Healthcare can be transformed with the innovation and insights of AI and machine learning. From robot-assisted surgery to virtual nursing assistants, diagnosing conditions facilitating workflow and analyzing images, AI and machines can help improve outcomes for patients and lower costs for providers.
A new study shows that the antipsychotics perphenazine and fluphenazine can successfully destroy cancer cells in cell cultures and rodents.
But the great potential of artificial intelligence shall become fully clear when considering its possible applications to drug discovery. It seems an era ago since the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003; since then, sequencing capabilities and softwares for data analysis rapidly established themselves as the new paradigm for drug discovery thanks to the increasing availability of IT technologies and the institutional and governmental support to big data analytics’ policies.
The exponential growth of the market
The annual growth rate of the market of artificial intelligence for healthcare applications has been recently estimated by Global Market Insights to be 40% CAGR (Compounded Average Growth Rate) per year up to 2024, starting from a value on $ 750 million in 2016.
A new way of administering drugs for wet age-related macular degeneration might be close.
Two studies by researchers at the University of Birmingham have shown that delivering drugs against the wet form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in the form of eyedrops might soon be possible in humans [1, 2].
What is age-related macular degeneration?
AMD is a pathology of the retina, which is a light-sensitive tissue located in the back of the eye and is similar to the film in a non-digital camera. Two-dimensional images are created on the retina and are subsequently transferred to the brain in the form of electrical neural impulses. Near the center of the retina is the macula, an oval-shaped region responsible for central, high-resolution, color vision. In AMD, the macula is damaged, impairing or preventing this kind of vision. AMD is progressive, but it cannot lead to total blindness, as it doesn’t affect peripheral vision. It comes in two forms, wet and dry, with the latter being overwhelmingly more common and, unfortunately, presently incurable. As the name suggests, the highest risk factor for AMD is age; the disease is usually observed only in patients over 50.
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These prosthetics are so realistic that it’s hard to tell what is real or fake.
Robots like this, nanobots that can work in the body, should be the main focus for curing all disease. And instead of focusing on Drug Delivery, have the nanobots just go in and attack or fix the problem themselves.
A Brock University research team has created a microscopic robot that has the potential to identify drug resistance to tuberculosis faster than conventional tests.
The World Health Organization (WHO) calls tuberculosis drug resistance “a formidable obstacle” to treatment and prevention of a disease that killed 240,000 people in 2016.
The Brock team’s latest technology builds on an earlier version of the microscopic robot—called the three-dimensional DNA nanomachine—they created in 2016 to detect diseases in a blood sample within 30 minutes.
As the master code of life, DNA can do a lot of things. Inheritance. Gene therapy. Wipe out an entire species. Solve logic problems. Recognize your sloppy handwriting.
Wait, What?
In a brilliant study published in Nature, a team from Caltech cleverly hacked the properties of DNA, essentially turning it into a molecular artificial neural network.
A proposed billion-dollar American particle collider has received enthusiastic backing from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, according to a newly released report.
This proposed “electron-ion collider,” or EIC, would serve as a state-of-the-art facility designed to answer some of the deepest questions about our Universe. The National Academies “finds a compelling scientific case for such a facility,” according to its report released today.
LONDON — An international team of scientists has moved closer to creating artificial embryos after using mouse stem cells to make structures capable of taking a crucial step in the development of life.
Experts said the results suggested human embryos could be created in a similar way in future — a step that would allow scientists to use artificial embryos rather than real ones to research the very earliest stages of human development.
The team, led by Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a professor at Britain’s Cambridge University, had previously created a simpler structure resembling a mouse embryo in a lab dish. That work involved two types of stem cells and a three-dimensional scaffold on which they could grow.
Posted in biotech/medical, cyborgs, robotics/AI, transhumanism
