Biotech/medical – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Dec 5
2018

Bioquark — Electroceuticals — Real Bodies

Stefania De Matteo of HealthQe at Real Bodies Milan giving an overview of some of the new bio-physical tools (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwPANPNRY4g) being developed for a 2019 biotech world

With major pharma companies like GSK entering the “electro-ceuticals” space (and groups like RegenerAge Clinic beginning to utilize them in combinatorial protocols) we are seeing a re-emergence of these century old principles back into the mainstream bio-medical discussion

I suggest everyone acquire a copy of Dr. Richard Funk’s paper “Electromagnetic effects — From cell biology to medicine” to familiarize themselves with these topics, and how they will become a synergistic part of integrated solutions for human regeneration, disease reversion, and age reversal — https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23938298_Electromag…_medicine/

Dec 5
2018

First baby born after deceased womb transplant

There have been 39 womb transplants using a live donor, including mothers donating their womb to their daughter, resulting in 11 babies.

But the 10 previous transplants from a dead donor have failed or resulted in miscarriage.

In this case, reported in The Lancet, the womb donor was a mother of three in her mid-40s who died from bleeding on the brain.

Dec 5
2018

Scientists discover how a single workout can activate your metabolism for days

A fascinating new study from scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center could provide some motivation to get moving, even just occasionally. The research has revealed that a single workout can positively affect the activity of neurons in the brain that influence metabolism for up to two days.

Dec 5
2018

In World First, Woman Gives Birth After Receiving Uterus Transplant from Dead Donor

A team of doctors in Brazil have announced a medical first that could someday help countless women unable to have children because of a damaged or absent uterus. In a case report published Tuesday in the Lancet, they claim to have successfully helped a woman give birth using a transplanted uterus from a deceased donor.

According to the report, the team performed the operation on an unnamed 32-year-old woman in a Brazilian hospital in September 2016. The woman had been born with a rare genetic condition that left her without a uterus, known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, but she was otherwise healthy. The donor was a 45-year-old woman who had suddenly died of stroke; she had had three successful pregnancies delivered vaginally in the past.

Dec 4
2018

The FDA just approved a drug that targets cancers based on DNA, rather than where the tumor is in your body

The FDA on Monday approved a new cancer treatment in an unconventional way: not by tumor type, but rather by the genetic mutation the drug targets.
The drug, Vitrakvi, was developed by Loxo Oncology in partnership with pharma giant Bayer.
It’s only the second time the FDA has approved a cancer drug’s use based on a certain mutation rather than a particular tumor type.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday took an unconventional approach to approving a new cancer drug.

The drug, Vitrakvi, was developed by Loxo Oncology. It’s the company’s first drug to get approved.

Dec 4
2018

CRISPR creates new species with single giant chromosome

For at least the last 10 million years every yeast cell of the sort used to make beer or bread has had 16 chromosomes. But now—thanks to CRISPR technology and some DNA tinkerers in China—there are living yeast with just one.

Genome organizer: We humans have our genes arranged on 46 chromosomes, yeast use 16, and there’s even a fern plant with 1260 of them. That’s just the way it is. And no one is quite sure why.

The big one: Do we really need so many chromosomes? That’s what Zhogjun Qin and colleagues at the Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology in Shanghai wanted to know.

Dec 4
2018

Natural selection in the womb can explain health problems in adulthood

Conditions encountered in the womb — when the embryo consists of only about 100 cells — can have life-long impact on health. Scientists previously assumed that this is because embryos respond to adverse conditions by programming their gene expression. Now an international team of researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center, Wageningen University and Research, Lund University, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York propose a radically different alternative. Rather than being programmed by the environment, random differences in gene expression may provide some embryos with a survival advantage, in particular when conditions are harsh. By studying DNA methylation, an important mechanism to control gene activity, the researchers found that a specific part of the DNA methylation pattern was missing among famine-exposed individuals. The findings are published in the journal Cell Reports.

Dec 4
2018

Blood test to detect cancer within just 10 minutes developed by scientists

A blood test can detect cancer within just 10 minutes, scientists have found, raising hopes that hard-to-spot diseases could be picked up early when treatment is most effective.

Currently doctors use symptoms and a raft of tests and biopsies to determine if cancer is present which can sometimes take months.

The new method from the University of Queensland looks for differences in the genetic code of cancerous and healthy cells.

Dec 4
2018

Reverse Brain Death with Stem Cells

Who isn’t interested in new ways to apply stem cell therapy these days?

Speaking of, have you heard about the scientists in Philadelphia, PA, who have been injecting stem cells directly into the spinal cords of medically brain-dead people in order to revive them?

In a page taken from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the idea of “bringing people back from the dead” is a little too much like “playing God” for some critics to appreciate.

Dec 4
2018

“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” Goldman Sachs analysts ask

Analyst Salveen Richter and colleagues laid it out:

The potential to deliver “one shot cures” is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically engineered cell therapy, and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies… While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.

For a real-world example, they pointed to Gilead Sciences, which markets treatments for hepatitis C that have cure rates exceeding 90 percent. In 2015, the company’s hepatitis C treatment sales peaked at $12.5 billion. But as more people were cured and there were fewer infected individuals to spread the disease, sales began to languish. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the treatments will bring in less than $4 billion this year.