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Category: biotech/medical – Page 799

Biodegradable devices that generate energy from the same effect behind most static electricity could help power transient electronic implants that dissolve in the body, researchers say.

Implantable electronic devices now help treat everything from damaged hearts to traumatic brain injuries. For example, pacemakers can help keep hearts beating properly, while brain sensors can monitor patients for potentially dangerous swelling in the brain.

However, when standard electronic implants run out of power, they need to be removed lest they eventually become sites of infection. But their surgical removal can result in potentially dangerous complications. Scientists are developing transient implantable electronics that dissolve once they are no longer needed, but these mostly rely on external sources of power, limiting their applications.

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A study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports on March 23, led by Dr. Ryosuke Tsuchimochi and Professor Jun Takahashi, examined the effects of combining cell transplantation and gene therapy for axonal outgrowth in the central nervous system. The authors demonstrated the potential of this combinatorial therapy for promoting axonal regeneration in patients with central nervous system injuries.

Stroke and traumatic brain/ often damage the corticospinal tract (CST), composed of descending axonal tracts from the motor cortex down the spinal cord, that innervates to activate skeletal muscles for controlling voluntary movements. Pharmacological and surgical interventions, in conjunction with rehabilitation, can maintain some lost motor functions, but patients with such acute neural injuries often suffer from lifelong severe motor impairment.

Cell replacement therapy—the implantation of new neurons into damaged —is viewed as a last hope that could help patients recover sufficient motor functions to live a normal life. The research team previously demonstrated that brain tissues transplanted into injured mouse brains could find their way to the CST and spinal cord but believed that further optimization of the host environment was necessary to promote CST reconstruction and functional recovery.

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Orion in March announced it has set out on a four-year project to build a cutting-edge ecosystem for pharmaceutical research in Finland.

Consisting of companies, universities and research institutes, the ecosystem will utilise artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to reduce the time required for studying and developing pharmaceutical products.

“Utilising data with the help of artificial intelligence is a competitive advantage for developing new innovative medicines because it expedites development and significantly increases the probability of success,” toldOuti Vaarala, director of innovative medicines at Orion.

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A new publication released today in The EMBO Journal identified a key protein in the molecular mechanism triggering neurogenesis in the hippocampus. They found that tight regulation of Yap1 activity is essential as dysregulation can cause tissue disruption seen in the early stages of brain cancer.

Neurogenesis is the process by which are produced by (NSCs) in the brain. Neurogenesis is a crucial process in embryo development, but it also continues in some after birth and all throughout adulthood. In adulthood, neurogenesis is mainly responsible for brain plasticity.

In the adult hippocampus, a brain area responsible for memory and learning, most are held at quiescence. This reversible pause protects stem cells against damage and controls the rate of neurogenesis. When necessary, the stem cells can be taken off this pause to undergo activation. The mechanisms controlling quiescence and activation are still not fully understood.

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Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an experimental treatment strategy which uses an implanted device to help patients with severe depression who have reached a point where no other treatment works.

But despite her involvement in the DBS collaboration, which involves neuroscientists, neurosurgeons, electrophysiologists, engineers and computer scientists, neurologist Helen Mayberg does not see it as a long-term solution.

“I hope I live long enough to see that people won’t require a hole in their brain and a device implanted in this way,” she says. “I often have a nightmare with my tombstone that kind of reads like, what did she think she was doing?”

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University of Pittsburgh researchers have identified a type of immune cell that drives chronic organ transplant failure in a mouse model of kidney transplantation and uncovered pathways that could be therapeutically targeted to improve patient outcomes. The findings are published in a new Science Immunology paper.

“In solid organ transplantation, such as kidney transplants, one-year outcomes are excellent because we have immunosuppressant drugs that manage the problem of acute rejection,” said co-senior author Fadi Lakkis, M.D., distinguished professor of surgery, professor of immunology and medicine, and scientific director of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at Pitt and UPMC.

“But over time, these organs often start to fail because of a slower form of rejection called chronic rejection, and current medications don’t seem to help. Understanding this problem was the motivation behind our study.”

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Using an organ from a donor who underwent cardiac death, Stanford Medicine surgeons transplanted a heart while it was beating—the first time such a procedure has been achieved.

Initially performed by Joseph Woo, MD, professor and chair of cardiothoracic surgery, and his team in October, the technique has since been used in adult and five more times by surgeons at Stanford Medicine.

Stopping the heart before implantation can damage the cardiac tissue, so keeping it beating during transplantation avoids further injury to the organ.

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Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) scientists have created a promising injectable cell therapy to treat osteoarthritis that both reduces inflammation and also regenerates articular cartilage.

Recently identified by the Food and Drug Administration as a public health crisis, osteoarthritis affects more than 520 million people worldwide who deal with pain and . Osteoarthritis is typically induced by mechanical or traumatic stress in the joint, leading to damaged that cannot be repaired naturally.

“Without better understanding of what drives the initiation and progression of osteoarthritis, effective treatment has been limited,” said lead author Johanna Bolander of WFIRM. “Initially, we studied what goes wrong in osteoarthritic joints, compared these processes to functional environments, and used this information to develop an immunotherapy cell treatment.”

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