Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 558

Scientists Find a Surprising Way to Transform A and B Blood Types Into Universal Blood

Blood transfusions save lives. In the US alone, people receive around 10 million units each year. But blood banks are always short in supply—especially when it comes to the “universal donor” type O.

Surprisingly, the gut microbiome may hold a solution for boosting universal blood supplies by chemically converting other blood types into the universal O.

Infusing the wrong blood type—say, type A to type B—triggers deadly immune reactions. Type O blood, however, is compatible with nearly everyone. It’s in especially high demand following hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and other crises because doctors have to rapidly treat as many people as possible.

Built-in bionic computing

Creating robots to safely aid disaster victims is one challenge; executing flexible robot control that takes advantage of the material’s softness is another. The use of pliable soft materials to collaborate with humans and work in disaster areas has drawn much recent attention. However, controlling soft dynamics for practical applications has remained a significant challenge.

In collaboration with the University of Tokyo and Bridgestone Corporation, Kyoto University has now developed a method to control pneumatic artificial muscles, which are soft robotic actuators. Rich dynamics of these drive components can be exploited as a computational resource.

Artificial muscles control rich soft component dynamics by using them as a computational resource. (Image: MEDICAL FIG.)

New rapid blood test can detect stroke in 6 hours, save lives

Blood test detects stroke quickly:

The Testing for Identification of Markers of Stroke trial shows the accuracy of a new blood test for identifying stroke.

A team of scientists has developed a new test by combining blood-based biomarkers with a clinical score. The main goal was to identify patients experiencing large vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke.

LVO strokes, a severe form of stroke, are often characterized by a sudden onset of symptoms and significant neurological damage. They occur when an artery in the brain is blocked, depriving the brain of essential oxygen.

Introducing the Frontier Safety Framework

Our approach to analyzing and mitigating future risks posed by advanced AI models.

Google DeepMind has consistently pushed the boundaries of AI, developing models that have transformed our understanding of what’s possible. We believe that AI technology on the horizon will provide society with invaluable tools to help tackle critical global challenges, such as climate change, drug discovery, and economic productivity. At the same time, we recognize that as we continue to advance the frontier of AI capabilities, these breakthroughs may eventually come with new risks beyond those posed by present-day models.

Today, we are introducing our Frontier Safety Framework — a set of protocols for proactively identifying future AI capabilities that could cause severe harm and putting in place mechanisms to detect and mitigate them. Our Framework focuses on severe risks resulting from powerful capabilities at the model level, such as exceptional agency or sophisticated cyber capabilities. It is designed to complement our alignment research, which trains models to act in accordance with human values and societal goals, and Google’s existing suite of AI responsibility and safety practices.

Scientists develop a soft robot that mimics a spider’s leg

In organisms, fluid is what binds the organs, the and the musculoskeletal system as a whole. For example, hemolymph, a blood-like fluid in a spider’s body, enables muscle activation and exoskeleton flexibility. It was the cucumber spider inhabiting Estonia that inspired scientists to create a complex , where soft and rigid parts are made to work together and are connected by a liquid.

According to Indrek Must, Associate Professor of Soft Robotics, the designed soft robot is based on real reason. “Broadly speaking, our goal is to build systems from both natural and artificial materials that are as effective as in wildlife. The robotic leg could touch delicate objects and move in the same complex environments as a living spider,” he explains.

In a published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, the researchers show how a robotic foot touches a primrose stamen, web, and pollen grain. This demonstrates the soft robot’s ability to interact with very small and delicate structures without damaging them.

Watch: Sony’s new microsurgery robot stitches up a corn kernel

Sony has shown off its new surgical robot doing some super-precise work sewing up a tiny slit in a corn kernel. It’s the first machine of its kind that auto-switches between its different tools, and has successfully been tested in animal surgery.

It’s designed to help in the field of super-microsurgery, a highly specialized field in which surgeons operate on extremely small blood vessels and nerves, with diameters well under 1 mm (0.04 in). As you might imagine, this kind of thing requires incredibly steady hands, and specialists in this field often do their work whole looking through a microscope.

Thus, it’s an ideal place for some robotic assistance, and there are a number of surgical robots already in clinical use from companies like Intuitive Surgical, Stryker and others. We’re not talking fully autonomous AI-powered robot surgeons here, we’re talking teleoperation tools that allow surgeons to magnify their vision while shrinking their hand motions.

Some brain injury patients would recover if life support weren’t ended

A substantial proportion of people with a traumatic brain injury who had their life support withdrawn may have survived and at least partially recovered, a study suggests.

Traumatic brain injuries can occur due to a forceful blow, a jolt to the head or an object entering the brain, such as a bullet…

After comparing people with brain injuries whose life support was continued with those who had it turned off, scientists calculated that around 40 per cent in the latter group may have made some recovery.

By Moheb Costandi

Gene Editing Breakthrough: CRISPR Improves Vision in Clinical Trial

Jason Comander, MD, PhD, performs the procedure to deliver the CRISPR-based medicine as part of the BRILLIANCE trial in September 2020 at Mass Eye and Ear. Credit: Mass Eye and Ear.

All 14 trial participants, including 12 adults (ages 17 to 63) and two children (ages 10 and 14), were born with a form of Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA) caused by mutations in the centrosomal protein 290 (CEP290) gene. They underwent a single injection of a CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing medicine, EDIT-101 in one eye via a specialized surgical procedure. This trial, which included the first patient to ever receive a CRISPR-based investigational medicine directly inside the body, focused primarily on safety with a secondary analysis for efficacy.

No serious treatment or procedure-related adverse events were reported, nor were there any dose-limiting toxicities. For efficacy, the researchers looked at four measures: best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA); dark-adapted full-field stimulus testing (FST), visual function navigation (VNC, as measured by a maze participants completed), and vision-related quality of life.