Lifeboat Foundation

When the spinal cords of mice and humans are partially damaged, the initial paralysis is followed by the extensive, spontaneous recovery of motor function. However, after a complete spinal cord injury, this natural repair of the spinal cord doesn’t occur and there is no recovery. Meaningful recovery after severe injuries requires strategies that promote the regeneration of nerve fibers, but the requisite conditions for these strategies to successfully restore motor function have remained elusive.

“Five years ago, we demonstrated that nerve fibers can be regenerated across anatomically complete spinal cord injuries,” says Mark Anderson, a senior author of the study. “But we also realized this wasn’t enough to restore motor function, as the new fibers failed to connect to the right places on the other side of the lesion.” Anderson is the director of Central Nervous System Regeneration at. NeuroRestore and a scientist at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering.

Continue reading “Regeneration across complete spinal cord injuries reverses paralysis” »

A. There are so many mundane but essential administrative and clerical tasks that clog up a clinician’s workday. A computer screen is actively competing for our attention. It’s the part of the industry we – as physicians – were never trained for. But, years of “we’ve always done it that way” created this anchor on us all, leading to burnout and driving thousands out of the industry during the pandemic.

Processes vastly simplified and improved by generative AI can be a powerful recruitment tool to bring a new generation into the healthcare industry and patient care without arcane and difficult processes in their way. By eliminating needless note-taking and long nights of billing and coding for reimbursement purposes, doctors can get back to solving the real issues of patient care.

Sandman, a new cyber threat actor, is targeting telecom providers across continents.

The recent introduction of the breathtaking AI tool ChatGPT has sparked a national dialogue about the future of artificial intelligence in health care, education, research, and beyond. In this session, four UCSF experts discuss AI’s current and potential uses, in areas ranging from research to education to clinical care. After a brief presentation by each speaker, DOM Chair Bob Wachter moderates a far-ranging panel discussion on the health care applications of ChatGPT.

Speakers:
Atul Butte, MD, PhD, professor of Pediatrics, Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics; director, UCSF Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute; chief data scientist, University of California Health System.

Continue reading “ChatGPT: Will It Transform the World of Health Care?” »

The blood cancer treatment venetoclax (Venclexta; Roche, Genentech, AbbVie) was found to kill latent HIV-infected cells, indicating a possible new treatment for the virus, according to the results of a preclinical study by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.

When HIV-infected cells are latent, the virus remains in the body and is untreatable by therapies currently on the market, which is why patients with HIV must stay on treatment to suppress the virus. Currently, antiretroviral therapies (ART) are the standard of care treatment for patients with HIV, however, they cannot target latent infection.

Although antiretroviral therapies are the standard of care treatment for those with HIV, the drugs cannot target latent infections; however, venetoclax, a blood cancer treatment, shows promise.

Continue reading “Study: Blood Cancer Treatment Found to Kill Latent HIV-Infected Cells, Possible New Treatment” »

The psychedelic drug MDMA can reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers reported in a new study published Thursday.

The company sponsoring the research said it plans later this year to seek U.S. approval to market the drug, also known as ecstasy, as a PTSD treatment when combined with talk therapy.

“It’s the first innovation in PTSD treatment in more than two decades. And it’s significant because I think it will also open up other innovation,” said Amy Emerson, CEO of MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, the research sponsor.”

Continue reading “Psychedelic drug MDMA eases PTSD symptoms in a study that paves the way for possible US approval” »

You can now speak aloud to ChatGPT and hear the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot talk back.

OpenAI, the startup behind the wildly-popular chatbot, announced Monday that it is rolling out new features including the ability to let users engage in a back-and-forth voice conversation with ChatGPT.

In a company blog post Monday, OpenAI teased how this new feature can be used to request a bedtime story for your family, or settle a dinner table debate.

Blood plasma from young donors treating age-related conditions (RAADfest 2023)

Computer performance is measured in FLOPS, or floating-point operations per second. The first supercomputer, which was developed in 1964, could run 3,000,000 FLOPS, i.e., 3 megaFLOPS. Exa means 18 zeros, meaning 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 FLOPS. An exascale computer can perform that many operations — something that is almost impossible to imagine.

Now, there is a huge advantage to commanding that kind of computing power in today’s world. Here is what the same McKinsey report says: “Exascale computing could allow scientists to solve problems that have until now been impossible. With exascale, exponential increases in memory, storage, and compute power may drive breakthroughs in several industries: energy production, storage, transmission, materials science, heavy industry, chemical design, AI and machine learning, cancer research and treatment, earthquake risk assessment, and many more.”

Put simply, China now may have the computing power at its disposal to match, or even overtake, technology leaders like the United States in several areas that could be key to becoming the dominant economic and military power in the world. China could also pair its advances in artificial intelligence with this mind-boggling computering power and achieve technological and military dominance quite quickly.