Lifeboat Foundation

Spiders are incredibly hard to cultivate — let alone farm.

Spider silk, a natural polymeric fiber, breaks this rule. It is somehow both strong and tough. No surprise, then, that spider silk is a source of much study.

The problem, though, is that spiders are incredibly hard to cultivate — let alone farm. If you put them together, they will attack and kill each other until only one or a few survive. If you put 100 spiders in an enclosed space, they will go about an aggressive, arachnocidal Hunger Games. You need to give each its own space and boundaries, and a spider hotel is hard and costly. Silkworms, on the other hand, are peaceful and productive. They’ll hang around all day to make the silk that has been used in textiles for centuries. But silkworm silk is fragile. It has very limited use.

Researchers say they have linked shorter telomeres on white blood cells to higher dementia risk, although outside experts say there are limitations to this study.

Driving Forces Behind the Growth in UAE’s Life Sciences Industry: the latest from the Life Sciences Division of Deep Knowledge Group created by Deep Knowledge Group, Aging Analytics Agency, Deep Pharma Intelligence, NeuroTech.com, FemTech Analytics, and Deep Knowledge Analytics:

Population Aging: With the world’s population getting older, the demand for medical services is soaring. The UAE is no exception, and this demographic shift is a key driver of growth in the life sciences sector.

New Machines and Drugs: Constant innovation is driving the development of new treatments and drugs to address previously unmet health needs. This not only enhances patient care but also sparks technological… More.

Continue reading “NeuroTech Analytics” »

A breakthrough technique developed by University of Oxford researchers could one day provide tailored repairs for those who suffer brain injuries. The researchers have demonstrated for the first time that neural cells can be 3D-printed to mimic the architecture of the cerebral cortex. The results have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Brain injuries, including those caused by trauma, stroke, and surgery for brain tumors, typically result in significant damage to the cerebral cortex (the outer layer of the human brain), leading to difficulties in cognition, movement and communication. For example, each year, around 70 million people globally suffer from traumatic brain injury (TBI), with 5 million of these cases being severe or fatal. Currently, there are no effective treatments for severe brain injuries, leading to serious impacts on quality of life.

Tissue regenerative therapies, especially those in which patients are given implants derived from their own stem cells, could be a promising route to treat brain injuries in the future. Up to now, however, there has been no method to ensure that implanted stem cells mimic the architecture of the brain.

US biotech Immunis has developed an “immunomodulatory secretome” technology targeting age-related immune decline. With preclinical studies showing benefit in muscular atrophy, metabolic and vascular function, tissue inflammation, and immune cell function in a range of age-related disease indications, the Californian company is currently engaged in its first in-human clinical trial for muscle atrophy.

Longevity. Technology: The secretome refers to the substances that are secreted (released) by cells – exosomes, micro-vesicles, proteins, growth factors, hormones, cytokines, and other substances. The secretome is known to play a role in helping repair and regenerate our bodies, but these beneficial secreted factors decline with age. Immunis has developed a novel method to isolate secreted cellular factors that benefit immune system development, modulation, and health – and replenish them. To find out more about the company and its technology, we spoke to its Chairman, Dr Hans Keirstead.

Keirstead is a renowned stem cell expert and serial entrepreneur, founding and successfully exiting several biotech companies in the stem cell space. Back in the early days of the field, he became the first neuroscientist in the world to work with human stem cells.

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Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Shaping the Future of Medicine” »

Cancer cells are chameleons. They completely change their metabolism to grow continuously. University of Basel scientists have discovered that high levels of the amino acid arginine drive metabolic reprogramming to promote tumor growth. This study suggests new avenues to improve liver cancer treatment.

The liver is a vital organ with many important functions in the body. It metabolizes nutrients, stores energy, regulates the blood sugar level, and plays a crucial role in detoxifying and removing harmful components and drugs. Liver cancer is one of the world’s most lethal types of cancer. Conditions that cause liver cancer include obesity, excessive alcohol consumption and hepatitis C infection. Early diagnosis and appropriate therapeutic strategies are crucial for improving treatments in liver cancer.

In the past decade, scientists have made much progress in understanding the multiple facets of cancer. Historically, it has long been viewed as a disorder in cell proliferation. However, there is growing evidence that cancer is a metabolic disease.

A cyclist who was paralysed in an accident is able to walk again, thanks to a breakthrough in neurosurgery and artificial intelligence in Switzerland.
Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons reports.

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Continue reading “Technology helps paralysed man to walk” »

Transcatheter repair

A transcatheter repair, also called transcatheter device closure, is usually recommended for an atrial septal defect. During this procedure, a pediatric interventional cardiologist makes an incision in the groin, inserts a catheter, and funnels a small mesh patch through the catheter and up to the hole in the heart. Over time, the child’s own heart tissue grows over the patch.

Learn more about atrial septal defect transcatheter repair for children.