Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,306

#OpenAccess #FullArticle The results of a new clinical trial have shown the safety and efficacy of the interoperable Artificial Pancreas System smartphone app (iAPS), which can interface wirelessly with leading continuous glucose monitors (CGM), insulin pump devices, and decision-making algorithms. The clinical trial and the app, which runs on an unlocked smartphone, are described in an article published in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics (DTT), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Diabetes Technology & TherapeuticsVol. 21, No. 1Original ArticlesFree AccessSunil Deshpande,…

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A movie montage for modern artificial intelligence might show a computer playing millions of games of chess or Go against itself to learn how to win. Now, researchers are exploring how the reinforcement learning technique that helped DeepMind’s AlphaZero conquer chess and Go could tackle an even more complex task—training a robotic knee to help amputees walk smoothly.

Computer algorithms help prosthetics wearers walk within minutes rather than requiring hours of training.

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CRISPR/Cas9 is a form of genetic editing that holds a lot of promise, such as the killing of cancer cells, but also comes with some hefty warnings, such as that it may cause DNA damage. So far, scientists have been using CRISPR/Cas9 in a variety of plants and animals to edit genetic information, including attempts to practice what is called ‘active genetics’.

This last approach is an attempt to edit the genome that controls which of the two copies of a gene is passed to the next generation. But the technique is complicated and rife with obstacles so thus far been used only on insects. Not anymore!

A team of biologists has now achieved the world’s first CRISPR/Cas9-based approach to control genetic inheritance in a mammal.

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Researchers have achieved a new kind of chimeric first, producing sheep-human hybrid embryos that could one day represent the future of organ donation – by using body parts grown inside unnatural, engineered animals. Scientists have created the first interspecies sheep-human chimera, introducing human stem cells into sheep embryos, resulting in a hybrid creature that’s more than 99 percent sheep – but also a tiny, little bit like you and me.

Admittedly, the human portion of the embryos created in the experiment – before they were destroyed after 28 days – is exceedingly small, but the fact it exists at all is what generates considerable controversy in this field of research.

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An artificial intelligence solution (AI) can accurately identify precancerous changes that could require medical attention in images from a woman’s cervix. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Global Good developed the computer algorithm, which is called automated visual evaluation.

Researchers created the algorithm by using more than 60,000 cervical images from a National Cancer Institute (NCI) archive of photos collected during a cervical cancer screening study that was carried out in Costa Rica in the 1990s.

More than 9,400 women participated in that population study, with follow up that lasted up to 18 years. Because of the prospective nature of the study, the researchers said that they gained nearly complete information on which cervical changes became pre-cancers and which did not.

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Prof Pugh is using motion-tracking sensors to test how trainee surgeons use the instruments, for example in a simulated hernia repair. Their performance is measured, videoed and compared with best practice at each stage, so they can understand where they need to improve.

“Like Olympic athletes, they can practise repeatedly until they understand the routine and where they need to improve. That is the goal in training surgeons.” The next step is to use sensors in real operations.

Being able to measure pressure will help create better surgical robots, says Richard Trimlett, a cardiothoracic surgeon and head of mechanical support at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Trust, London.

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Parts of human DNA are of viral origin: many of them were inserted into the primordial genetic material of our ancestors many millions of years ago and have been inherited by successive generations ever since. Thus, they are not thought to vary much in the genomes of modern humans. Human endogenous retroviruses (HERV) are by far the most common virus-derived sequences in our genome. New research published in Mobile DNA shows a mechanism that has introduced more inter-individual variation in HERV content between humans than previously appreciated.

Jainy Thomas & Cédric Feschotte 25 Jan 2019.

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