Lifeboat Foundation

A team of researchers with the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in the Republic of Korea has developed a glucose monitoring contact lens that its makers claim is comfortable enough to wear. In their paper published on the open access site Science Advances, the group describes their contact lens and suggests it could be ready for commercial use within five years.

Diabetes results in unmanageable glucose levels, requiring those who have the disease to monitor and adjust them with insulin or medicine. Monitoring, unfortunately, requires pricking a finger to retrieve a blood sample for testing, which most people do not like. For that reason, scientists seek another way. A new method employs a contact lens. Prior research has shown glucose levels in tears follows that of glucose levels in the blood in many respects. To date, there are no commercially available contact lens products because, as the researchers note, they are made of hard materials that are uncomfortable in the eye. They claim to have overcome that problem by breaking apart the pieces of their sensing device and encapsulating each in a soft polymer and then connecting them together in a flexible mesh.

The polymer is the same type used in conventional contact lenses. The components of the device consist of a graphene-based sensor, a rectifier, LED display and a stretchable antenna. Power for the sensor is still external—it is held in the air a minimum of nine millimeters from the lens. The LED glows during normal conditions and turns off when high levels of glucose are detected. The flexibility of the lens and sensor components also allows for removal of the device in the same way as normal contact lenses—by grabbing and bending.

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New extensive study shares recent discoveries and sheds light on the role of telomere length in human diseases and aging. Part 3 of 3.

In 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned from a somatic cell. Twenty years later, scientists have succeeded in using the same technique on primates—as detailed in a study published today in the journal Cell, two long-tailed macaque monkeys were born at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai.

In a new study, researchers propose that TIGIT is a marker of T cell senescence and exhaustion in the immune system. However, not only is TIGIT just a biomarker, it is also a potential therapeutic target; as the researcher team discovered, lowering levels of TIGIT resulted in the restoration of some lost function in T cell populations that were experiencing high levels of senescence and exhaustion.

In a new study, researchers propose that TIGIT is a marker of T cell senescence and exhaustion in the immune system[1]. However, not only is TIGIT just a biomarker, it is also a potential therapeutic target; as the researcher team discovered, lowering levels of TIGIT resulted in the restoration of some lost function in T cell populations that were experiencing high levels of senescence and exhaustion.

Aging is associated with immune dysfunction, especially T-cell defects, which result in increased susceptibility to various diseases. Previous studies showed that T cells from aged mice express multiple inhibitory receptors, providing evidence of the relationship between T-cell exhaustion and T-cell senescence. In this study, we showed that T-cell immunoglobulin and immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif (ITIM) domain (TIGIT), a novel co-inhibitory receptor, was upregulated in CD8 + T cells of elderly adults. Aged TIGIT + CD8 + T cells expressed high levels of other inhibitory receptors including PD-1 and exhibited features of exhaustion such as downregulation of the key costimulatory receptor CD28, representative intrinsic transcriptional regulation, low production of cytokines, and high susceptibility to apoptosis. Importantly, their functional defects associated with aging were reversed by TIGIT knockdown.

And your photos could end up in its database.

Since the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1996, scientists across the globe have used the same technique to clone nearly two dozen other animal species, including cats, dogs, rats, and cattle. Primates, however, had proven resistant to the process — until now.

In a new study published in Cell, a team of Chinese researchers led by Qiang Sun at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai reveal that they’ve found a way to tweak the Dolly cloning technique to make it work in primates. Their efforts have resulted in the birth of two cloned female macaques: Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua.

Continue reading “Scientists Just Cloned Monkeys. Humans Could Be Next” »

The first monkeys have been cloned in a historic breakthrough — could humans be next?

WASHINGTON — Scientists have created a hair-thin implant that can drip medications deep into the brain by remote control and with pinpoint precision.

Tested only in animals so far, if the device pans out it could mark a new approach to treating brain diseases — potentially reducing side effects by targeting only the hard-to-reach circuits that need care.

“You could deliver things right to where you want, no matter the disease,” said Robert Langer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose biomedical engineering team reported the research Wednesday.

Continue reading “Tiny implant opens way to deliver drugs deep into the brain” »