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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,312

How electric eels inspired the first battery two centuries ago

But as I describe in my book “Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life,” even before humanmade batteries started generating electric current, electric fishes, such as the saltwater torpedo fish (Torpedo torpedo) of the Mediterranean and especially the various freshwater electric eel species of South America (order Gymnotiformes) were well known to produce electrical outputs of stunning proportions. In fact, electric fishes inspired Volta to conduct the original research that ultimately led to his battery, and today’s battery scientists still look to these electrifying animals for ideas.

Prior to Volta’s battery, the only way for people to generate electricity was to rub various materials together, typically silk on glass, and to capture the resulting static electricity. This was neither an easy nor practical way to generate useful electrical power.

Volta knew electric fishes had an internal organ specifically devoted to generating electricity. He reasoned that if he could mimic its workings, he might be able to find a novel way to generate electricity.

Multimodal locomotion and cargo transportation of magnetically actuated quadruped soft microrobots

Recently, a research team from Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposed a bionic quadruped soft thin-film microrobot actuated by magnetic fields with a mass of only 41 mg, which promises to be applied to stomach examination and treatment. Researchers realized the multimodal locomotion control of the soft microrobot in magnetic fields and the grasping and transportation of micro-objects by the soft microrobot.

The new paper, published in Cyborg and Bionic Systems, details the process of making the and the magnetization process, presents the mechanism of microrobot’s locomotion and cargo transportation, and demonstrates the microrobot transporting multiple microbeads from different locations to the target position.

Untethered microrobots have received much attention for their potential in and small-scale micromanipulation. “Due to the fact that magnetic fields are harmless to biological cells and tissues, magnetic fields are widely used to actuate microrobots for biomedical applications,” explained study author Tiantian Xu, a professor at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Cyborg technology analyzes the functional maturation of stem-cell derived heart tissue

Research in animal models has demonstrated that stem-cell derived heart tissues have promising potential for therapeutic applications to treat cardiac disease. But before such therapies are viable and safe for use in humans, scientists must first precisely understand on the cellular and molecular levels which factors are necessary for implanted stem-cell derived heart cells to properly grow and integrate in three dimensions within surrounding tissue.

New findings from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) make it possible for the first time to monitor the functional development and maturation of cardiomyocytes—the responsible for regulating the heartbeat through synchronized —on the single-cell level using -embedded . The devices—which are flexible, stretchable, and can seamlessly integrate with living cells to create “cyborgs”—are reported in a Science Advances paper.

“These mesh-like nanoelectronics, designed to stretch and move with growing tissue, can continuously capture long-term activity within individual stem-cell derived cardiomyocytes of interest,” says Jia Liu, co-senior author on the paper, who is an assistant professor of bioengineering at SEAS, where he leads a lab dedicated to bioelectronics.

Newly discovered enzyme that turns air into electricity, providing a new clean source of energy

Australian scientists have discovered an enzyme that converts air into energy. The finding, published today in the journal Nature, reveals that this enzyme uses the low amounts of the hydrogen in the atmosphere to create an electrical current. This finding opens the way to create devices that literally make energy from thin air.

The research team, led by Dr. Rhys Grinter, Ph.D. student Ashleigh Kropp, and Professor Chris Greening from the Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute in Melbourne, Australia, produced and analyzed a -consuming enzyme from a common soil bacterium.

Recent work by the team has shown that many bacteria use hydrogen from the atmosphere as an energy source in nutrient-poor environments. “We’ve known for some time that bacteria can use the trace hydrogen in the air as a source of energy to help them grow and survive, including in Antarctic soils, volcanic craters, and the deep ocean” Professor Greening said. “But we didn’t know how they did this, until now.”

CDR Dr. Jean-Paul Chretien — DARPA BTO — Regeneration, Resuscitation And Biothreat Countermeasures

Regeneration, Resuscitation & Biothreat Countermeasures — Commander Dr. Jean-Paul Chretien, MD, Ph.D., Program Manager, Biological Technology Office, DARPA

Commander Dr. Jean-Paul Chretien, MD, Ph.D. (https://www.darpa.mil/staff/cdr-jean-paul-chretien) is a Program Manager in the Biological Technology Office at DARPA, where his research interests include disease and injury prevention, operational medicine, and biothreat countermeasures. He is also responsible for running the DARPA Triage Challenge (https://triagechallenge.darpa.mil/).

