Chinese researchers, looking for a cure to lung cancer, inject the first ever Crispr-edited cells into a human being.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 2671
Harsh environment, less rain, and lack of infrastructure are among the many problems African countries face. Water scarcity and the lack of drinkable water, however, is a grave problem among all. It makes people use water from contaminated bodies which is the sole reason of water borne diseases like, diarrhea and typhoid.
Hundreds of organizations around the globe have taken this issue head-on. And Google, one of the most innovative companies of the planet, is in the league, too.
Google has launched multiple projects including Project Makani and Project Loon to resolve the power outages and connectivity issues in areas where they are most needed. Since the power and connectivity issues are already being worked upon, Google took another step to help these countries fight the water scarcity problem.
In Brief:
- A drug already in use to treat chronic diseases like Multiple Sclerosis has been discovered to also effectively restore nerve function.
- The Department of Defense also has shown confidence in the drug by giving a million dollars to help fund research.
A new study led by the University of Rochester Medical Center suggests that a currently available drug may have properties that allow it to be used for the treatment of traumatic nerve injuries sustained in car accidents, sports injuries, or in combat.
Transfer printing microstructures onto novel hydrogel interfaces and customised composite electrodes could increase the compatibility and information transfer between body tissue and electronic devices.
Implantable devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, and deep brain stimulation devices enhance the quality of life for many people. Improving the integration of such devices with the body could enable the next generation of brain-machine interfaces (such as, implantable devices that can record and modulate neurological function in vivo) to monitor physiology, detect disease, and deploy bioelectronic medicines.
As the year moves on and we look back at the achievements this year we would be remiss to not mention the fantastic result we got for the OncoSENS fundraiser hosted on Lifespan.io. We raised an amazing $72,002 for ALT cancer research thanks to the amazing supporters we have. Thank you to everyone who helped and donated to OncoSENS to make it another victory for SENS Research and for Science!
Luv it! Wait until we make the marriage of QC meets Synbio — QC for the infrastructure and communications, and Synbio makes us all connected.
Cambridge, MA (Scicasts) — Synthetic biology allows scientists to design genetic circuits that can be placed in cells, giving them new functions such as producing drugs or other useful molecules. However, as these circuits become more complex, the genetic components can interfere with each other, making it difficult to achieve more complicated functions.
MIT researchers have now demonstrated that these circuits can be isolated within individual synthetic “cells,” preventing them from disrupting each other. The researchers can also control communication between these cells, allowing for circuits or their products to be combined at specific times.
“It’s a way of having the power of multicomponent genetic cascades, along with the ability to build walls between them so they won’t have cross-talk. They won’t interfere with each other in the way they would if they were all put into a single cell or into a beaker,” says Edward Boyden, an associate professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. Boyden is also a member of MIT’s Media Lab and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and an HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar.
Scientists have discovered an antibody produced by an HIV-positive patient that neutralises 98 percent of all HIV strains tested — including most of the strains that are resistant to other antibodies of the same class.
Due to HIV’s ability to rapidly respond to the body’s immune defences, an antibody that can block a wide range of strains has been very hard to come by. But now that we’ve found one, it could form the basis of a new vaccine against the virus.
Researchers from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that the antibody, called NG, was able to maintain its ability to recognise the HIV virus, even as the virus morphed and broke away from it.
Lenses with a surface accuracy in the nanometer range are behind ever more accurate laser and optical systems. Manufacturers depend on ultra-precise optical and mechanical ablation processes, innovative coating processes and extremely accurate measuring technology to venture into these nano-worlds. The latest trends in optical manufacturing will be showcased by the world’s leading trade fair LASER World of PHOTONICS, from June 26–29, 2017 in Munich.
Nanoscribe GmbH’s 3D printing process creates three-dimensional micro and nano lenses from photosensitive coatings. The structures are built up a pulse at a time by highly focused femtosecond lasers employing two-photon polymerization. Source: Nanoscribe GmbH
The diversity of lenses, their shapes, sizes and materials is growing all the time. Applications in non-visible wavelengths from x-rays and ultraviolet to the far infrared also require special optics, such as material processing using short pulse and ultrashort pulse lasers or imaging techniques in the medical and research fields and industrial quality control.