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Category: biotech/medical – Page 3,069

Accessible Synthetic Biology Raises New Concerns for DIY Biological Warfare

Good; glad they are hearing us. Because it is a huge issue for sure especially with some of the things that I seen some of the researchers proposing to use CRISPR, 3D Printers, etc. to create some bizarre creatures. Example, in March to scientists in the UK wanted to use CRISPR to create a dragon; personally I didn’t expect it to be successful. However, the scientists didn’t consider the fallout to the public if they had actually succeeded.

For a few hundred dollars, anyone can start doing genetic editing in the comfort of their own home.

Autism-Related Genes Discovered

The human body has about 25,000 genes. Researchers already know of 65 genes they believe carry a risk for autism. Now, researchers at Princeton University in New Jersey have identified 2,500 more that could help create the conditions for autism.

The discovery is important because the genes could lead scientists toward finding a cause and, possibly, a treatment.

Autism and … Facebook?

New approach could help turn back the clock and reverse damage for stroke patients

Awesome.

Stroke is the leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the US. Every year almost 800,000 people suffer from a stroke. The impact on their lives, and the lives of those around them can be devastating.

Right now the only treatment approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is tissue plasminogen activator or tPA. This helps dissolve the blood clot causing most strokes and restores blood flow to the brain. However, to be fully effective this has to be administered within about 3–4 hours after the stroke. Many people are unable to get to the hospital in time and as a result suffer long-term damage, damage that for most people has been permanent.

But now a new study in Nature Medicine shows that might not be the case, and that this damage could even be reversible.

Neuroscientists identify cortical links to adrenal medulla (mind-body connection)

Cortical pathways to the adrenal medulla. Cortical areas on the lateral surface and the medial wall of the hemisphere are the source of neurons that influence the adrenal medulla. Gray shading: cortical motor areas; blue shading: medial prefrontal areas. (credit: Richard P. Dum et al./PNAS)

Neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have identified the neural networks that connect the cerebral cortex to the adrenal medulla — the inner part of the adrenal gland, located above each kidney, which is responsible for the body’s rapid response in stressful situations.

These findings, reported in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS), provide evidence for the neural basis of a mind-body connection. They also shed new light on how stress, depression, and other mental states can alter organ function, and show that there is a real anatomical basis for psychosomatic illness.

Battery you can swallow could enable future ingestible medical devices

Baterias comestível feita com melanina e materiais absorvíveis.

Baterias de melanina é baixa em relação ao de iões de lítio, seria suficientemente elevada para alimentar um dispositivo de libertação de fármaco ou de detecção ingerível. Por exemplo, Bettinger prevê usando a bateria do seu grupo para detectar mudanças intestino microbioma e respondendo com um comunicado da medicina, ou para a entrega de rajadas de uma vacina durante várias horas antes de degradar.

New bioimaging technique offers clear view of nervous system

More info. on some research that I came across a few weeks ago on a new bioimaging technique to help map and understand the nervous system which is one of the hardest areas of the brain to map and monitor — this is truly groundbreaking on so many fronts such as precision meds. research, computer mapping of the brain and neuro pathways, etc. If will be very impressive to see how much this accelerates the efforts in finding a cure for diseases such as Dystonia.

MUNICH, Germany, Aug. 22 (UPI) — Scientists at Ludwig Maximilian University have developed a technique for turning the body of a deceased rodent entirely transparent, revealing the central nervous system in unprecedented clarity.

Researchers are hopeful the new and improved view will help scientists understand how traumatic brain injuries, strokes and aging yield chronic disorders like dementia and epilepsy.

5 Incredible Ways Scientists Are Merging Our Brains With Machines

I’ve been reading Ramez Naam’s fantastic book “Nexus,” which is set in a near-future where a powerful nano-drug allows human minds to connect together. In the story, a group of enterprising neuroscientists and engineers discover they can use the drug in a new way — to run a computer operating system inside their brains. Naam’s characters telepathically communicate with each other using a mental chat app and even manipulate other people’s bodies by gaining control of their brains’ operating systems.

Sounds far-fetched, right?

It might not be as far-fetched as you think. From connecting a human brain to a basic tablet to help a paralyzed patient communicate with the outside world to memory-boosting brain implants and a prototype computer chip that runs on live neurons — the real world progress we’re seeing today is nearly as strange as fiction.

Research using sheep leads to a new device to record and stimulate the brain

The new BMI stentrode came from the research on sheep; nice to know for the next Trivia night at the local pub.

A group of Australian and American researchers have used sheep to develop and test a new device (original paper) – the stentrode – for recording electrical signals from inside the brain. The research was published in Nature Biotechnology. This new technology removes one of the main obstacles to developing efficient brain-computer interfaces: the need for invasive surgery.

The “stentrode” is a group of small (750 µm) recording electrodes attached to an intracranial endovascular stent, which allows implantation of the electrodes inside the brain without invasive surgery. This allows high quality recording or stimulation of specific areas of the brain, without many of the risks associated with invasive brain surgery.

Now we can watch DNA Repair itself!

Watching DNA self-repair itself.

After 2015’s Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded for advancements in our understanding of DNA repair, a recent Nature report characterises the mechanism in molecular detail. The implications for cancer research are vast.

Researchers in Paris, France, and Bristol, England, have leveraged recent advances in microscopy and fluorescent imaging to characterise the entire process of DNA repair at the molecular level. They were able to observe RNA polymerase, which ‘reads’ DNA and initiates its replication, as it moved along the DNA strand.

When it encountered damage inflicted by UV radiation, the enzyme stalled, and a number of proteins descended on the site. The team followed them as they acted in an ordered step-wise fashion and elucidated the critical steps of the DNA repair process: first, a protein called Mfd coordinates to RNA polymerase, then it directs a sort of relay team of UvrA, UvrB and UvrC. This deeper understanding of the mechanism could bolster efforts towards treatments for a variety of conditions.

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