Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,769
WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russian-made ventilators now under investigation for causing deaths in Russia were not authorized by U.S. health regulators before the same model was sent to New York and New Jersey at the height of their coronavirus outbreaks, Reuters has learned.
Doctors in Japan have successfully transplanted liver cells derived from embryonic stem cells into a newborn baby, in a world first that could provide new treatment options for infants.
The newborn was suffering from urea cycle disorder, where the liver is not capable of breaking down toxic ammonia.
But the six-day-old was too small to undergo a liver transplant, generally not considered safe until a child weighs around six kilogrammes (13 pounds) at around three to five months old.
There was also no noticeable advantage for patients that took the drug paired with azithromycin, according to hotly anticipated research.
A team of quantum physicists from a UAE-based research lab has developed a rapid laser test to detect COVID-19 patients, which can reduce the testing time to a few seconds with an accuracy rate of 85–90 percent and has the potential to replace the current nasal swab and blood tests that take several hours to process.
QuantLase Imaging Lab, the medical research arm of the Abu Dhabi-based International Holdings Company, in a press statement said that the rapid test uses a novel equipment which enables for much faster mass screening, with test results available in seconds and allowing testing on a wider scale including in public places.
The test uses laser to detect changes in the blood that could identify carriers before they become contagious and will cost as low as 100 dirhams (193 yuan, 27 U.S. dollars), according to researchers involved with the project.
Disease diagnosis, drug discovery, robot delivery—artificial intelligence is already powering change in the pandemic’s wake. That’s only the beginning.
You might be interested in my latest interview with Natasha Vita-More, transhumanist writer and executive director of Humanity+, covering human augmentation, the world transhumanist movement and whole-body prosthetics.
Trying to grow my transhumanism related channel so super grateful for any subs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVLqMgLDwO-aSk5YcYo1dA…
I interview Natasha Vita-More, a transhumanist thinker who wrote the ‘Transhumanist Statement’ and is the Executive Director of Humanity+, formerly the World Transhumanist Association.
This week: Be The Match BioTherapies® (MN, USA) and NantKwest (CA, USA) collaborate to help progress a potential cell therapy for COVID-19-associated ARDS and a new platform from WuXi Advanced Therapies (PA, USA) may help accelerate cell and gene therapy development.
ECommunity, Future Science Group
If an unconscious person responds to smell through a slight change in their nasal airflow pattern — they are likely to regain consciousness. This is the conclusion from a new study conducted by Weizmann Institute scientists and colleagues at the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital, Israel. According to the findings, published in the journal Nature, 100% of the unconscious brain-injured patients who responded to a “sniff test” developed by the researchers regained consciousness during the four-year study period. The scientists think that this simple, inexpensive test can aid doctors in accurately diagnosing and determining treatment plans according to the patients’ degree of brain injury. The scientists conclude that this finding once again highlights the primal role of the sense of smell in human brain organization. The olfactory system is the most ancient part of the brain, and its integrity provides an accurate measure of overall brain integrity.
Following severe brain injury, it is often difficult to determine whether the person is conscious or unconscious, and current diagnostic tests can lead to an incorrect diagnosis in up to 40% of cases. “Misdiagnosis can be critical as it can influence the decision of whether to disconnect patients from life support machines,” says Dr. Anat Arzi, who led the research. “In regard to treatment, if it is judged that a patient is unconscious and doesn’t feel anything, physicians may not prescribe them painkillers that they might need.” Arzi commenced this research during her doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Neurobiology Department and continued it as part of her postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.
The “consciousness test” developed by the researchers — in collaboration with Dr. Yaron Sacher, Head of the Department of Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation at Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital — is based on the principle that our nasal airflow changes in response to odor; for example, an unpleasant odor will lead to shorter and shallower sniffs. In healthy humans, the sniff-response can occur unconsciously in both wakefulness and sleep.
Denver Department of Public Health and Environment issued the order Thursday, the day after investigators said they were denied full access to the facility.
Denver health officials have ordered the closure of a United States Postal Service distribution center that handles all mail for Colorado and Wyoming, saying the facility has multiple confirmed cases of the coronavirus among its employees.