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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,507

Battelle-Led Team Wins DARPA Award to Develop Injectable, Bi-Directional Brain Computer Interface

Here’s an exciting concept that was actually first discussed in 1959 by Richard Feynman in an article entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”.

I am most interested in this technology for mind uploading.

“Battelle’s N3 concept for a minimally invasive neural interface system, called BrainSTORMS (Brain System to Transmit Or Receive Magnetoelectric Signals), involves the development of a novel nanotransducer that could be temporarily introduced into the body via injection and then directed to a specific area of the brain to help complete a task through communication with a helmet-based transceiver.”

COLUMBUS, Ohio—()—Battelle has for years successfully demonstrated brain-computer interface (BCI) projects—just look at NeuroLife®, which has enabled a quadriplegic man to move his hand again using his thoughts. Now, the government’s forward-thinking Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract to a Battelle-led team that pushes researchers into the realm of what was once considered science fiction.

“This is one of the most exciting and challenging projects I have worked on” Tweet this

Imagine this: A soldier puts on a helmet and uses his or her thoughts alone to control multiple unmanned vehicles or a bomb disposal robot. That’s the basis for this effort for DARPA’s Next-Generation Non-Surgical Neurotechnology (N3) program. The N3 program seeks development of high-performance, bi-directional brain-machine interfaces for able-bodied service members. Most of the current BCI research, including Battelle’s NeuroLife technology, focuses on helping people with disabilities who must undergo invasive implant procedures, including brain surgery, to enable a BCI that can restore lost function. For the next BCI leap, in which the technology can be used by healthy military service members, it’s imperative to find lower-risk and less-invasive options.

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City of Boulder Issues Local Emergency Declaration

Disaster emergency is in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic and the effects it is having on the city.

The City of Boulder has declared a local disaster emergency in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic and the effects it is having on the city.

City Manager Jane Brautigam issued a disaster emergency declaration today effective at 6 p.m. This creates a state of emergency for Boulder. The declaration provides the city manager with tools necessary to protect the public health and safety. The City Manager has authority to issue a disaster emergency declaration for a period of up to 7 days. To be effective for more than 7 days, the declaration must be confirmed and extended by the city council. Staff will ask the city council to consider doing so at the March 17, 2020 council meeting. The disaster emergency declaration provides the city manager with the authority to, among other things, order a curfew, limit large gatherings, close streets and sidewalks and order businesses to close. Violation of any emergency order would be punishable by a fine of up to $1000 and up to 90 days in jail.

Scientists find toolkit to aid repair of damaged DNA

March 9 (UPI) — Scientists have developed a technique for repairing damaged DNA. The breakthrough, published this week in the journal Nature Communications, could pave the way for new therapies for cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.

The accumulation of DNA damage is responsible for aging, cancer and neurological diseases like motor neuron disease, also known as ALS.

Until now, scientists have struggled to find ways to repair this kind of damage. However, researchers have discovered a new protein called TEX264 that can combine with other enzymes to find and destroy toxic proteins that bind to DNA and trigger damage.

U.S. FDA approves Thermo Fisher’s coronavirus test: official

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc’s coronavirus test, which would allow the firm to increase capacity to 1.4 million tests a week, a Trump administration official said.

“This will dramatically increase our ability to test people for the virus,” the official said. It was not immediately clear if capacity referred to test kit production or processing of tests performed on individual patients.

The move comes as the Trump administration struggles to meet demand for testing. The FDA has already approved emergency authorization for a faster coronavirus test made by Swiss diagnostics maker Roche.

Coronavirus will bankrupt more people than it kills — and that’s the real global emergency

Coronavirus’s economic danger is exponentially greater than its health risks to the public. If the virus does directly affect your life, it is most likely to be through stopping you going to work, forcing your employer to make you redundant, or bankrupting your business.

The trillions of dollars wiped from financial markets this week will be just the beginning, if our governments do not step in. And if President Trump continues to stumble in his handling of the situation, it may well affect his chances of re-election. Joe Biden in particular has identified Covid-19 as a weakness for Trump, promising “steady, reassuring” leadership during America’s hour of need.

© Provided by The Independent Worldwide, Covid-19 has killed 4,389 with 31 US deaths as of today. But it will economically cripple millions, especially since the epidemic has formed a perfect storm with stock market crashes, an oil war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, and the spilling over of an actual war in Syria into another potential migrant crisis.

Extracellular nanovesicles for packaging of CRISPR-Cas9 protein and sgRNA to induce therapeutic exon skipping

Prolonged expression of the CRISPR-Cas9 nuclease and gRNA from viral vectors may cause off-target mutagenesis and immunogenicity. Thus, a transient delivery system is needed for therapeutic genome editing applications. Here, we develop an extracellular nanovesicle-based ribonucleoprotein delivery system named NanoMEDIC by utilizing two distinct homing mechanisms. Chemical induced dimerization recruits Cas9 protein into extracellular nanovesicles, and then a viral RNA packaging signal and two self-cleaving riboswitches tether and release sgRNA into nanovesicles. We demonstrate efficient genome editing in various hard-to-transfect cell types, including human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, neurons, and myoblasts. NanoMEDIC also achieves over 90% exon skipping efficiencies in skeletal muscle cells derived from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patient iPS cells. Finally, single intramuscular injection of NanoMEDIC induces permanent genomic exon skipping in a luciferase reporter mouse and in mdx mice, indicating its utility for in vivo genome editing therapy of DMD and beyond.

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