Prior to coming to DARPA, CDR Dr. Chretien led the Pandemic Warning Team at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s National Center for Medical Intelligence, and as a naval medical officer, his previous assignments include senior policy advisor for biodefense in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; team lead for Innovation & Evaluation at the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch; and director of force health protection for U.S. and NATO forces in southwestern Afghanistan.

A proud mentor to nine graduate students and Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellows, CDR Dr. Chretien received the Rising Star Award from the American College of Preventive Medicine, Best Publication of the Year Award from the International Society for Disease Surveillance, and Skelton Award for Public Service from the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and 10 book chapters.

CDR Dr. Chretien earned a Bachelor of Science degree in political science from the United States Naval Academy, Master of Health Science in biostatistics and Doctor of Philosophy in genetic epidemiology degrees from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in general preventive medicine at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and fellowship in health sciences informatics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Continue reading “CDR Dr. Jean-Paul Chretien — DARPA BTO — Regeneration, Resuscitation And Biothreat Countermeasures” | >

Organoid intelligence (OI): the new frontier in biocomputing and intelligence-in-a-dish

Recent advances in human stem cell-derived brain organoids promise to replicate critical molecular and cellular aspects of learning and memory and possibly aspects of cognition in vitro. Coining the term “organoid intelligence” (OI) to encompass these developments, we present a collaborative program to implement the vision of a multidisciplinary field of OI. This aims to establish OI as a form of genuine biological computing that harnesses brain organoids using scientific and bioengineering advances in an ethically responsible manner. Standardized, 3D, myelinated brain organoids can now be produced with high cell density and enriched levels of glial cells and gene expression critical for learning. Integrated microfluidic perfusion systems can support scalable and durable culturing, and spatiotemporal chemical signaling.

AI accurately identifies normal and abnormal chest X-rays

An artificial intelligence (AI) tool can accurately identify normal and abnormal chest X-rays in a clinical setting, according to a study published in Radiology.

Chest X-rays are used to diagnose a wide variety of conditions to do with the heart and lungs. An abnormal chest X-ray can be an indication of a range of conditions, including cancer and chronic lung diseases.

An AI tool that can accurately differentiate between normal and abnormal chest X-rays would greatly alleviate the heavy workload experienced by globally.

Modifying messenger RNA may provide a new target for Alzheimer’s disease

Reducing the methylation of a key messenger RNA can promote migration of macrophages into the brain and ameliorate symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in a mouse model, according to a new study publishing March 7 in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Rui Zhang of Air Force Medical University in Xian, Shaanxi, China. The results illuminate one pathway for entrance of peripheral immune cells into the brain, and may provide a new target for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

A presumed trigger for the development of Alzheimer’s disease is the accumulation of proteinaceous, extracellular amyloid-beta plaques in the brain. High levels of amyloid-beta in mice leads to neurodegeneration and cognitive symptoms reminiscent of human Alzheimer’s disease, and reduction of amyloid-beta is a major goal in development of new treatments.

One potential pathway for getting rid of amyloid-beta is the of blood-derived into the brain, and their maturation into macrophages, which, along with resident microglia, can consume amyloid-beta. That migration is a complex phenomenon controlled by multiple interacting players, but a potentially important one is the methylation of messenger RNA within the cells.

How high altitude changes your body’s metabolism

Compared to those of us who live at sea level, the 2 million people worldwide who live above 4,500 meters (or 14,764 feet) of elevation—about the height of Mount Rainier, Mount Whitney, and many Colorado and Alaska peaks—have lower rates of metabolic diseases such as diabetes, coronary artery disease, hypercholesterolemia, and obesity.

Now, researchers at Gladstone Institutes have shed light on this phenomenon. They showed how chronically , such as those experienced at , rewire how mice burn sugars and fats. The work, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, not only helps explain the metabolic differences of people who live at high altitude, but could also lead to new treatments for metabolic disease.

“When an organism is exposed to chronically low levels of , we found that different organs reshuffle their fuel sources and their energy-producing pathways in various ways,” says Gladstone Assistant Investigator Isha Jain, Ph.D., senior author of the new study. “We hope these findings will help us identify metabolic switches that might be beneficial for metabolism even outside of low-oxygen environments.”

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