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Finally, maybe hope for GBM patients.


In a rapid-fire series of breakthroughs in just under a year, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have made another stunning advance in the development of an effective treatment for glioblastoma, a common and aggressive brain cancer. The work, published in the Feb. 1 issue of Science Translational Medicine, describes how human stem cells, made from human skin cells, can hunt down and kill human brain cancer, a critical and monumental step toward clinical trials — and real treatment.

Last year, the UNC-Chapel Hill team, led by Shawn Hingtgen, an assistant professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and member of the Lineberger Comprehensive Care Center, used the technology to convert mouse skin cells to stem cells that could home in on and kill human brain cancer, increasing time of survival 160 to 220 percent, depending on the tumor type. Now, they not only show that the technique works with human cells but also works quickly enough to help patients, whose median survival is less than 18 months and chance of surviving beyond two years is 30 percent.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found that deep brain stimulation (DBS) can greatly reduce the compulsion to use heroin in standard rat models of addiction.

Rats that were used to taking , and normally would have self-administered more and more of the drug, did not escalate their intake when treated with DBS.

The treatment involves the weak electrical stimulation, via implanted electrodes, of a brain region called the subthalamic .

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Great method btw.


Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder in the United States. Patients who have it are of all ages and it can seriously limit one’s ability to enjoy life. It’s a spectrum disorder which means the kinds of seizures people suffer and how they are managed will vary depending on the patient. Currently about 3 million people in the US are living with epilepsy and experts predict that at least 1 in 26 people will develop epilepsy at some point in their lifetime. While epilepsy is most often treated with anti-seizure medication, there are some patients who have not benefitted from medication. This form of the disorder is called drug-resistant epilepsy and can be very difficult to treat.

There are surgical options, but it’s crucial to have a good picture of the brain’s anatomy before any surgery is undertaken. Currently there are two methods for this. A recent article published by the American Academy of Neurology in the medical journal Neurology, looked at the two methods and revised the guidelines for each. The more common method of mapping the brain before surgery is the intracarotid amobarbital procedure, also known as the Wada test. In this procedure one side of the brain is anesthetized by injecting medication via the carotid artery. It’s invasive, can be uncomfortable and does carry some risk. The other way to get a look at the brain architecture is to use functional MRI scans.

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Certainly explains patterns in certain families.


TUESDAY, Jan. 31, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Developing or worsening type 2 diabetes could be an early sign of pancreatic cancer, new research suggests.

Researchers analyzed data from nearly a million patients with type 2 diabetes or pancreatic cancer in Italy and Belgium. Half of all pancreatic cancer cases were diagnosed within a year of patients being diagnosed with diabetes, the findings showed.

The investigators also found that type 2 diabetes patients whose condition deteriorated rapidly requiring more aggressive treatment were also at increased risk for pancreatic cancer.

Nice.


When you think of diamonds, rings and anniversaries generally come to mind. But one day, the first thing that will come to mind may be bone surgery. By carefully designing modified diamonds at the nano-scale level, a Missouri University of Science and Technology researcher hopes to create multifunctional diamond-based materials for applications ranging from advanced composites to drug delivery platforms and biomedical imaging agents.

Dr. Vadym Mochalin, an associate professor of chemistry and materials science and engineering at Missouri S&T, is characterizing and modifying 5-nanometer nanodiamond particles produced from expired military grade explosives so that they can be developed to perform specific tasks. His current research studies their use as a filler in various types of composites.

Mochalin hopes to develop a way to uniformly incorporate the nanodiamonds and form strong chemical bonds between them to help design composite structures that can be used in medical applications, oil drilling bits, polishing and lubricating compositions, and even energy storage systems. Nanodiamonds are the ideal choice for such applications because they are mechanically strong, chemically stable and non-toxic. They can also form bonds with many other materials due to their tailorable surface chemistry.

Highly sophisticated robotics and ‘bio-printing’ are rapidly changing the face of modern surgery, significantly eliminating the risk of human error and in some cases even allowing doctors to perform procedures remotely, according to experts at Arab Health.

Dr Peter C.W. Kim, vice-president and associate surgeon-in-chief of the Joseph E. Roberts Jr. Centre for Surgical Care at Washington DC’s Children’s National — which has received millions of dollars in donations from the UAE’s government — noted that doctors will soon be able to 3D-print using bio-tissue, such as for an eardrum.

“What our engineers and researchers have done is not only design the plastic with it, but also graft cells onto it,” he said. “This is where we are going. You will (in the future) be able to have organs on the shelf. Instead of harvesting it, you can print it.”

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San Francisco-based research company Otherlab is developing a new concept for disposable delivery drones made of cardboard.

The project is funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA), and it aims to develop drones which can be used to deliver medical supplies and other cargo to remote or hard-to-reach locations.

The drone is designed to make only an outward journey – no returns – and then be discarded. The fact that the drone only has to make a one-way trip will extend its range. The vehicle’s primary method of propulsion will be gliding.

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The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy has partnered with dozens of organizations to develop a cancer vaccine to prevent the disease which is expected to grow by an additional 21.7 million through 2030. The plan is to target genetic markers specific to tumors to allow the body to generate an immune response to combat the cancer before it ever takes hold.

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