Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 2564

Bioprinting new organs and tissues could make transplants available and affordable for all, but is still decades away. In the meantime, scientists have re-purposed the technology to 3D print biocompatible high-precision silicone implants instead.

Soft materials like biological material or silicone are difficult to 3D print because they can’t support themselves like the more rigid plastics typically used by 3D printers. In 2015, Tommy Angelini’s lab at the University of Florida developed a new way of 3D printing soft materials by injecting them into a granular gel similar to hand sanitizer that supports them as they are deposited.

Read more

Researchers have come up with yet another candidate for a male contraceptive — this time in the form of a chemical found in certain traditional arthritis remedies.

The team identified molecules that stop sperm from reaching the necessary speed to charge into the egg cell, opening the way for both a new kind of emergency contraceptive and prophylactic that anybody could use.

The target of these molecules is a small gate found throughout the sperm’s tail called Catsper (a combination of cation channel and sperm), which was identified in 2001 by researchers studying male infertility.

Read more

  • Researchers have constructed a laboratory model for a unique neurological disorder by transforming patients’ own cells using stem cell technology.
  • This innovation could also benefit the research of other neurological disorders that may also have roots in a dysfunctional blood-brain barrier, like Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease.

The human body is a melding of different systems designed to function well together. In some cases, however, a mechanism that protects the body can also cause it harm, like with the specialized shield of endothelial cells — called the blood-brain barrier — that keeps toxins in the blood from entering the brain.

Read more

New research carried out one of the biggest ever studies of ancient genomes…

A Bronze Age ‘beaker culture’ invaded Britain 4,000 years ago: Intruders forced out ancient farmers that built famous relics such as Stonehenge.

  • New research carried out one of the biggest ever studies of ancient genomes
  • It found that beaker people forced prehistoric Neolithic farmers out of Britain
  • DNA analyses found that Britain underwent a 90 per cent shift in its genetic make-up when the beaker folk arrived
Continue reading “Bronze Age beaker culture invaded Britain 4,000 years ago” | >

End of donations? Scientists are ‘tantalisingly close’ to creating human blood using a patient’s own SKIN…

Ground-breaking research could pave the way for blood cells to be generated from a patient’s own skin, spelling the end for blood donations.

Scientists have for the first time used embryonic stem cells — capable of creating every kind of tissue in the body to manufacture a broad range of human blood cells.

Continue reading “Scientists are close‘ to creating blood using a patient’s own SKIN” | >

3D printed ovaries restore fertility to mice. Another step towards more complex organs.

There is a clinical need to develop a bioengineering system to support ovary transplantation. Here, the authors generate a bioprosthetic ovary using 3D printed scaffolds of varying pore architectures to support follicle survival and ovarian function in sterilized mice.

Read more

University of Florida (UF) researchers have developed a method for 3D printing soft-silicone medical implants that are stronger, quicker, less expensive, more flexible, and more comfortable than the implants currently available. That should be good news for the millions of people every year who need medical devices implanted.

Model 3D-printed silicone trachea implant (credit: University of Florida)

Read more

I get beat up in The Guardian today a bit with a ham-fisted review. But make no mistake, the book Radicals by journalist and Immortality Bus rider Jamie Bartlett, which is coming out in a few days, is important and brilliant: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/16/radicals-outsi…ett-review #transhumanism

This thoughtful study of radical movements explores politics, sex and drugs.

Read more

Scientists have successfully re-awoken coma patients so they can communicate with their family by ‘zapping’ their brain with a low-intensity current.

Two people in a vegetative state, and another 13 in a minimally-conscious coma, were able to show new signs of awareness after receiving brain stimulation, New Scientist reported.

The effect lasted for up to a week, according to researchers at the University of Liege in Belgium.

Read more