These sophisticated models will be used for human-development studies and drug testing.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 90
New AI tool gives a helping hand to X-ray diagnosis
Can artificial intelligence (AI) potentially transform health care for the better?
Now, rising to the challenge, an Arizona State University team of researchers has built a powerful new AI tool, called Ark+, to help doctors read chest X‑rays better and improve health care outcomes.
“Ark+ is designed to be an open, reliable and ultimately useful tool in real‑world health care systems,” said Jianming “Jimmy” Liang, an ASU professor from the College of Health Solutions, and lead author of the study recently published in Nature.
Bionic knee allows better movement for amputees
A new bionic knee allows amputees to walk faster, climb stairs more easily, and adroitly avoid obstacles, researchers reported in the journal Science.
The new prothesis is directly integrated with the person’s muscle and bone tissue, enabling greater stability and providing more control over its movement, researchers said.
Two people equipped with the prosthetic said the limb felt more like a part of their own body, the study says.
Over 400 different types of nerve cell have been grown — far more than ever before
Nerve cells are not just nerve cells. Depending on how finely we distinguish, there are several hundred to several thousand different types of nerve cell in the human brain according to the latest calculations. These cell types vary in their function, in the number and length of their cellular appendages, and in their interconnections. They emit different neurotransmitters into our synapses and, depending on the region of the brain – for example, the cerebral cortex or the midbrain – different cell types are active.
When scientists produced nerve cells from stem cells in Petri dishes for their experiments in the past, it was not possible to take their vast diversity into account. Until now, researchers had only developed procedures for growing a few dozen different types of nerve cell in vitro. They achieved this using genetic engineering or by adding signalling molecules to activate particular cellular signalling pathways. However, they never got close to achieving the diversity of hundreds or thousands of different nerve cell types that actually exists.
“Neurons derived from stem cells are frequently used to study diseases. But up to now, researchers have often ignored which precise types of neuron they are working with,” says Barbara Treutlein, Professor at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel. However, this is not the best approach to such work. “If we want to develop cell culture models for diseases and disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and depression, we need to take the specific type of nerve cell involved into consideration.”
For the first time, researchers at ETH Zurich have successfully produced hundreds of different types of nerve cell from human stem cells in Petri dishes. In the future, it will thus be possible to investigate neurological disorders using cell cultures instead of animal testing.
First Stem Cell Nerve Therapy Meant to Reverse Paralysis Enters Clinical Trial
It begins with a fall, a crash, or a sudden jolt. In a split second, the spinal cord shatters. For millions, the damage is permanent. But in Shanghai and Suzhou, a group of scientists believes that might soon change.
This May, a biotech startup named XellSmart Biopharmaceutical received rare dual approval from both U.S. and Chinese regulators to launch a Phase I trial for an experimental treatment. The therapy is designed to repair spinal cord injuries using neurons grown in a lab.
The trial, described as the first of its kind, is being led by the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in China. The goal: to test whether specialized nerve cells can be safely implanted into people whose spinal cords were recently injured.
A cell therapy for regenerating broken spinal cord using lab-grown neurons enters human trials for the first time.
Filters inspired by nose hair and nasal mucus promise cleaner air
One of the problems of conventional filters used in homes, businesses and public spaces is their poor performance. They rely on weak van der Waals forces to capture particles like dust and pollen, meaning they let a lot of stuff slip through. Nature, however, does the job a whole lot better.
Drawing inspiration from the human body, chemical engineers at Chung-Ang University in South Korea designed an air filtration system that mimics the mucus layer coating nasal hairs.
Plants engineered for optimal biofuel production
Arabidopsis may seem like a simple plant, but at the University of Missouri, plant biochemist Jay Thelen is using it as a powerful model to explore ways to boost oil production—an important step toward creating more sustainable, plant-based energy sources.
To meet the increasing global demand for biofuels, scientists are already modifying plant genes to boost the amount of plant oil being produced. That’s because inside the plant, a complex network of metabolic pathways turns sunlight, carbon dioxide (or atmospheric carbon), water and nutrients into vital compounds including oil, the foundational ingredient of biofuel.
Genes give instructions to enzymes, and, in turn, those enzymes help control the plant’s metabolic pathways. But we are only beginning to understand how modifying these genes to produce more oil affects the plant’s other metabolic pathways, which are all interconnected.
Breakthrough gene therapy jab reverses hearing loss in weeks
Researchers also found that the treatment was safe and well-tolerated. Participants did not report any serious adverse reactions in the follow-up period of 6–12 months.
The most common reaction was a reduction in the number of the immune system’s neutrophils, a type of white blood cell.
“OTOF is just the beginning,” Dr Duan said, adding that researchers were working on other common genes behind deafness such as GJB2 and TMC1.
