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Category: biotech/medical – Page 3,001

The Future of Surgery Is Robotic, Data-Driven, and Artificially Intelligent

As far back as 3,500 years ago ancient Egyptian doctors were performing invasive surgeries. Even though our tools and knowledge have improved drastically over time, until very recently surgery was still a manual task for human hands.

When it came out about 15 years ago, Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci surgical robot was a major innovation. The da Vinci robot helps surgeons be more precise and dexterous and to remove natural hand tremors during surgery.

In the years since da Vinci first came out, many other surgical robots have arrived. And today there’s a new generation coming online, like the Verb robot, a joint venture between Google and Johnson and Johnson. This means surgery is about to get even more interesting. Surgical robotics will be able to do more than just improve dexterity and reduce incision size…

Can your own immune system kill cancer?

It definitely can.

NEW YORK (CNN) — There was another big win in the advancement of immunotherapy treatments for cancer this week.

The Food and Drug Administration approved an immunotherapy drug called Keytruda, which stimulates the body’s immune system, for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer.

In other words, the drug could be the very first treatment a patient receives for the disease, instead of chemotherapy. Keytruda is the only immunotherapy drug approved for first-line treatment for these patients.

An Age-Associated Decline in Thymic Output Differs in Dog Breeds According to Their Longevity

Immune system decline one of the hallmarks of aging and something that we should be concerned about addressing.

The age associated decline in immune function is preceded in mammals by a reduction in thymic output. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence of a link between immune competence and lifespan. One approach to determining thymic output is to quantify signal joint T cell receptor excision circles (sj-TRECs), a method which has been developed and used in several mammalian species. Life expectancy and the rate of aging vary in dogs depending upon their breed. In this study, we quantified sj-TRECs in blood samples from dogs of selected breeds to determine whether there was a relationship between longevity and thymic output. In Labrador retrievers, a breed with a median expected lifespan of 11 years, there was an age-associated decline in sj-TREC values, with the greatest decline occurring before 5 years of age, but with sj-TREC still detectable in some geriatric animals, over 13 years of age. In large short-lived breeds (Burnese mountain dogs, Great Danes and Dogue de Bordeaux), the decline in sj-TREC values began earlier in life, compared with small long-lived breeds (Jack Russell terriers and Yorkshire terriers), and the presence of animals with undetectable sj-TRECs occurred at a younger age in the short-lived breeds. The study findings suggest that age-associated changes in canine sj-TRECs are related to breed differences in longevity, and this research highlights the use of dogs as a potential model of immunosenescence.

Citation: Holder A, Mella S, Palmer DB, Aspinall R, Catchpole B (2016) An Age-Associated Decline in Thymic Output Differs in Dog Breeds According to Their Longevity. PLoS ONE 11(11): e0165968. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165968

Editor: Douglas Thamm, Colorado State University, UNITED STATES

Scientists develop world’s first light-seeking synthetic nanorobot

With bots the size of a single blood cell, this could spur a huge leap in the field of non-invasive surgeries.

Scientists have developed the world’s first light-seeking synthetic nanorobot which may help surgeons remove tumours and enable more precise engineering of targeted medications.

It has been a dream in science fiction for decades that tiny robots can fundamentally change our daily life. The famous science fiction movie “Fantastic Voyage” is a very good example, with a group of scientists driving their miniaturised Nano-submarine inside human body to repair a damaged brain.

We’ve Figured Out How to Program Living Cells

In Brief:

Researchers at MIT have developed an easy-to-use “biological programming language” that allows genetic engineers (or just about anyone) to design biological circuits and “hack” the genomes of living cells.

The evolution of human technology has proceeded in lockstep with the biological evolution of our species. For millions of years we were content with our primitive Oldowan choppers and Acheulean bifaces; in the Neolithic, we started playing with more sophisticated tools, and the Bronze and Iron ages followed in quick succession.

This World-First Brain Implant Is Letting a ‘Locked-In’ Woman Communicate

A paralysed woman in the Netherlands is the first to be fitted with a new type of brain implant that allows patients who cannot speak or move to communicate using nothing but their thoughts.

The new implant, which works with a computer interface to help her spell out words and sentences, can be used anywhere, allowing her to communicate with people in the outside world, without medical experts on hand to help.

“This is a world first,” neuroscientist and lead researcher Nick Ramsay, from the University Medical School Utrecht, told CNN. “It’s a fully implantable system that works at home without need for any experts to make it work.”

Researchers show how a targeted drug overcomes suppressive immune cells

Immunotherapies and progressing rapidly and could be a way to help your own body fight cancer by allowing the immune system to see the cancer cells and attack them.

A Ludwig Cancer Research study shows that an experimental drug currently in clinical trials can reverse the effects of troublesome cells that prevent the body’s immune system from attacking tumors. The researchers also establish that it is these suppressive cells that interfere with the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors. This class of immunotherapies lifts the brakes that the body imposes on the immune system’s T cells to unleash an attack on cancer cells.

“Though checkpoint inhibitors have durable effects when they work, not all patients respond to the treatment,” says Taha Merghoub, an investigator at the Ludwig Memorial Sloan Kettering Collaborative Laboratory who led the study with Director Jedd Wolchok. “Part of the reason for this is that some tumors harbor -associated myeloid , or TAMCs, that prevent T cells from attacking .”

In a study published online today in Nature, Merghoub and his team used mouse models of cancer to show that the effects of TAMCs can be reversed by an appropriately targeted therapy.

Deep Learning Speeds Up Cancer Research

A research team in the US has created a software that can quickly identify the information in cancer reports that would not only save time and work-hours but also reveal overlooked avenues in cancer research.

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Much of the cancer-related data is drawn from electronic, text-based clinical reports that must be manually curated — a time-intensive process — before it can be used in research.

Synthetic virus may drive personalized medicine into precision medicine

A collaborative effort involving Auburn University, Gen9 and Autodesk has developed a synthetic viral genome for bone cancer research and one which may prove revolutionary in the battle against cancer overall.

The sCAV2 virus, which is the longest functional virus created in oncology research, targets and destroys selected tumor cells while not impacting healthy cells, notes an announcement.

“This could change the way we fight cancer. It is that revolutionary,” states Dr. Bruce Smith, a professor in the department of pathobiology and director of the Auburn University Research Initiative in Cancer, in the announcement. “Our concept is taking personalized medicine to precision medicine. The technology to create a new virus by synthesizing it is a huge leap, but the ability to then make a customized virus tailored to the specific needs of each patient will be transformative.”

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