Biotech/medical – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Mar 17
2019

Amazon removes books that promoted an autism ‘cure’

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon has removed books from its website that promoted “cures” for autism, the latest major company to try to limit the amount of misinformation related to autism and the bogus notion that it’s caused by vaccines.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no cure for autism spectrum disorder, only medications that can help some function better. It also says there is no link between vaccines and autism.

An Amazon.com Inc. spokeswoman confirmed the books were no longer available, but did not answer any additional questions.

Mar 17
2019

Spaceflight found to reactivate dormant viruses in astronauts

There are certainly a whole host of technological hurdles to overcome before humans successfully travel to Mars, or beyond, but research is also pointing to a growing assortment of fundamental health challenges that astronauts may face from long stretches of time in space. A recent NASA-funded study has found dormant viruses can reactivate in the human body during spaceflight, presenting yet another physiological problem for scientists to solve before we journey out into deep space.

Mar 16
2019

Germline gene-editing research needs rules

In the wake of CRISPR babies, there is an urgent need to better regulate and debate whether, when and how related research should be done.

Mar 16
2019

Ebola Epidemic in Congo Could Last Another Year, C.D.C. Director Warns

Returning from a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the agency chief also worried that vaccine supplies could run out.

Mar 16
2019

Study highlights danger of vitamin B12 deficiency

Using roundworms, one of Earth’s simplest animals, Rice University bioscientists have found the first direct link between a diet with too little vitamin B12 and an increased risk of infection by two potentially deadly pathogens.

Despite their simplicity, 1-millimeter-long nematodes called Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) share an important limitation with humans: They cannot make B12 and must get all they need from their diet. In a study published today in PLOS Genetics, researchers from the lab of Rice biochemist and cancer researcher Natasha Kirienko describe how a B12-deficient diet harms C. elegans’ health at a cellular level, reducing the worms’ ability to metabolize branched-chain amino acids (BCAA). The research showed that the reduced ability to break down BCAAs led to a toxic buildup of partially metabolized BCAA byproducts that damaged mitochondrial health.

Researchers studied the health of two populations of worms, one with a diet sufficient in B12 and another that got too little B12 from its diet. Like the second population of worms, at least 10 percent of U.S. adults get too little B12 in their diet, a risk that increases with age.

Mar 16
2019

Pancreatic cancer: Two-hit treatment approach shows promise

Autophagy inhibitors could be more potent against pancreatic cancer by first applying a drug that makes the cancer cells dependent on autophagy for energy.

Mar 16
2019

Paralyzed Patients Can Now Control Android Tablets With Their Minds

Signals from the electrical cacophony within groups of neurons inside the motor cortex were passed on to a computer running custom software for decoding.

Mar 16
2019

Pain Control in a Post-Opioid World — Prof. Peter McNaughton FMedSci — IdeaXme — Ira Pastor

Mar 16
2019

MIT research shows brain wave stimulation might help Alzheimer’s

Of all the conditions that affect the elderly, one of the hardest for family and medical providers to deal with is Alzheimer’s disease. This condition impairs memory to the point that some afflicted with the condition can’t remember their loved ones. MIT researchers have found a new potential treatment that has shown promise in testing.

Mar 16
2019

Stem Cell Therapies for Treating Diabetes: Progress and Remaining Challenges

It is often not the lack of a cure, but the lack of will. Many great strides have been made with diabetes, when people stopped trying to develop medicines, and instead focused on how to enable the body to produce insulin.

Restoration of insulin independence and normoglycemia has been the overarching goal in diabetes research and therapy. While whole-organ and islet transplantation have become gold-standard procedures in achieving glucose control in diabetic patients, the profound lack of suitable donor tissues severely hampers the broad application of these therapies. Here, we describe current efforts aimed at generating a sustainable source of functional human stem cell-derived insulin-producing islet cells for cell transplantation and present state-of-the-art efforts to protect such cells via immune modulation and encapsulation strategies.