Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists are engineering T-cell to fight diseases and restore the body’s immune function. (Credit: Sensu Film)

A recent study suggests that dogs with a strong sense of smell could help detect certain lung cancers early.

Russian Biologist Seeks To Edit Genes Of Human Embryos With CRISPR : Shots — Health News A Moscow scientist claims he has a safe way of editing genes in human embryos — a method that could protect resulting babies from being infected with HIV. Approval of the experiment seems unlikely.

Doctors say some lymphoma patients are being completely cured in a way “never been seen before”.

For as smart as artificial intelligence systems seem to get, they’re still easily confused by hackers who launch so-called adversarial attacks — cyberattacks that trick algorithms into misinterpreting their training data, sometimes to disastrous ends.

In order to bolster AI’s defenses from these dangerous hacks, scientists at the Australian research agency CSIRO say in a press release they’ve created a sort of AI “vaccine” that trains algorithms on weak adversaries so they’re better prepared for the real thing — not entirely unlike how vaccines expose our immune systems to inert viruses so they can fight off infections in the future.

We’ve already heard about flexible so-called “electronic tattoos,” which are a more comfortable and longer-wearing alternative to the rigid electrodes traditionally used to monitor cardiac patients’ hearts. A new one is claimed to be more accurate than others, however, as it tracks heart health in two ways.

The future of medicine is not fixing what is broken, it’s preventing things from getting broken in the first place.

The leading cause of death in Texas is heart disease, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, accounting for more than 45,000 deaths statewide in 2017. A new wearable technology made from stretchy, lightweight material could make heart health monitoring easier and more accurate than existing electrocardiograph machines—a technology that has changed little in almost a century.

Developed by engineers at The University of Texas at Austin and led by Nanshu Lu in the Cockrell School of Engineering, this is the latest incarnation of Lu’s electronic tattoo technology, a graphene-based wearable device that can be placed on the skin to measure a variety of body responses, from electrical to biomechanical signals.

Continue reading “New e-tattoo enables accurate, uninterrupted heart monitoring for days” »

More than three decades ago, scientists discovered that a chemical found in a synthetic opioid, MPTP, induced the onset of a form of Parkinson’s disease. In a new study led by scientists from the School of Veterinary Medicine, researchers found that an enzyme in the body can metabolize compounds formed in the brain from alkaloids present in certain foods and tobacco into MPTP-like chemicals, triggering a neurodegenerative condition in mice.

The researchers, led by Narayan Avadhani and Mrittika Chattopadhyay, suggest that the enzyme, mitochondrial CYP2D6, presents a potentially powerful new target for Parkinson’s treatment.

“Over the past two or three decades, researchers have tried inhibiting the process by which they believed MPTP was metabolized, with mixed success,” says Avadhani. “We believe that mitochondrial CYP2D6 is the more direct drug target, which might prove better in treating idiopathic Parkinson’s disease.”

By adulthood, the heart is no longer able to replenish injured or diseased cells. As a result, heart disease or an event like a heart attack can be disastrous, leading to massive cell death and permanent declines in function. A new study by scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM), however, shows that it may be possible to reverse this damage and restore heart function, even after a severe heart attack.

The study, published June 21 in the print edition of the journal Circulation Research, is the first to show that a very small RNA molecule known as miR-294, when introduced into heart cells, can reactivate heart cell proliferation and improve heart function in mice that have suffered the equivalent of a heart attack in humans.

“In previous work, we discovered that miR-294 actively regulates the cell cycle in the developing heart,” said Mohsin Khan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Physiology at the Center for Metabolic Disease Research at LKSOM. “But shortly after birth miR-294 is no longer expressed.”