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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1533

Researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) in Japan show that melatonin and its metabolites promote the formation of long-term memories in mice and protect against cognitive decline.

Researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) showed that melatonin’s metabolite AMK can enhance the formation of long-term memories in mice. Memory of objects were tested after treatment with melatonin or two of its metabolites. Older mice that normally performed poorly on the memory task showed improvements as dosage increased. The metabolite AMK was found to be the most important as melatonin failed to improve memory if it was blocked from metabolizing into AMK.

Walk down the supplement aisle in your local drugstore and you’ll find fish oil, ginkgo, vitamin E, and ginseng, all touted as memory boosters that can help you avoid cognitive decline. You’ll also find melatonin, which is sold primarily in the United States as a sleep supplement. It now looks like melatonin marketers might have to do a rethink. In a new study, researchers led by Atsuhiko Hattori at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) in Japan have shown that melatonin and two of its metabolites help memories stick around in the brain and can shield mice, and potentially people, from cognitive decline.

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German drone technology startup Wingcopter has raised a $22 million Series A – its first significant venture capital raise after mostly bootstrapping. The company, which focuses on drone delivery, has come a long way since its founding in 2017, having developed, built and flown its Wingcopter 178 heavy-lift cargo delivery drone using its proprietary and patented tilt-rotor propellant mechanism, which combines all the benefits of vertical take-off and landing with the advantages of fixed-wing aircraft for longer-distance horizontal flight.

This new Series A round was led by Silicon Valley VC Xplorer Capital, as well as German growth fund Futury Regio Growth. Wingcopter CEO and founder Tom Plümmer explained in an interview that the addition of an SV-based investor is particularly important to the startup, since it’s in the process of preparing its entry into the U.S., with plans for an American facility, both for flight testing to satisfy FAA requirements for operational certification, as well as eventually for U.S.-based drone production.

Wingcopter has already been operating commercially in a few different markets globally, including in Vanuatu in partnership with Unicef for vaccine delivery to remote areas, in Tanzania for two-way medical supply delivery and in Ireland where it completed the world’s first delivery of insulin by drone beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), the industry’s technical term for when a drone flies beyond the visual range of a human operator who has the ability to take control in case of emergencies.

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The makers of Sophia the robot are set to mass produce thousands of humanoid machines starting this year.

Hong-Kong based company Hanson Robotics will roll out four new models in the first half of 2021 after its humanoid robot Sophia went viral in 2016.

The launch comes as researchers predict the global coronavirus pandemic will open new opportunities for the robotics industry.

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Scientists from UNSW Sydney have developed a ceramic-based ink that may allow surgeons in the future to 3D-print bone parts complete with living cells that could be used to repair damaged bone tissue.

Using a 3D-printer that deploys a special ink made up of calcium phosphate, the scientists developed a new technique, known as ceramic omnidirectional bioprinting in cell-suspensions (COBICS), enabling them to print -like structures that harden in a matter of minutes when placed in water.

While the idea of 3D-printing bone-mimicking structures is not new, this is the first time such material can be created at room temperature—complete with living cells—and without harsh chemicals or radiation, says Dr. Iman Roohani from UNSW’s School of Chemistry.

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Specifically, the researchers looked at lupus, which attacks the body’s own immune system, along with antiphospholipid syndrome (often associated with lupus), which causes blood clots. Both the diseases cause widespread inflammation and ravage organs overtime. In mice with either of the disease, 6-gingerol stopped the neutrophil extracellular trap release caused by the diseases’ production of autoantibodies.

“Neutrophil extracellular traps, or NETs, come from white blood cells called neutrophils,” explained lead author Ramadan Ali, Ph.D in a press release. “These sticky spider-web like structures are formed when autoantibodies interact with receptors on the neutrophil’s surface.”

The webs, according to Ali, play a fundamental role in the pathogenesis of lupus and antiphospholipid syndrome in which they set off autoantibody formation and contribute to clots in blood vessels and other damage.

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Here’s a riddle: What do the Moon, nuclear weapons, clean energy of the future, terrorism, and lung disease all have in common?

The answer is helium-3, a gas that’s extremely rare on Earth but 100 million times more abundant on the Moon.

The capability to show anatomic details of the lungs and airways, and the ability to display functional imaging as a patient breathes, makes helium-3 MRI far better than the standard method of testing lung function. Called spirometry, this method tells physicians how the lungs function overall, but does not home in on particular areas that may be causing a problem. Plus, spirometry requires patients to follow instructions and hold their breath, so it is not great for testing young children with pulmonary disease.

Over the past several years, researchers have been developing MRI for lung testing using other hyperpolarized gases. The main alternative to helium-3 is xenon-129. Over the years, researchers have learned to overcome certain disadvantages of the latter, such as its potential to put patients to sleep. Since helium-3 provides the strongest signal, though, it is still the best gas for MRI studies in many lung conditions.

Continue reading “Shoot for the Moon: Its Surface Contains a Pot of Gold” | >

Government-backed incentives and funding are still the main engines driving Chinese manufacturers to replace humans with robots in industries including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, new infrastructure projects and food processing.

Trade war with US saw many companies relocate outside China, but orders came back last year as Chinese production rapidly rebounded from the coronavirus, and a robotics boom is expected in 2021.

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Fair to say that we all assume that aging is inevitable. In reality however, there is no biological law that says we must age. Over the years we’ve seen a variety of theories proposed to explain why we age including the accumulation of damage to our DNA, the damaging effects of chemicals called “free radicals, changes in the function of our mitochondria, and so many others.

Our guest today, Dr. David Sinclair, believes that aging is related to a breakdown of information. Specifically, he describes how, with time, our epigenome accumulates changes that have powerful downstream effects on the way our DNA functions. Reducing these changes to the epigenome is achievable and in fact, even taking it further, his research now reveals that the epigenome can be reprogrammed back to a youthful state.

David A. Sinclair, PhD, AO is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and is the author of Lifespan — Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To. He is the Founding Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard. One of the leading innovators of his generation, he is listed by TIME magazine as one of the “100 most influential people in the world” (2014) and top 50 most important people in healthcare (2018). He is a board member of the American Federation for Aging Research, a Founding Editor of the journal Aging, and has received more than 35 awards for his research on resveratrol, NAD, and reprogramming to reverse aging, which have been widely hailed as major scientific breakthroughs and are topics we discuss in our time together.

In 2018, Dr. Sinclair became an Officer of the Order of Australia, the equivalent of a knighthood, for his work on national security matters and human longevity. Dr. Sinclair and his work have been featured on 60 Minutes, Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and Newsweek, among others.

Continue reading “The Empowering Neurologist — David Perlmutter M.D., and Dr. David Sinclair” | >