate non-toxic levels of reactive oxygen species that act via a biosensor to reversibly fine-tune synthetic promoters.

In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, bioelectronic medicine researchers, engineers and surgeons at Northwell Health’s The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research have successfully implanted microchips into the brain of a man living with paralysis, and have developed artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to re-link his brain to his body and spinal cord.

This double neural bypass forms an electronic bridge that allows information to flow once again between the man’s paralyzed body and brain to restore movement and sensations in his hand with lasting gains in his arm and wrist outside of the laboratory. The research team unveiled the trial participant’s groundbreaking progress four months after a 15-hour open-brain surgery that took place on March 9 at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH).

Continue reading “For the first time researchers restore feeling and lasting movement in man living with quadriplegia” »

A paper published today in Nature Metabolism has described a method of genetically engineering cells to respond to electrical stimuli, allowing for on-demand gene expression.

Despite its futuristic outlook, this line of research is built upon previous work. The idea of an implantable gene switch to command cells in order to deliver valuable compounds into the human body is not new. The authors of this paper cite longstanding work showing that gene switches can be developed to respond to antibiotics [1] or other drugs, and the antibiotic doxycycline is used regularly for this purpose in mouse models. More recently, researchers have worked on cells that control their output based on green light [2], radio waves [3], or heat [4].

However, these mechanisms have their problems. A gene trigger that operates in response to a chemical compound requires that compound to have stable, controllable biological availability [5]. If it relies on any wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, that process may be triggered by mistake or require intense energy to function [3].