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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,698

Ed Whiting, director of policy at the Wellcome Trust agreed and said: “There is no doubt of the urgency – the world is running out of effective antibiotics and drug-resistant infections already kill 700,000 people a year globally. We’ve made good progress in getting this on the political agenda. But now, a year on from a major UN agreement, we must see concerted action – to reinvigorate the antibiotic pipeline, ensure responsible use of existing antibiotics, and address this threat across human, animal and environmental health.”

The report’s authors have found 51 new antibiotics and biologicals currently in development that may be able to treat the diseases caused by these resistant bugs. But that will not be anywhere near enough because of the length of time it takes to get drugs approved and onto the market, and because inevitably some of the drugs will not work.

“Given the average success rates and development times in the past, the current pipeline of antibiotics and biologicals could lead to around 10 new approvals over the next five years,” says the report. “However, these new treatments will add little to the already existing arsenal and will not be sufficient to tackle the impending antimicrobial resistance threat.”

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S cientists have edited human embryos for the first time in the UK to discover a “master gene” that underpins successful pregnancies. The “game-changing” research promises improved IVF outcomes and a breakthrough in understanding why so many pregnancies fail.

The Government-funded investigation, undertaken by the Francis Crick Institute, is the first to prove that gene editing can be used to study the genetic behaviour of human embryos in their first few days of life.

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Summary: Nanodocs? #Swallow #the #doctor? The authors of a recent research study, says soon we will be able to “swallow the surgeon.” Using medical #nanobots to diagnose and treat disease from inside the body. Study authors documented recent advances in nanotechnology tools, such as nanodrillers, microgrippers, and microbullets – and show how #nanodocs have tremendous potential in the areas of precision surgery, detection, detoxification and targeted drug delivery.

Summary: Nanodocs? Swallow the doctor? The authors of a recent research study, say the concept of “swallow the surgeon” – or using medical nanobots to diagnose and treat disease from inside the body – may be closer than we think. Study authors document recent advances in nanotechnology tools, such as nanodrillers, microgrippers, and microbullets – and show how nanodocs have tremendous potential in the areas of precision surgery, detection, detoxification and targeted drug delivery. Cover photo: The old way to swallow the surgeon. Credit: R. Collin Johnson / Attributed to Stanford University.

Imagine that you need to repair a defective heart valve, a major surgery. Instead of ripping your chest cut open, a doctor merely injects you with a syringe full of medical nanorobots, called nanodocs for short. You emerge from the ‘surgery’ unscathed, and your only external wound is the puncture hole from the injection.

According to a recent study published by nanorobotic engineers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), the concept of ‘swallow the doctor’ may be closer to reality than we think.

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German Party for Health Research is calling for more funding for studies on aging and age-related diseases! Nice initiative! Good luck!

It seems the only reason why the situation with state funding for medical research has not improved over time in a given country is the lack of well-organized public initiatives to support the necessary changes.

People are rarely offered a clear program of action that could promote the development of therapies that might bring aging under medical control and address age-related diseases.

German Party for Health Research is offering such a program, and so far its activities are quire fruitful. We wish them good luck!

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Transhumanism discussion of using implants in children is in The Sun today, one of UK’s largest sites/papers.

A DOCTOR known as a “human cyborg” has revealed parents are bombarding him with requests to implant chips into their children.

Dr Patrick Kramer, who work under the job title of “chief cyborg officer”, receives harrowing messages from parents desperate for him to implant tracking chips under their children’s skin.

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The cost of drug discovery and subsequent development is a massive challenge in the pharmaceutical industry. A typical drug can cost upwards of $2.5 billion and a decade or more to identify and test a new drug candidate[1].

These costs have been increasing steadily over the years, and pharmaceutical manufacturers are constantly seeking ways to improve efficiency to save time and money and speed up research progress.

Automation in the lab is one example; tasks that were traditionally carried out by technicians can now be done by machines. Increasingly sophisticated assays to detect new drug candidates have also helped to slash development time. Now a new ally has arrived to aid drug development – artificial intelligence – and a powerful ally it is.

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A team from the Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, the West of Scotland and Galway have created a device that sends nano vibrations across mesenchymal stem cells suspended in a collagen gel.

The authors of the paper, published in the Nature Biomedical Engineering journal, found that these tiny vibrations turn the cells into a 3D model of mineralised bone ‘putty’. This putty isn’t quite as hard as bone at this stage. That’s where the body comes in.

“We add the bone putty to an anatomically correct, rigid living scaffold, that we made by 3D printing collagen,” says Matthew Dalby, professor of cell engineering at the University of Glasgow, and one of the lead authors of the paper. “We put lots of cells in the body so it has a chance to integrate this new bone. We tell the cells what to do in the lab, then the body can act as a bioreactor to do the rest.”

Scientists have grown living bone in the lab by sending vibrations through stem cells. It could help amputees and people with osteoporosis.

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