Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 3,034

The State of Brain-Machine Interfaces

Maryam shanechi, university of southern california.

With recent technological advances, we can now record neural activity from the brain, and manipulate this activity with electrical or optogenetic stimulation in real time. These capabilities have brought the concept of brain-machine interfaces (BMI) closer to clinical viability than ever before. BMIs are systems that monitor and interact with the brain to restore lost function, treat neurological disorders, or enhance human performance.

February 2018

Once-Dreaded Poliovirus Could Treat Brain Cancer

Polio was a devastating disease before the development of the polio vaccine. But now, this once-feared virus might help treat another deadly illness — brain cancer.

In a new study, some patients who had an aggressive type of brain cancer called glioblastoma and who received a genetically modified poliovirus lived much longer than typical for these patients.

The study found that about 21 percent of the brain cancer patients who received the poliovirus therapy were alive three years later. In contrast, among a group of previously treated patients who had the same cancer but received standard therapies (such as chemotherapy), just 4 percent were alive after three years.

Building Bones: Testing a New Osteoporosis Therapy in Microgravity

Every three seconds, a person somewhere in the world breaks a bone due to osteoporosis—a progressive disease that decreases bone density, making bones weak and fragile. Osteoporotic fractures greatly reduce quality of life, and immobilization following a fracture can lead to further bone loss which puts these patients at risk for breaking another bone.

When SpaceX CRS-11 launched to the space station last June, it carried 40 mice to the ISS National Lab for a mission aimed at improving treatment for the millions of people with osteoporosis back on Earth. The Rodent Research (RR)-5 mission successfully proved the robustness of a new potential osteoporosis therapy based on a naturally produced protein, NELL-1, and also led to significant improvements in the delivery of the therapy.

chia soo laptop

Sleep-focused neurotech firm Dreem raises $35M from Johnson&Johnson Innovation and Bpifrance

Dreeming big.

Dreem Announces $35 Million Financing from lead investors Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Bpifrance (press release):

“Dreem, a neurotechnology company, today announced the closing of a new round of funding, raising $35 million USD to rapidly accelerate product development, invest in strategic research and development, and advance the future of sleep technology. Last year, Dreem introduced a comprehensive solution to address a suite of sleep problems and enhance the quality of rest during the night. The Dreem headband monitors brain activity to track sleep accurately and uses auditory stimulation as a medium to help people fall asleep faster, get deeper sleep, and wake up refreshed.

With the $35 million investment, led by strategic investor JJDC, Dreem will bring next-generation sleep technology to markets across the globe and continue to invest in R & D for future sleep-related scientific discoveries and technological innovations … Dreem previously raised a total of $22 million, from billionaire French entrepreneur Xavier Niel, entrepreneur and biotech investor Dr. Laurent Alexandre, and one of the top French insurance leaders — MAIF. With additional investment from JJDC and Bpifrance, Dreem has raised nearly $60 million in less than four years.”

Dr. Anthony Atala — Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine

An interview with regenerative medicine luminary Dr. Anthony Atala.

After meeting him at the Astana Global Challenges Summit 2018, we’ve kindly been granted an interview by Dr. Anthony Atala, M.D., Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the W. Boyce Professor and Chair of Urology at Wake Forest University.

Dr. Atala is one of the most influential names in the field of regenerative medicine and biotechnology. His research focuses on growing human cells and tissues for use in transplants, and given the constant dire need for organ donors worldwide, his work is poised to improve—and save—the lives of millions. He and his team have already successfully engineered and transplanted bladders into living patients, and as he’s told us himself, more types of tissue have been engineered and tested in models; hopefully, they will one day be usable in patients as well.

Dr. Atala’s groundbreaking work has earned him countless awards, prizes, and nominations in well-known magazines, such as Scientific American, Time Magazine, the Huffington Post, and many others; he has also served on the boards and committees of several organizations, such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, and SENS Research Foundation. A more detailed biography of Dr. Atala can be found here.

Ending Age-related Diseases — NYC Conference

July 12th our special one-day biotech and business conference launches in New York City. This event brings together some of the leading experts in aging research and investment and promises to be an action-packed day.

For more information please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ending-age-related-diseases-inv…5733391806

Video Creator: Jason Shulkin, Motion Graphics Artist. www.jasonshulkin.com

Magnetic nanoparticles put the heat on cancer

Cancer is one of humanity’s biggest killers, but scientists are coming up with some creative ways to fight back. Researchers at the University at Buffalo have developed new kinds of nanoparticles that can infiltrate, heat up and kill cancer cells more effectively and efficiently than similar methods.

Using nanoparticles to fight cancer has become a growing area of research in recent years. The general concept is to get the particles into tumors, before activating them with radiation to trigger a reaction that destroys the cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. What kind of nanoparticle and radiation are used can vary, as can the type of reaction that’s triggered.

Previous work has killed tumors by activating CeF3 nanoparticles with X-rays to create toxic singlet oxygen, used infrared light to ramp up cancer’s pH balance, used laser pulses to heat up gold nanoparticles, or a combination of several of these.

/* */