Archive for the ‘health’ category: Page 117
Jul 17, 2022
Biohacking the Oral Microbiome
Posted by Mike Lustgarten in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, health
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Jul 17, 2022
Deep learning accelerates the detection of live bacteria using thin-film transistor arrays
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in categories: chemistry, economics, food, health, mobile phones, robotics/AI
Early detection and identification of pathogenic bacteria in food and water samples are essential to public health. Bacterial infections cause millions of deaths worldwide and bring a heavy economic burden, costing more than 4 billion dollars annually in the United States alone. Among pathogenic bacteria, Escherichia coli (E. coli) and other coliform bacteria are among the most common ones, and they indicate fecal contamination in food and water samples. The most conventional and frequently used method for detecting these bacteria involves culturing of the samples, which usually takes 24 hours for the final read-out and needs expert visual examination. Although some methods based on, for example, the amplification of nucleic acids, can reduce the detection time to a few hours, they cannot differentiate live and dead bacteria and present low sensitivity at low concentrations of bacteria. That is why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approves no nucleic acid-based bacteria sensing method for screening water samples.
In an article recently published in ACS Photonics, a journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS), a team of scientists, led by Professor Aydogan Ozcan from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and co-workers have developed an AI-powered smart bacterial colony detection system using a thin-film transistor (TFT) array, which is a widely used technology in mobile phones and other displays.
The ultra-large imaging area of the TFT array (27 mm × 26 mm) manufactured by researchers at Japan Display Inc. enabled the system to rapidly capture the growth patterns of bacterial colonies without the need for scanning, which significantly simplified both the hardware and software design. This system achieved ~12-hour time savings compared to gold-standard culture-based methods approved by EPA. By analyzing the microscopic images captured by the TFT array as a function of time, the AI-based system could rapidly and automatically detect colony growth with a deep neural network. Following the detection of each colony, a second neural network is used to classify the bacteria species.
Jul 16, 2022
Dr Dana Merriman, PhD — UW-Oshkosh — Hibernation Biology & Applications In Human Health & Resilience
Posted by Ira S. Pastor in categories: biotech/medical, food, genetics, health, neuroscience
Hibernation Biology & Applications In Human Health & Resilience — Dr. Dana K. Merriman, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor Emerita of Biology; Director of the Squirrel Colony, UW-Oshkosh.
Dr. Dana K. Merriman Ph.D. (www.uwosh.edu/facstaff/merriman/VaughanHome), is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Biology, and Director of the Squirrel Colony, at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and Adjunct Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, Medical College of Wisconsin.
Jul 16, 2022
Chip Maker Intel Has News That Customers and Companies Won’t Like
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: business, computing, economics, finance, health, policy, transportation
Intel ((INTC) — Get Intel Corporation Report ) is the bearer of additional bad news.
The chip giant will give an extra blow to consumers and businesses concerned about the health of the economy. For several weeks in fact, consumers have seen their bills for groceries and other products increase. The price of gasoline at the pump has jumped when they go to fill up their car.
And the situation is not getting any better since inflation remains at its highest for forty years, which should push the Federal Reserve to be even more aggressive in raising rates. However, economists have already warned that this monetary policy would plunge the economy into recession.
Jul 16, 2022
Study Finds Traditional Native Indian Medicine Effective Treatment for Type 2 Diabetes
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in categories: biotech/medical, health
Several traditional medicines commonly used in South Asia, are effective in maintaining blood sugar levels in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a new study led by experts at the University of Nottingham.
Many South Asian countries, including India and Nepal, have been using the Ayurvedic natural medical system for thousands of years. Some of the herbs included in this traditional medical system are also used in other parts of the world including Iran, China, and Mexico – to name a few.
It features a multi-pronged and individualized approach to managing health conditions that can include lifestyle modification (including diet), Ayurvedic detoxifying and purifying therapies (e.g. Panchakarma), and Ayurvedic medicines (containing plant, animal, or mineral-origin ingredients – single or in combination).
Jul 15, 2022
Dr Rosamund Lewis MD — Head, WHO Smallpox Secretariat — Surveillance, Preparedness & Health Security
Posted by Ira S. Pastor in categories: biotech/medical, government, health, security
Surveillance, Preparedness & Health Security In Critical Disease Emergencies — Dr. Rosamund Lewis, MD, Head, WHO Smallpox Secretariat, Technical Lead for Monkeypox.
Dr. Rosamund Lewis, MD, is Head, WHO Smallpox Secretariat, Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Unit, World Health Emergencies Programme, at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, leading on emergency preparedness and advising on health security for the agency in this very critical domain, including as technical lead for Monkeypox. She also holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa.
Jul 14, 2022
Dr. Stephen Moran, PhD — Reimagining Nuclear Medicine — Advanced Accelerator Applications, Novartis
Posted by Ira S. Pastor in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, economics, health, quantum physics
Reimagining Nuclear Medicine — Dr. Stephen Moran, Ph.D., Global Program Head, Neuroendocrine Tumors & Other Radiosensitive Cancers, Advanced Accelerator Applications, Novartis
Dr. Stephen Moran, Ph.D., is Global Program Head, Neuroendocrine Tumors & Other Radiosensitive Cancers, for Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA — https://www.adacap.com/), a Novartis company and also a member of the Oncology Development Unit Leadership Team at Novartis.
Jul 13, 2022
Producing COVID-19 antibodies in hen eggs
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in categories: biotech/medical, health
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have been able to produce antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in hen eggs. Antibodies harvested from eggs might be used to treat COVID-19 or as a preventative measure for people exposed to the disease. The work was published July 9 in the journal Viruses.
“The beauty of the system is that you can produce a lot of antibodies in birds,” said Rodrigo Gallardo, professor in poultry medicine, Department of Population Health and Reproduction at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “In addition to a low cost to produce these antibodies in hens, they can be updated very fast by using updated antigens to hyperimmunize hens, allowing protection against current variant strains.”
Birds produce a type of antibody called IgY, comparable to IgG in humans and other mammals. IgY does not cause allergy or set off immune reactions when injected into humans. IgY appears both in birds’ serum and in their eggs. As a hen lays about 300 eggs a year, you can get a lot of IgY, Gallardo said.
Jul 13, 2022
Artificial intelligence model finds potential drug molecules a thousand times faster
Posted by Quinn Sena in categories: biotech/medical, health, robotics/AI
The entirety of the known universe is teeming with an infinite number of molecules. But what fraction of these molecules have potential drug-like traits that can be used to develop life-saving drug treatments? Millions? Billions? Trillions? The answer: novemdecillion, or 1060. This gargantuan number prolongs the drug development process for fast-spreading diseases like COVID-19 because it is far beyond what existing drug design models can compute. To put it into perspective, the Milky Way has about 100 thousand million, or 108, stars.
In a paper that will be presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), MIT researchers developed a geometric deep-learning model called EquiBind that is 1,200 times faster than one of the fastest existing computational molecular docking models, QuickVina2-W, in successfully binding drug-like molecules to proteins. EquiBind is based on its predecessor, EquiDock, which specializes in binding two proteins using a technique developed by the late Octavian-Eugen Ganea, a recent MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic) postdoc, who also co-authored the EquiBind paper.
Before drug development can even take place, drug researchers must find promising drug-like molecules that can bind or “dock” properly onto certain protein targets in a process known as drug discovery. After successfully docking to the protein, the binding drug, also known as the ligand, can stop a protein from functioning. If this happens to an essential protein of a bacterium, it can kill the bacterium, conferring protection to the human body.
