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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,246

On April 25, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch cargo to the space station and two organs-on-a-chip experiments designed by University of Pennsylvania scientists. They want to understand why so many astronauts get infections while in space. NASA has reported that 15 of the 29 Apollo astronauts had bacterial or viral infections. Between 1989 and 1999, more than 26 space shuttle astronauts had infections.

Huh and his team have created two separate experiments for this first launch. The first essentially mimics an infection inside a human airway, to see what happens to the bacteria, and the surrounding cells, in orbit. Huh’s BIOLines lab created the actual chips.

A lung chip is made of a polymer, and a permeable membrane is the platform for the human cells. For the lung-on-a-chip, one side of the membrane is coated with lung cells, to process the air, and capillary cells on the other, to provide the blood flow. The membrane is stretched and released to provide the bellows-like effect of real lungs.

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Circa 2016

Just lopped off your ring finger slicing carrots (some time in the future)? No problem. Just speed-read this article while you’re waiting for the dronebulance. …

“Epimorphic regeneration” — growing digits, maybe even limbs, with full 3D structure and functionality — may one day be possible. So say scientists at Tulane University, the University of Washington, and the University of Pittsburgh, writing in a review article just published in Tissue Engineering, Part B, Reviews (open access until March 8).

The process of amphibian epimorphic regeneration may offer hints for humans. After amputation, the wound heals to form an epidermal layer, the underlying tissues undergo matrix remodeling, and cells in the region secrete soluble factors. A heterogeneous cell mass, or blastema, forms from the proliferation and migration of cells from the adjacent tissues. The blastema then gives rise to the various new tissues that are spatially patterned to reconstruct the original limb structure. (credit: Lina M. Quijano et al./Tissue Engineering Part B)

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Regular infusions of an antibody that blocks the HIV binding site on human immune cells may have suppressed levels of HIV for up to four months in people undergoing a short-term pause in their antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimens, according to a report published online today in The New England Journal of Medicine. Results of the Phase 2, open-label study indicate the antibody, known as UB-421, was safe and did not induce the production of antibody-resistant HIV. The study was supported in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health, and United Biopharma, Inc.

The study was conducted in Taiwan and led by Chang Yi Wang, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Chairperson of United BioPharma, Inc. Twenty-nine volunteers with well-controlled HIV discontinued their normal regimens of daily oral ART at the time of their first or one week later, depending on their ART regimen. Fourteen received eight regular weekly infusions of UB-421, while 15 received eight higher-dose infusions every other week. At the end of the 8- or 16-week treatment period, all volunteers restarted their previous ART regimen and were evaluated in follow-up visits up to eight weeks later. Apart from a single participant who discontinued the study because of a mild skin rash, volunteers in both groups maintained HIV suppression (plasma HIV RNA levels under 20 copies/mL) throughout the treatment period in the absence of ART.

Previous experimental infusions of broadly neutralizing antibodies, or bNAbs, have suppressed HIV for about two weeks by targeting proteins on the virus itself, but the rapid mutation rate of HIV induces antibody-resistant strains that render the treatment ineffective. UB-421 theoretically avoids this possibility by blocking a stable human protein that HIV uses to infect T cells. Indeed, resistance to UB-421 was not seen in this study. Because the small study did not include a comparator group receiving a placebo infusion, further studies have been planned in Taiwan and Thailand to evaluate the safety and efficacy of UB-421 as a treatment for HIV. In a related study, NIAID investigators currently are evaluating the safety of regular infusions of two highly potent bNAbs that may prevent the development of resistant HIV strains by targeting two distinct areas of the virus.

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Advanced pancreatic cancer is often symptomless, leading to late diagnosis only after metastases have spread throughout the body. Additionally, tumor cells are encased in a “protective shield,” a microenvironment conferring resistance to many cancer treatment drugs. Now, Salk Institute researchers, along with an international team of collaborators, have uncovered the role of a signaling protein that may be the Achilles’ heel of pancreatic cancer.

The findings, published in Nature on April 17, 2019, show that pancreatic —resident cells typically dormant in normal tissue—become activated and secrete proteins to form a shell around the in an attempt to wall off and contain it. The activated stellate cells also secrete a signaling protein called LIF, which conveys stimulatory signals to to drive pancreatic cancer development and progression. Results also suggest LIF may be a useful biomarker to help diagnose pancreatic cancer more quickly and efficiently.

“There haven’t been very many advances in pancreatic cancer therapy because it’s a difficult cancer to diagnose and treat,” says Salk American Cancer Society Professor Tony Hunter. “Understanding this communication network between the cancer cells and stellate cells may enable us to develop more effective therapies, along with tools for earlier diagnosis.”

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The results of a clinical trial using bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) to treat late-stage knee osteoarthritis were published recently, and they came back positive. The trial included both phase 1 and 2 and was designed to determine the safety and efficacy of MSC stem cell therapy.

A battery of tests

During the trial, patients were given a single injection of 1, 10, or 50 million MSCs directly into the knee. The trial used a number of tests associated with knee osteoarthritis, including the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), a common set of standardized questionnaires used by healthcare professionals to evaluate the condition of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. The WOMAC includes questions relating to pain, stiffness, and the physical functioning of the joints.

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On the degenerative disk disease and senescent cells from FightAging: “… It is just a pity that so few older people know this at the present time — the hundreds of millions worldwide who are suffering when perhaps they need not be…”

At this point, I suspect it will surprise no-one who follows the field to learn that the accumulation of senescent cells is a significant cause of degenerative disc disease. The evidence from a mouse study that is provided in the open access paper here doesn’t quite rise to establishing that claim, but it is compelling nonetheless. Given the role of cellular senescence in arthritis, a disease of localized chronic inflammation, it is logical to also expect a role in the degeneration of intervertebral discs, as this is also a condition of aging in which inflammation seems important.

Senescent cells, even while present in only comparatively small numbers, generate a potent mix of molecules that spurs chronic inflammation and is destructive of surrounding tissue structure. Fortunately early senolytic compounds, those shown to destroy a sizable fraction of senescent cells cells in animal studies, are cheap and readily available to anyone willing to try this self-experiment. It is just a pity that so few older people know this at the present time — the hundreds of millions worldwide who are suffering when perhaps they need not be.

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Topol is a dreamer. “One can imagine that AI will rescue medicine from all that ails it, including diagnostic inaccuracy,” he writes. (There are roughly 12 million misdiagnoses of serious illness in the United States every year, and medical error kills a quarter-million Americans annually.) But even Topol admits that this hope is far from being actualized. Indeed.

Cardiologist Eric Topol explores the benefits of artificial intelligence in medicine.

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