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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2763

A DARPA-funded research team has created a novel neural-recording device that can be implanted into the brain through blood vessels, reducing the need for invasive surgery and the risks associated with breaching the blood-brain barrier. The technology was developed under DARPA’s Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET) program, and offers new potential for safely expanding the use of brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) to treat physical disabilities and neurological disorders.

In an article published in Nature Biotechnology, researchers in the Vascular Bionics Laboratory at the University of Melbourne led by neurologist Thomas Oxley, M.D., describe proof-of-concept results from a study conducted in sheep that demonstrate high-fidelity measurements taken from the motor cortex—the region of the brain responsible for controlling voluntary movement—using a novel device the size of a small paperclip.

This new device, which Oxley’s team dubbed the “stentrode,” was adapted from off-the-shelf stent technology—a familiar therapeutic tool for clearing and repairing blood vessels—to include an array of electrodes. The researchers also addressed the dual challenge of making the device flexible enough to safely pass through curving blood vessels, yet stiff enough that the array can emerge from the delivery tube at its destination.

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Australian scientists hope that a tiny device just 3cm long and a few millimetres wide will enable paralysed patients to walk again by allowing them to control bionic limbs with the power of subconscious thought.

The new device, dubbed the “bionic spine”, is the size of a small paperclip and will be implanted in three patients at the Royal Melbourne hospital in Victoria next year. The participants will be selected from the Austin Health spinal cord unit, and will be the first humans to trial the device, which so far has only been tested in sheep.

Doctors will make a tiny cut in the neck of the patients and feed a catheter containing the bionic spine up through the blood vessels leading into the brain, until it rests on top of the motor cortex, the part of the brain where nerve impulses that initiate voluntary muscle movements come from. The catheter will then be removed, leaving the bionic spine behind.

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Danaher’s Instruments of Change — If you feel like your industry that has always been on a slow & stable growth curve is now under greater pressure to change; you’re not alone. Recent indicators are showing with the latest changes in tech and consumers (namely the millennials as the largest consumers today); industries have been shaken up to perform at new levels like never before or companies in those industries will cease to be relevant.

Doing well by doing good is now expected for businesses, and moral leadership is at a premium for CEOs. For today’s companies to maintain their license to operate, they need to take into account a range of elements in their decision making: managing their supply chains, applying new ways of measuring their business performance that include indicators for social as well as commercial returns, and controlling the full life cycle of their products’ usage as well as disposal. This new reality is demonstrated by the launch last September of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which call on businesses to address sustainability challenges such as poverty, gender equality, and climate change in new and creative ways. The new expectations for business also are at the heart of the Change the World list, launched by Fortune Magazine in August 2015, which is designed to identify and celebrate companies that have made significant progress in addressing major social problems as a part of their core business strategy.

Technology and millennials seem to be driving much of this change. Socially conscious customers and idealistic employees are applauding companies’ ability to do good as part of their profit-making strategy. With social media capable of reaching millions instantly, companies want to be on the right side of capitalism’s power. This is good news for society. Corporate venturing activities are emerging, and companies are increasingly leveraging people, ideas, technology, and business assets to achieve social and environmental priorities together with financial profit. These new venturing strategies are focusing more and more on areas where new partnerships and investments can lead to positive outcomes for all: the shareholders, the workers, the environment, and the local community.

Furthermore, this is especially true in the technology sector. More than 25% of the Change the World companies listed by Fortune are tech companies, and four are in the top ten–Vodafone, Google, Cisco Systems, and Facebook. Facebook’s billionaire co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife have helped propel the technology sector into the spotlight as a shining beacon of how to do good and do well. Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan pledged on December 1, 2015, to give 99 percent of their fortune to charity. Facebook shares are valued between $40 and $45 billion, which makes this a very large gift. The donations will initially be focused on personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people, and building strong communities.

Continue reading “Technology and Millennials Are Driving Business Strategy and Social Change” | >

Individual brain cells within a neural network are highlighted in this image obtained using a fluorescent imaging technique (credit: Sandra Kuhlman/CMU)

Carnegie Mellon University is embarking on a five-year, $12 million research effort to reverse-engineer the brain and “make computers think more like humans,” funded by the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). The research is led by Tai Sing Lee, a professor in the Computer Science Department and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC).

The research effort, through IARPA’s Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) research program, is part of the U.S. BRAIN Initiative to revolutionize the understanding of the human brain.

A “Human Genome Project” for the brain’s visual system

“MICrONS is similar in design and scope to the Human Genome Project, which first sequenced and mapped all human genes,” Lee said. “Its impact will likely be long-lasting and promises to be a game changer in neuroscience and artificial intelligence.”

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A new thriller starring Ben Kingsley and Ryan Reynolds explores the idea of transferring consciousness from one body to another. Unlike Freaky Friday, or the myriad of other family movies and comedies that have explored the idea, this one actually explores the science of the process.

In the movie Self/less, a rich business man (Kingsley) is dying of cancer. However, he is able to prolong his “self” by transferring his consciousness from one body to another using a medical procedure called “shedding.”

You may be wondering how such a far-out concept can actually have any science to it. I wondered the same thing, so I asked a neuroscientist what he thought.

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Researchers at the University of Bristol have created ‘Mogrify’ — an algorithm that can predict how to reprogram virtually any type of cell

One way of creating new cells is with stem cells. The most famous of these are embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, the latter made from your own cells. While these cells have immense potential, the process of creating them is complicated and not without error. Coaxing these cells into a new type once you’ve made them is also easier said than done.

