Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers in Germany have successfully grown the innermost layer of human fallopian tubes in the lab — the first step towards creating a functional model that will allow scientists to study how reproductive diseases such as cancer start, as well as provide important insight into the enigmatic organs.

The fallopian tubes play a crucial role in the female reproductive system by connecting the ovaries to the uterus, but recent research has suggested that if fallopian tube cells become infected, they can migrate, and could be a key trigger for ovarian cancer — one of the most deadly types of female reproductive cancer.

Despite the importance of these organs, we have a lot to learn about how they function, particularly on the inside — an area that (as you can imagine) is particularly challenging for scientists to study while their patients are alive.

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This is an interesting conjecture.

We may be able to keep our gut in check after all. That’s the tantalizing finding from a new study published today that reveals a way that mice—and potentially humans—can control the makeup and behavior of their gut microbiome. Such a prospect upends the popular notion that the complex ecosystem of germs residing in our guts essentially acts as our puppet master, altering brain biochemistry even as it tends to our immune system, wards off infection and helps us break down our supersized burger and fries.

In a series of elaborate experiments researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital discovered that mouse poop is chock full of tiny, noncoding RNAs called microRNAs from their gastrointestinal (GI) tracts and that these biomolecules appear to shape and regulate the microbiome. “We’ve known about how microbes can influence your health for a few years now and in a way we’ve always suspected it’s a two-way process, but never really pinned it down that well,” says Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, not involved with the new study. “This [new work] explains quite nicely the two-way interaction between microbes and us, and it shows the relationship going the other way—which is fascinating,” says Spector, author of The Diet Myth: Why the Secret to Health and Weight Loss Is Already in Your Gut.

Continue reading “Does our Microbiome Control Us or Do We Control It?” »

I could see the value of AI in helping with a whole host of addictions, compulsive disorders, etc. AI at the core is often looking at patterns and predicting outcomes, or the next steps to make, or predicting what you or I will want to do or react to something, etc. So, leveraging AI as a tool to help in finding or innovating new solutions for things like OCD or addictions does truly make sense.

New York-based AiCure, which holds 12 patents for artificially intelligent software platforms that aim to improve patient outcomes by targeting medication adherence, announced the closing of a $12.25 million funding round Monday.

The company’s software was built with help from $7 million in competitive grants from four National Institutes of Health organizations, awarded in order to spur tech developments that would have a significant impact on drug research and therapy. The National Institute of Drug Abuse awarded AiCure $1 million in 2014 to help launch a major study into the efficacy of using the company’s platform to monitor and intervene with patients receiving medication as maintenance therapy for addiction.

Adherence to such therapies is associated with improved recovery, but often patients take improper doses or sell the drugs to others. To address this, AiCure’s platform connects patients with artificial intelligence software via their devices that determines whether a medication is being taken as prescribed. The platform has shown to be feasible for use across various patient populations, including elderly patients and study participants in schizophrenia and HIV prevention trials, according to a news release.

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Last week at CES, South San Francisco based Profusa showed off an upcoming injectable sensor that can be used to continuously monitor oxygen levels in tissue. Measuring only five millimeters long and a tiny 250 microns in diameter, the biosensor can be injected into tissue with just a hypodermic needle. It consists of a soft hydrogel scaffold that allows it to be biologically compatible with the surrounding tissue without any foreign body response. The sensor also contains a special chemical marker that changes fluorescence depending on the amount of oxygen that reacts with it. An optical reader placed on the skin measures the fluorescence and relays the data to a smartphone. The biosensor can last as long as two years (at which point the chemical marker begins to lose its potency), and because it contains no electronics and is completely biocompatible there’s no need to remove it.

On stage at the CES Digital Health Summit, Profusa CEO Dr. Ben Hwang gave a live demonstration of how the sensor works in action. As two of his colleagues with the sensors implanted and using a blood pressure cuffs performed stretches to simulate changes in blood flow, a graph displayed the live view of the changing tissue oxygen levels at the site of the sensors.

Continue reading “Medgadget @ CES 2016: Profusa Unveils Long-Term Implanatable Biosensor” »

As we explore opportunities in space to colonized or even expand business opportunities in space such as mining, and discovering materials that could be brought back to earth to use; it will be important for scientists and researchers to look at ways in how technologies like CRISPR, nanobots, synthetic implants, etc. can assist in mitigating the impacts on humans in space.

A new report commissioned by NASA highlights many of the risks connected with one of the agency’s major goals: putting more humans in space for longer periods of time.

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The MMTP is testing Senolytics in an ambitious large scale mouse longevity project.

The goal of regenerative medicine is both quantity and quality whilst traditional medicine has provided quantity often at the cost of quality. Regenerative medicine proposes to reduce the frailty and decline of old age by rejuvenating the body and promoting healthy longevity. With advances in technology, research and our understanding of the aging process, this is now becoming a realistic proposition.

Some drugs already tested have been found to increase mouse lifespan such as Metformin ^1,2 and Rapamycin ³.These drugs are even now moving into human clinical trials to see if the above benefits translate into people. However, there are many more promising substances that have never been properly tested and we do not know if they could extend healthy lifespan.

Continue reading “Major Mouse Testing To Fast Track Regenerative Medicine” »

Yelling at stem cells.

Acoustics experts have created a new class of sound wave — the first in more than half a century — in a breakthrough they hope could lead to a revolution in stem cell therapy.

The team at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, combined two different types of acoustic sound waves called bulk waves and surface waves to create a new hybrid: “surface reflected bulk waves”.

Continue reading “Researchers ride new sound wave to health discovery” »

A new survey has discovered a fear of frailty likely prevents widespread support of longevity, but if health is combined with years then it could well be a popular option.

Healthy longevity may convince people

According to the new survey, out of 1500 people 74.4% wished to live to 120 or longer if health was guaranteed, but only 57.4% wished to live that long if it wasn’t.

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The Osterhout Design Group, which has been making high-end night-vision goggles for years, has begun shipping its R-7 augmented reality glasses for enterprise applications. The $2,750 smartglasses are a sign of things to come, as the company eventually hopes to bring the technology to the masses at consumer prices.

Augmented reality is expected to become a $150 billion market by 2020, according to tech advisor Digi-Capital. But first, it has to become cheaper, lighter, and otherwise more practical. The R-7 represents ODG’s best trade-off between capability and cost. The company is showing the R-7 at the 2016 International CES, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas this week.

The ODG R-7 shows heads-up display images on the inside of the lenses, so you can see stereoscopic 3D or other animated imagery on top of objects in the real world. The company is targeting applications in health care, energy, transportation, warehouse, logistics, and government.

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