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Russian scientists have found that treating cells with cold plasma leads to their regeneration and rejuvenation. This result can be used to develop a plasma therapy program for patients with non-healing wounds. The paper has been published in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.

Non-healing wounds make it more difficult to provide effective treatment to patients and are therefore a serious problem faced by doctors. These wounds can be caused by damage to blood vessels in the case of diabetes, failure of the immune system resulting from an HIV infection or cancers, or slow cell division in elderly people. Treatment of non-healing wounds by conventional methods is very difficult, and in some cases impossible.

Cold atmospheric-pressure plasma refers to a partially ionized gas—the proportion of charged particles in the gas is close to 1 percent, with a temperature below 100,000 K. Its application in biology and medicine is possible through the advent of plasma sources generating jets at 30–40?°C.

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An international collaboration of scientists involving a team of researchers at Manchester led by Dr. David J. Lewis has developed a tiny electric sensor, which could potentially improve patient survival rates by telling doctors if a person has had a heart attack.

Cardiovascular diseases account for around 30 per cent of adult deaths in the 30–70 year age group, which is greater than the combined deaths from all types of cancer. The ability to diagnose cardiac disease is therefore of utmost concern to doctors. When someone has a heart attack, certain chemicals are released into their bloodstream in elevated amounts, and blood tests are therefore the key to diagnosis.

Lewis, from Manchester’s School of Materials, has worked with his colleagues and a team at India’s Institute of Nano Science and Technology (INST) since 2014 to develop a nanoscale sensor made from ‘few-layer black phosphorus’, a new 2D material, which was coated in Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)/genetic material. The immobilised DNA binds to a chemical called myoglobin, which increases in blood plasma after a heart attack and can be detected and measured by a simple electrical test. This could have a major impact, as it is potentially the most rapid, sensitive, selective and accurate method currently available to detect if someone has elevated levels of myoglobin – the measurement of which is one of the methods used in hospitals to check if someone has suffered a heart attack. The researchers predict that its eventual introduction into the clinic could potentially improve patient survival rates after an attack.

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Interesting read.


When it comes to delivering drugs, nanoparticles shaped like rods and worms are the best bet for making the daunting journey to the centre of a cell, new Australian research suggests.

A new study published in Nature Nanotechnology has answered a long-standing question that could lead to the design of better drug delivery vehicles: how nanoparticle shape affects the voyage through the cell.

“We were able to show for the first time that nanoparticles shaped like rods and worms were more effective than spherical nanoparticles at traversing intracellular barriers and this enabled them to get all the way into the nucleus of the cell,” says lead author UNSW’s Dr Elizabeth Hinde.

I’m amazed no one has done this before, and there’s only one company doing it now. Microfabrica, based in Van Nuys, California, has perfected the technique of mass producing mechanical devices using the same electrodeposition technology used to make computer chips.

“We are the only high-volume production additive manufacturing platform in the market,” Microfabrica CEO Eric Miller tells me. “We use engineering grade metals to make commercially robust parts, and we’re focused on another end of the spectrum from where a lot of the 3D companies are focused, and that’s at the micro scale.”

The resulting devices are vanishingly small, and exquisitely made. How small? The company makes biopsy forceps less than a millimeter in diameter for a medical device company and timing mechanisms (i.e., clocks) that are less than half a centimeter across for a defense contractor, as well many other very small devices and precision parts.

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South Korean-based company Rokit is a 3D printing manufacturer we’ve talked about on several occasions before. In February this year, they released Edison Invivo, a tissue engineering and bio-medical research 3D printer that uses a bio ink to produce cell structures in the form of organic tissue.

Now, as a constant innovator, Rokit is back with their latest and also the world first Multi-Use Hybrid Bio 3D printer — Rokit Invivo. What’s exciting is that this awesome bioprinter will be revealed very soon on 30th, September in the Digical Show held by London-based iMakr.

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Interesting article overall; however, I have noticed many Gastric Bypass patients from my area who drastically loss weight quickly within a year had stomach, throat, and esophageal cancer. As with obesity being a trigger, I believe drastically changes with the body such as massive weight loss quickly could also trigger a cancer gene mutation. I would love to connect with others working of this type of research.


A review of more than a thousand studies has found solid evidence that being overweight or obese increases the risk for at least 13 types of cancer.

The study was conducted by a working group of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organisation.

Strong evidence was already available to link five cancers to being overweight or obese: adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, colorectal cancer, breast cancer in postmenopausal women, and uterine and kidney cancers.