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We can just imagine the scenario that spawned this paper: a bunch of microbiologists sitting around the lab coffee machine, looking for a way to procrastinate, and voila…coffee machine microbiome! Here, the researchers not only sampled bacteria from 10 different Nespresso machines, but they also “conducted a dynamic monitoring of the colonization process in a new machine” (charge new lab coffee machine to grant: check). They found that bacteria rapidly colonized the sludge that sits inside the machines, and many of these species were adapted to the high levels of caffeine and other compounds found in coffee. We’d suggest that they study what lives in the office fridge next, but really–not even a microbiologist wants to go there!

The coffee-machine bacteriome: biodiversity and colonisation of the wasted coffee tray leach

“Microbial communities are ubiquitous in both natural and artificial environments. However, microbial diversity is usually reduced under strong selection pressures, such as those present in habitats rich in recalcitrant or toxic compounds displaying antimicrobial properties. Caffeine is a natural alkaloid present in coffee, tea and soft drinks with well-known antibacterial properties. Here we present the first systematic analysis of coffee machine-associated bacteria. We sampled the coffee waste reservoir of ten different Nespresso machines and conducted a dynamic monitoring of the colonization process in a new machine. Our results reveal the existence of a varied bacterial community in all the machines sampled, and a rapid colonisation process of the coffee leach. The community developed from a pioneering pool of enterobacteria and other opportunistic taxa to a mature but still highly variable microbiome rich in coffee-adapted bacteria. The bacterial communities described here, for the first time, are potential drivers of biotechnologically relevant processes including decaffeination and bioremediation.”

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Good article and perspective. And, I believe areas like Finance and Legal will be addressed over the next 5 to 7 years with AI. However, much of our critical needs are in healthcare particularly medical technology and Infrastructure (including security); and these need to get upgraded and improved now.

I recently read a thought provoking article by Klaus Schwab, called ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond’. At the beginning of the article Schwab describes the first three industrial revolutions, which I think we’re all fairly familiar with:

1784 – steam, water and mechanical production equipment.

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I have nothing against the idea of designer babies. Why not better ourselves through science? There will always be a baseline version of humanity kicking around, even if it’s in cold storage,thus ensuring that any mistakes made early on don’t destroy the species. Besides, the same technology that allows us to make ourselves better could just as easily be used to repair us if we do make a mistake of some kind. TOO much red-tape, as always.

Room: B-3245.

Recent discoveries and advances in medicine are setting the bioethical world on fire. Some technologies, such as CRISPR-Cas9 and fast DNA sequencing techniques, have tremendously increased our control over our own genome. GMOs, Gene Therapy and life extension are examples of applications of our new gained knowledge in genetics. For more than a few, the thought of scientists playing with the fundamental building blocks of life brings an uneasy feeling. Yet, what are the scientists really doing?

As technologies keep on advancing, it is crucial to question ourselves on the implications of genetic research, and the first step to do so is to understand what is being done in the laboratories. The goal of this presentation is to convey reliable information on the field of genomics to non-experts so that they can take on a rational stance on the issues at hand. Simultaneously, in the spirit of Philopolis, the presentation revolves around the philosophical question of what is natural and what is not.

Christophe Lachance-Brais and @[601985428:2048:Philippe Castonguay] will give the talk and animate the discussion.

The 1h presentation will be followed by a 30 minute discussion.

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Photochemical tissue bonding (PTB) is a light-based method to repair tissues and is an alternative to traditional sutures and staples used to close wounds. Unlike the latter, PTB does not cause inflammation and scarring at the repair site. PTB works by applying light-sensitive Rose Bengal dye to the exposed tissue. When the dye is exposed to green light, the dye absorbs the light, thereby causing the tissue to crosslink and form a water-tight seal. While PTB can seal incisions sans inflammation, the technique is limited by how deep the light can penetrate the tissue. Researchers from the University of St Andrews and Harvard Medical School have developed a bioabsorable optical waveguide, which can deliver light deep into tissues before being absorbed.

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers fabricated optical waveguides from a variety of polymers, but ultimately tested the degradation times of the polymers PVP and PLGA (50:50) in vivo. They inserted 1 × 5 mm x 500 µm pieces of bulk polymer subcutaneously in mice and examined the implant at different time points. The PVP waveguide dissolved within one hour of implantation, whereas the PLGA polymer began to lose shape after 17 days, illustrating that researchers can tune the degradation time (ranging from hours to days) of the optical waveguide for a specific application.

After establishing the biodegradability of the polymer waveguides, the team showed how the waveguides could extend the penetration depth in PTB. Light was coupled to the device via pigtail fiber, which was trimmed off after light was applied, thus leaving only the bioabsorable polymer within the wound. Immediately after a pig was killed, they made a “full-thickness incision” (1 cm) on the dorsal skin and applied Rose Bengal dye. In the control, they applied 532-nm light (1 W) for 15 minutes at the surface of the wound. In waveguide assisted PTB, they inserted the polymer waveguide and applied light through the waveguide, effectively increasing the penetration depth of the light. The shear tensile strength of the control PTB was 0.33 kPa compared to 1.94 kPa in the waveguide assisted PTB, illustrating that the optical waveguide enabled tissue crosslinking and wound healing at greater depths.

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