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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,562

Goodbye Surgery? Scientists Just Made Eye Drops that Dissolve Cataracts

Most of us take our vision for granted. As a result, we take the ability to read, write, drive, and complete a multitude of other tasks for granted. However, sight is not so easy for everyone. Indeed, for many people, simply seeing is a struggle.

There are more than 285 million people worldwide who have vision problems. According to the Fred Hollows Foundation, an estimated 32.4 million people around the world are blind. Ultimately, 90% of these people live in developing countries, and more than half of these cases of blindness are caused by cataracts. Indeed, cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in the world.

Mark Zuckerberg-Funded Researchers Test Implantable Brain Devices

Mark Zuckerberg and his pediatrician wife Priscilla Chan have sold close to 30 million shares of Facebook to fund an ambitious biomedical research project, called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), with a goal of curing all disease within a generation. A less publicized component of that US$5 billion program includes work on brain-machine interfaces, devices that essentially translate thoughts into commands.

From a report: One recent project is a wireless brain implant that can record, stimulate and disrupt the movement of a monkey in real time. In a paper published in the highly cited scientific journal Nature on Monday, researchers detail a wireless brain device implanted in a primate that records, stimulates, and modifies its brain activity in real time, sensing a normal movement and stopping it immediately. Those researchers are part of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a non-profit medical research group within the CZI. Scientists refer to the interference as “therapy” because it is designed to be used to treat diseases like epilepsy or Parkinson’s by stopping a seizure or other disruptive motion just as it starts.

“Our device is able to monitor the primate’s brain while it’s providing the therapy so you know exactly what’s happening,” Rikky Muller, a co-author of the new study, told Business Insider. A professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, Muller is also a Biohub investigator. The applications of brain-machine interfaces are far-reaching: while some researchers focus on using them to help assist people with spinal cord injuries or other illnesses that affect movement, others aim to see them transform how everyone interacts with laptops and smartphones. Both a division at Facebook formerly called Building 8 as well as an Elon Musk-founded company called Neuralink have said they are working on the latter.

Rejuvenation: The discovery of animal cloning and subsequent development of cell reprogramming technology were quantum leaps as they led to the achievement of rejuvenation by cell reprogramming and the emerging view that aging is a reversible epigenetic process

Here, we will first summarize the experimental achievements over the last 7 years in cell and animal rejuvenation. Then, a comparison will be made between the principles of the cumulative DNA damage theory of aging and the basic facts underlying the epigenetic model of aging, including Horvath’s epigenetic clock. The third part will apply both models to two natural processes, namely, the setting of the aging clock in the mammalian zygote and the changes in the aging clock along successive generations in mammals. The first study demonstrating that skin fibroblasts from healthy centenarians can be rejuvenated by cell reprogramming was published in 2011 and will be discussed in some detail. Other cell rejuvenation studies in old humans and rodents published afterwards will be very briefly mentioned. The only in vivo study reporting that a number of organs of old progeric mice can be rejuvenated by cyclic partial reprogramming will also be described in some detail. The cumulative DNA damage theory of aging postulates that as an animal ages, toxic reactive oxygen species generated as byproducts of the mitochondria during respiration induce a random and progressive damage in genes thus leading cells to a progressive functional decline. The epigenetic model of aging postulates that there are epigenetic marks of aging that increase with age, leading to a progressive derepression of DNA which in turn causes deregulated expression of genes that disrupt cell function. The cumulative DNA damage model of aging fails to explain the resetting of the aging clock at the time of conception as well as the continued vitality of species as millenia go by. In contrast, the epigenetic model of aging straightforwardly explains both biologic phenomena. A plausible initial application of rejuvenation in vivo would be preventing adult individuals from aging thus eliminating a major risk factor for end of life pathologies. Further, it may allow the gradual achievement of whole body rejuvenation.

Brain ‘pacemaker’ could prevent tremors and seizures for Parkinson’s and epilepsy sufferers

A ‘pacemaker’ for the brain is on the horizon to prevent people with Parkinson’s and epilepsy suffering from seizures and tremors.

The device is made up of two tiny array of electrodes which sit inside the skull, and link to a circuit board on the side of the head.

The ‘pacemaker’ records the normal electrical current of the brain continually and if it notices a change of rhythm immediately fires a stimulating charge to coax the pulse back to normal.

A Closer Look At What A Stem Cell Is: Our Cells’ Diverse Regenerative Capabilities

For several decades now, one of the buzz words in the medical field has been ‘stem cell’. It has been said to aid in treating illnesses like multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart diseases.

For the past three years, researchers at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands have been painstakingly cataloging and mapping all the proliferating cells found in mouse hearts, looking for cardiac stem cells. The elusive cells should theoretically be able to repair damaged heart muscle, so the stakes in finding them have been high.

This week, however, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is scheduled to announce the results of the Hubrecht team’s work: no evidence of cardiac stem cells at all.

Injection to halt the progress of Alzheimer’s ‘available within decade’

An injection capable of halting the progress of Alzheimer’s could be available to patients within a decade, Britain’s leading dementia organisation predicts.

The Alzheimer’s Society says a series of recent breakthroughs in treatments that disrupt harmful genes has brought scientists to a “tipping point” in their fight against the disease.

For decades, researchers have sought without success a treatment for Alzheimer’s based on targeting damaging proteins that build up in the brain.

Australian researchers have developed a test that can detect cancer cells in 10 minutes

A quick and easy test devised by scientists from the University of Queensland could transform cancer diagnosis as we know it.

Cancer is a difficult disease to diagnose because different types are characterised by different signatures. Until now, scientists have been unable to find a unique signature common to all forms of cancer that would set it apart from healthy cells.

That’s what University of Queensland researchers Dr Laura Carrascosa, Dr Abu Sina and Professor Matt Trau have addressed. They have discovered a unique DNA nanostructure that seems to be common to all types of cancer and is visible when cancer cells are placed in water.