Biotech/medical – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Jan 29
2019

Drug compound could be next-generation treatment for aggressive form of leukemia

Researchers have been struggling for years to find a treatment for patients who have a recurrence of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive blood cancer that is one of the most lethal cancers. About 19,520 news cases are diagnosed a year, and about 10,670 people a year die from it, according to the American Cancer Society.

Purdue University researchers are developing a series of drug compounds that have shown promise in treating such cases. About 30 percent of AML patients have a mutation caused by a kinase called FLT3, which makes the leukemia more aggressive. Inhibitors of FLT3, such as Radapt, approved last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have shown good initial response to treating leukemia. Gilteritinib, another FLT3 inhibitor, was recently approved toward the end of 2018. But AML patients on FLT3 inhibitor therapy often relapse because of secondary mutations in the FLT3 and existing treatments have not been fully successful in treating those cases.

Researchers on a team led by Herman O. Sintim, the Drug Discovery Professor of Chemistry in Purdue’s Department of Chemistry, say they have developed a series of compounds that work not only on AML with common FLT3 mutation, but also drug-resistant AML harboring problematic mutations, such as the gatekeeper F691L mutation, which some leukemia patients who relapse harbor.

Jan 29
2019

Soon we’ll cure diseases with a cell, not a pill

Current medical treatment boils down to six words: Have disease, take pill, kill something. But physician Siddhartha Mukherjee points to a future of medicine that will transform the way we heal.

Jan 29
2019

Clinton Township, MI

We specialize in the cryo-preservation of humans and pets, DNA & tissue storage as well as cryonics outreach and public education.

Jan 29
2019

Alzheimer’s blood test detects brain damage years before symptoms

Testing blood levels of a protein that brain cells leak when faulty or dying detected people with Alzheimer’s disease years before their symptoms emerged.

Jan 29
2019

UNITY Expands Human Senolytic Trial

UNITY Biotechnologies has recently announced an expansion of its first-stage human trial of UBX0101, a drug that has been shown to have senolytic properties in mice [1] and that the company hopes will be useful in treating painful osteoarthritis of the knee.

An expanded clinical trial

UNITY Biotechnologies, a $495 million biotech company in the process of creating senolytic medicines that target one of the aging processes, has just announced an expansion of its first-stage human trial of the first drug in its pipeline (UBX0101), which targets painful osteoarthritis of the knee.

Jan 29
2019

Lowering blood pressure could cut risk factor for dementia

(CNN) — Intensive lowering of blood pressure, to a less than 120 mm Hg level, can have a measurable impact on mild cognitive impairment (MCI) — a well-established precursor of dementia, a new study finds.

Previous studies have suggested high blood pressure could be a risk factor for dementia and mild cognitive impairment, leading US researchers to explore whether lowering pressure could reduce this risk in a large randomized trial on more than 9000 people.

Lowering blood pressure did not significantly reduce dementia risk, but the secondary results showed a significant reduction in MCI, according to the study published Monday.

Jan 29
2019

Breakthrough flexible material transforms WiFi signals into electricity

Researchers are always looking for new materials that can help power electronics and medical devices in the future. MIT has made a breakthrough with a new material that makes that goal closer to reality. The breakthrough is thanks to a fully flexible device that can convert WiFi signals into electricity that could power devices.

Jan 29
2019

Artificial skin could give superhuman perception

For a long time, biohackers have been playing with magnets by embedding then under their skin as a novelty extra-sensation. I, personally, don’t see the point, but morphological, taxonomic, and cladic freedom are at work so I celebrate their actions.

Our skin’s ability to perceive pressure, heat, cold, and vibration is a critical safety function that most people take for granted. But burn victims, those with prosthetic limbs, and others who have lost skin sensitivity for one reason or another, can’t take it for granted, and often injure themselves unintentionally.

Chemists Islam Mosa from UConn, and James Rusling from UConn and UConn Health, along with University of Toronto engineer Abdelsalam Ahmed, wanted to create a sensor that can mimic the sensing properties of skin. Such a sensor would need to be able to detect pressure, temperature, and vibration. But perhaps it could do other things too, the researchers thought.

“It would be very cool if it had abilities human skin does not; for example, the ability to detect magnetic fields, sound waves, and abnormal behaviors,” said Mosa.

Jan 29
2019

Converting Wi-Fi signals to electricity with new 2-D materials

Device made from flexible, inexpensive materials could power large-area electronics, wearables, medical devices, and more.

Jan 29
2019

How dirty air could be affecting our gut health

The gut microbiome is made up of billions of bacteria, and scientists have been trying to understand exactly how they affect our health, contribute to our risk of contacting diseases and how they interact with the vital organs and systems in the body, including the brain. It is quite a lot to unpick.

As countries industrialise, their air becomes dirtier – and this could have some far-reaching effects on the beneficial bacteria inside us.