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Category: biotech/medical – Page 983

Gene therapy treats chronic pain by dialing down sodium

Researchers at NYU College of Dentistry’s Pain Research Center have developed a gene therapy that treats chronic pain by indirectly regulating a specific sodium ion channel, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The innovative therapy, tested in cells and animals, is made possible by the discovery of the precise region where a regulatory protein binds to the NaV1.7 to control its activity.

“Our study represents a major step forward in understanding the underlying biology of the NaV1.7 sodium ion channel, which can be harnessed to provide relief from chronic pain,” said Rajesh Khanna, director of the NYU Pain Research Center and professor of molecular pathobiology at NYU Dentistry.

Making Renewable, Infinitely Recyclable Plastics Using Bacteria

Plastic waste is a problem. Most plastics can’t be recycled, and many use finite, polluting petrochemicals as the basic ingredients. But that’s changing. In a study published today in Nature Sustainability, researchers successfully engineered microbes to make biological alternatives for the starting ingredients in an infinitely recyclable plastic known as poly(diketoenamine), or PDK.

The finding comes from collaboration among experts at three facilities at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab): the Molecular Foundry, the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), and the Advanced Light Source.

“This is the first time that bioproducts have been integrated to make a PDK that is predominantly bio-based,” said Brett Helms, staff scientist at the Molecular Foundry who led the project. “And it’s the first time that you see a bio-advantage over using petrochemicals, both with respect to the material’s properties and the cost of producing it at scale.”

Combining AI and MRI to improve human longevity

British health tech startup Twinn Health recently emerged from stealth, boasting an AI-powered platform that analyzes MRI scans to detect preventable disease “earlier than ever before.” Starting with metabolic disease, the company’s AI platform leverages validated imaging biomarkers to improve diagnosis and treatment decisions.

With age-related frailty and liver disease also on its roadmap, Twinn Health is positioning itself squarely in the domain of longevity and preventive healthcare. The company is supported by WAED, a $500 million venture capital fund backed by Saudi Aramco, which invests in innovative tech-based startups.

Longevity. Technology: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been used in healthcare for decades and is widely used in hospitals and clinics for the diagnosis and follow-up of disease. In recent years, AI tools have appeared that help identify the presence of specific conditions within MRI scans, but the technology is not yet widely used in healthcare to support healthspan and longevity improvements. Twinn Health aims to change that, combining MRI and AI to enable the early detection and management of multiple age-related diseases. To learn more, we caught up with founder and CEO Dr Wareed Alenaini.

Personalized magnetic tentacles for targeted photothermal cancer therapy in peripheral lungs

All navigations reported in Fig. 2 were performed autonomously within 150 s and without intraoperative imaging. Specifically, each navigation was performed according to the pre-determined optimal actuation fields and supervised in real time by intraoperative localization. Therefore, the set of complex navigations performed by the magnetic tentacle was possible without the need for exposure to radiation-based imaging. In all cases, the soft magnetic tentacle is shown to conform by design to the anatomy thanks to its low stiffness, optimal magnetization profile and full-shape control. Compared to a stiff catheter, the non-disruptive navigation achieved by the magnetic tentacle can improve the reliability of registration with pre-operative imaging to enhance both navigation and targeting. Moreover, compared to using multiple catheters with different pre-bent tips, the optimization approach used for the magnetic tentacle design determines a single magnetization profile specific to the patient’s anatomy that can navigate the full range of possible pathways illustrated in Fig. 2. Supplementary Movies S1 and S2 report all the experiments. Supplementary Movie S1 shows the online tracking capabilities of the proposed platform.

In Table 1, we report the results of the localization for four different scenarios. These cases highlight diverse navigations in the left and right bronchi. The error is referred to as the percentage of tentacles outside the anatomy. This was computed by intersecting the shape of the catheter, as predicted by the FBG sensor, and the anatomical mesh grid extracted from the CT scan. The portion of the tentacle within the anatomy was measured by using “inpolyhedron” function in MATLAB. In Supplementary Movie S1, this is highlighted in blue, while the section of the tentacle outside the anatomy is marked in red. The error in Table 1 was computed using the equation.

A butterfly’s first flight inspires a new way to produce force and electricity

The wings of a butterfly are made of chitin, an organic polymer that is the main component of the shells of arthropods like crustaceans and other insects. As a butterfly emerges from its cocoon in the final stage of metamorphosis, it will slowly unfold its wings into their full grandeur.

During the unfolding, the chitinous material becomes dehydrated while blood pumps through the veins of the butterfly, producing forces that reorganize the molecules of the material to provide the unique strength and stiffness necessary for flight. This natural combination of forces, movement of water, and molecular organization is the inspiration behind Associate Professor Javier G. Fernandez’s research.

Alongside fellow researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Fernandez has been exploring the use of chitinous polymers as a sustainable material for engineering applications.

Tiny Thermoelectric Device Restores Thermal Perception in Phantom Limb

Summary: Researchers created a revolutionary tiny and efficient thermoelectric device, which can help amputees feel temperature with their phantom limbs.

Known as the wearable thin-film thermoelectric cooler (TFTEC), this device is lightweight, incredibly fast, and energy-efficient, potentially revolutionizing applications such as prosthetics, augmented reality haptics, and thermally-modulated therapeutics. Additionally, this technology has potential in industries like electronics cooling and energy harvesting in satellites.

The study conducted to test the TFTEC demonstrated its ability to elicit cooling sensations in phantom limbs, doing so significantly faster, with more intensity, and less energy than traditional thermoelectric technology.

Scientists Resurrected an Extinct Animal Frozen for 46,000 Years in Siberia

The astonishing discovery is “important for the understanding of evolutionary processes because generation times could be stretched from days to millennia, and long-term survival of individuals of species can lead to the refoundation of otherwise extinct lineages,” according to a study published on Thursday in the journal PLoS Genetics.

“Their evolution was literally suspended for 40k years,” wrote Philipp Schiffer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Cologne and a co-author of the study, in an email to Motherboard.

“We are now comparing them to species from the same genus, which my team samples around the world,” he continued, noting that he is currently conducting fieldwork in the Australian Outback. “Studying their genomes we hope to understand a lot about how these populations became different in the last 40k years.”

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