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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,837


University of Oxford scientists have developed a gene therapy that has shown promise in treating choroideremia, a rare disorder that causes progressive vision loss, mostly in males.

Doctors tested the treatment method on six patients with choroideremia by injecting numerous healthy genes into the eye to replace missing ones in the retina. The purpose of this therapy is to hinder or prevent loss of sight, according to Oxford’s announcement.

Results varied for each participant. Two patients experienced a big improvement in vision that lasted for four years, but a decline occurred in the other untreated eye. Three separate patients maintained their vision in the treated eye over four years whereas the sixth recipient who was given a lower dose succumbed to vision decline in both eyes.

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A nanoparticle commonly used in food, cosmetics, sunscreen and other products can have subtle effects on the activity of genes expressing enzymes that address oxidative stress inside two types of cells. While the titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles are considered non-toxic because they don’t kill cells at low concentrations, these cellular effects could add to concerns about long-term exposure to the nanomaterial.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology used high-throughput screening techniques to study the effects of titanium dioxide nanoparticles on the expression of 84 genes related to cellular oxidative stress. Their work found that six genes, four of them from a single gene family, were affected by a 24-hour exposure to the nanoparticles.

The effect was seen in two different kinds of cells exposed to the nanoparticles: human HeLa cancer cells commonly used in research, and a line of monkey kidney cells. Polystyrene nanoparticles similar in size and surface electrical charge to the titanium dioxide nanoparticles did not produce a similar effect on gene expression.

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Lifeboat is all about how advances in science & technology can be use to improve humanity and ensure folks are informed. I also see this story as an opportunity for others to learn to improve humanity through sharing & hearing from a man who has been successful, met amazing people, and seen amazing things & places; and now shares his most important lesson of life.

Tom Brokaw spoke about his battle with incurable blood cancer in an emotional interview on Today Monday morning and how it has made him appreciate life more and brought him closer to some new friends.

Brokaw, 76, said he had met some incredible people also suffering from cancer, including a younger family friend who passed away last year.

‘He had a much more serious form of cancer than I did, but I was witness to his bravery and his optimism,’ said Brokaw.

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Next time you go for a brain scan; you could actually see dissolvable electrodes.

Hmmm

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania in a study funded by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are developing implantable electrodes for brain monitoring that melt away at a predetermined rate. The devices could come in handy for monitoring and treating certain neurophysiological disorders such as Parkinson’s, depression and chronic pain.

The electrodes, which are made from layers of silicon and a chemical element, molybdenum, dissolve at a known rate according to thickness. The devices can provide “continuous streams of data for guiding medical care over predetermined periods of time,” Brian Litt, senior co-author on the study and a professor of neurology, neurosurgery and bioengineering at UPenn, said in a statement.

The dissolvable electrodes also “eliminate the risks, cost, and discomfort associated with surgery to extract current devices used for post-operative monitoring,” Litt said. Scientists recently published their findings online in Nature Materials.

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Hmmm; I see a bright future for this. No more surgeries by plastic surgeons? possibly?

Scientists at MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, Living Proof, and Olivo Labs have developed a new material that can temporarily protect and tighten skin, and smooth wrinkles. With further development, it could also be used to deliver drugs to help treat skin conditions such as eczema and other types of dermatitis.

The material, a silicone-based polymer that could be applied on the as a thin, imperceptible coating, mimics the mechanical and elastic properties of healthy, youthful skin. In tests with human subjects, the researchers found that the material was able to reshape “eye bags” under the lower eyelids and also enhance skin hydration. This type of “second skin” could also be adapted to provide long-lasting ultraviolet protection, the researchers say.

“It’s an invisible layer that can provide a barrier, provide cosmetic improvement, and potentially deliver a drug locally to the area that’s being treated. Those three things together could really make it ideal for use in humans,” says Daniel Anderson, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES).

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Improved muscle stem cell numbers and muscle function in NR-treated aged mice: Newly regenerated muscle fibers 7 days after muscle damage in aged mice (left: control group; right: fed NR). (Scale bar = 50 μm). (credit: Hongbo Zhang et al./Science)

EPFL researchers have restored the ability of mice organs to regenerate and extend life by simply administering nicotinamide riboside (NR) to them.

NR has been shown in previous studies to be effective in boosting metabolism and treating a number of degenerative diseases. Now, an article by PhD student Hongbo Zhang published in Science also describes the restorative effects of NR on the functioning of stem cells for regenerating organs.

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This is concerning in what is being proposed in the US for doctor report errors and it’s whole timing. Why now? I mean why wait to report on this when this has been known about for many decades plus mistakes today are actually a lot less than they were 2 decades ago thanks to medical records, and the self-monitor/ medicated drip devices, etc. My guess is this is part of a huge push by some to replace doctors and medical teams with more AI which in the US patients have been blocking AI to treat them due to their own distrust of AI.

Now, if US Laws are in place requiring doctors to publish, report, etc. their errors for the 1st time in the US it does help build case to the public and conditions the public to rethink their position on AI.

I am just not buying “the experts’” report stats given that he has no official records to back up his report especially detail records for the past 40 years showing doctors openly reporting any mistakes they made in the 70s, 80s or 90s when the equipment was poorer plus medical records in many situations were not always digital and could be easily lost in the 70s and 80s.

Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US after heart disease and cancer, say experts in The BMJ today.

Martin Makary and Michael Daniel at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore say death certificates in the US have no facility for acknowledging medical error, and they call for better reporting to help understand the scale of the problem and how to tackle it.

Currently, death certification in the US relies on assigning an International Classification of Disease (ICD) code to the cause of death — so causes of death not associated with an ICD code, such as human and system factors, are not captured.

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