Toggle light / dark theme

By contrast, information on coronary inflammation can provide crucial early warning signs of a cardiac event. Yet traditional diagnostic methods of measuring inflammation are not specific for cardiovascular diseases. Inflammation is invisible to CT scans, for instance. And biomarkers such as hsCRP (High-sensitivity C-reactive Protein) measure systemic inflammation, rather than cardiovascular inflammation, so the test may show up high in the case of inflammation driven by non-heart organs.

CaRi-Heart leverages AI tech to detect and quantify coronary inflammation, giving it an edge over traditional diagnostic methods. Cheng explains that while it is important to find patients who already have significantly narrowed coronary arteries, and obviously need immediate treatment, cardiologists often end up archiving many cases of patients with no visible signs of disease but who potentially have high coronary inflammation. This inflammation, driven by cholesterol, or smoking, or diabetes and other risk factors, ultimately causes the wall of the artery to become thickened and narrowed.

Caristo’s CaRi-Heart technology is a non-invasive cloud-based solution that utilizes AI to analyse CT scans, overcoming the limitations of traditional diagnostic methods, offering a more sensitive and specific approach to detecting and quantifying coronary inflammation, says Cheng. CaRi-Heart is the only commercially available technology that can detect and measure coronary inflammation on routine cardiac CT scans, and it has been cleared for clinical use in the UK, EU and Australia.

Professor Jürgen Götz and Dr Pranesh Padmanabhan from the Queensland Brain Institute comment on the successful human trial by the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute which found a five-fold reduction of amyloid-β in Alzheimer’s patients.

The latest trial results underscore the safety of using…


The potentially powerful combination of ultrasound and antibodies for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease is the focus of a News & Views article by UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) researchers.

QBI Professor Jürgen Götz and his team aim to develop low-intensity ultrasound into a treatment modality for Alzheimer’s disease.

Ultrasound can be used with microbubbles to achieve blood-brain barrier opening for drug delivery, or it can be used without bubbles to modulate brain function.

Paralysed patients can regain movement and a sense of feeling after being injected with stem cells grown from their own fat, scientists have found.

The research into new experimental therapy has shown that patients who had suffered devastating injuries after car accidents and falls showed a number of improvements.

The treatment involves taking fat from the abdomen or thigh and removing the mesenchymal stem cells – a special type of stem cell that can hone in on injuries, and encourage repair and regeneration.

Cell therapy company LyGenesis today revealed that the first patient has received treatment in the Phase 2a clinical trial of its regenerative cell therapy targeting end-stage liver disease (ESLD). The therapy, known as LYG-LIV-001, treats ESLD via an allogeneic regenerative cell therapy transplanted into patients’ lymph nodes.

ESLD affects nearly 2% of the US population, with more than 50,000 Americans succumbing to chronic liver disease annually. Often stemming from cirrhosis, ESLD poses significant health risks, and many patients are ineligible for traditional liver transplants.

The Phase 2a clinical trial, an open-label, dose-escalation study, is currently recruiting 12 patients diagnosed with ESLD. Each participant will undergo close monitoring for one year to assess the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of the transplanted hepatocytes in addressing the symptoms of ESLD.

Scientists have developed an ingestible capsule dotted with sensors that can detect pressure in a patient’s guts and detect points of failure.

The ingestible system will give colorectal medical teams an unprecedented understanding of the movement of a patient’s digestive tract, or lack thereof. Instead of simply taking images of inside the guts, the system will sense whether it’s contracting, how much pressure is exerted and exactly where it might be inactive.

The system has been tested in a synthetic gut and animals. A patent for the technology is pending.

A lot of people quickly learned about RNA when an RNA virus started the COVID-19 global pandemic. In humans, there are many forms of RNA, many of which are absolutely essential to life. Messenger RNA (mRNA) is generated from active genes, and used in cells to create proteins, control the expression of other genes, among an array of other functions. The various types of cells and tissues in the body are created and maintained through the expression of different genes, so the RNA that is present in a cell can tell us a lot about it.

Much of the genome is transcribed into RNA, even though not even two percent of the human genome encodes for proteins. There are small and long non-coding RNAs, which carry out regulatory or maintenance functions in the cell. Now that the human genome has been totally sequenced, researchers are turning their attention to the vast array of RNA molecules that are present in cells: the RNome, as well as their modifications. So far, 170 different types of RNA modifications have been identified, said Peter Dedon, MD, PhD, a Professor at MIT. RNA molecules can also interact with each other, DNA, or proteins.

TOKYO — In 2018, Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced the birth of the world’s first genome-edited babies, and was subsequently imprisoned in China. In his first solo interview with Japanese media, he revealed to the Mainichi Shimbun that he has resumed research on human embryo genome editing for the treatment of genetic diseases while adhering to international rules, and claimed “society will eventually accept it.”

Mental health chatbots can help treat symptoms of depression, according to findings from an NTU research team. These apps can interact with people to show empathy and encouragement, to improve moods. CNA spoke to Dr Laura Martinengo, Research Fellow at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at NTU.

Follow us:
CNA: https://cna.asia.
CNA Lifestyle: http://www.cnalifestyle.com.
Facebook: / channelnewsasia.
Instagram: / channelnewsasia.
Twitter: / channelnewsasia.
TikTok: / channelnewsasia.