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Tiny Sponge Soaks Up Venom in Blood: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte92 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 27 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • A tiny sponge camouflaged as a red blood cell could soak up toxins ranging from anthrax to snake venom, new research suggests
  • The new "nanosponge,"
  • The nanoparticles, also called nanosponges, act as decoys that lure and inactivate the deadly compounds
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • When injected into mice, the tiny decoys protect mice against lethal doses of a toxin produced by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
  • Follow-up studies need to be done in humans
  • One of the mainstay strategies of bacteria and poison is to poke holes in cells, disrupting their internal chemical balance and causing them to burst
  • far, researchers haven't had much success creating all-purpose treatments to exploit this vulnerability
  • researchers created a tiny spherical core of a lactic acid byproduct, which forms naturally during metabolism in the human body
  • They then wrapped the cores in the outer surface of red blood cells. (To get the outer skin of red blood cells, they used a difference in particle concentration inside and outside the cells to cause them to burst, and then collected their outer membranes
  • The entire ensemble became a tiny nanosponge, which was about 85 nanometers in diameter, or 100 times smaller than a human hair
  • In cell cultures, the camouflaged sponges act as decoys, luring the toxins from
  • the bacteria that causes strep throat) and bee venom
  • then binding to the structure the "poisons" normally use to poke through cells
  • When they stick onto the nanosponge, that particular damaging structure gets preoccupied, and then the body can digest the entire particle
  • the team injected 18 mice with a lethal dose of a MRSA toxin. Half the mice then got a dose of the nanosponges
  • Whereas all the mice in the control group died, all but one that received the treatment survived
  • Because so many bacteria use the same pore-forming strategy, the nanosponges could be used as a universal treatment option when doctors don't know exactly what is causing an illness
  • The sponges' tiny size means a small amount of blood, for camouflage, can be used to make an effective dose
  • also allows them to circulate freely through blood vessels, lure enough of the toxins to have an impact and still be degraded safely
  • the researchers want to see whether the method works in human blood, and against other toxic chemicals, such as scorpion venom and anthrax, which use similar attack strategies
Mars Base

An apple a day lowers level of blood chemical linked to hardening of the arteries - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...day-lowers-blood-chemical.html

scibyte66 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 03 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • In a study
  • consumption of one apple a day for four weeks lowered by 40 percent blood levels of a substance linked to hardening of the arteries.
  • Taking capsules containing polyphenols, a type of antioxidant found in apples, had a similar, but not as large, effect.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The study
  • , found that the apples lowered
  • "bad" cholesterol. When LDL
  • , the cholesterol is more likely to promote inflammation and can cause tissue damage.
  • tremendous effect against LDL being oxidized with just one apple a day for four weeks
  • difference was similar to that found between people with normal coronary arteries versus those with coronary artery disease
  • the polyphenol extract did register a measurable effect, but not as strong as the straight apple
  • could either be because there are other things in the apple that could contribute to the effect, or, in some cases, these bioactive compounds seem to get absorbed better when they're consumed in foods
  • eating apples had some effects on antioxidants in saliva, which has implications for dental health
Mars Base

A Viagra follow-up? Drug used to treat glaucoma actually grows human hair - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ow-up-drug-glaucoma-human.html

scibyte70 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 27 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • FDA-approved glaucoma drug, bimatoprost, causes human hair to regrow
  • been commercially available as a way to lengthen eyelashes, but these data are the first to show that it can actually grow human hair from the scalp
  • Further research should increase our understanding of how hair follicles work and thereby allow new therapeutic approaches for many hair growth disorders
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • d three sets of experiments
  • Two involved human cells and the other involved mice
  • tests on human cells involved using hair follicles growing in organ culture as well as those take directly from the human scalp.
  • both of these experiments, the scientists found that bimatoprost led to hair growth.
  • third set of experiments involved applying bimatoprost to the skin of bald spots on mice. As was the case with human cells, the drug caused hair to regrow.
  • the drug is already approved for human use and its safety profile is generally understood
Mars Base

Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance - 0 views

phys.org/...cancer-fighting-substance.html

scibyte46 medical Cancer MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 10 May 12 - No Cached
  • Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance
  • Protease Inhibitor (BBI), has shown promise for preventing certain forms of cancer in clinical trials.
  • BBI derived from the large amounts of soybeans in traditional Japanese diets might underpin low cancer mortality rates in Japan
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • the current method of extracting BBI from soybeans is time-consuming and involves harsh chemicals
  • soybean seeds incubated in water at 122 degrees Fahrenheit naturally release large amounts of BBI that can easily be harvested from the water
  • protein appeared to be active
  • tests showing that it stopped breast cancer cells from dividing in a laboratory dish
Mars Base

Nanotechnology breakthrough could dramatically improve medical tests - 0 views

phys.org/...logy-breakthrough-medical.html

scibyte49 NanoDevice MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • The material consists of a series of glass pillars in a layer of gold. Each pillar is speckled on its sides with gold dots and capped with a gold disk. Each pillar is just 60 nanometers in diameter, 1/1,000th the width of a human hair
  • laboratory test used to detect disease and perform biological research could be made more than 3 million times more sensitive
  • increased performance could greatly improve the early detection of cancer, Alzheimer's disease and other disorders by allowing doctors to detect far lower concentrations of telltale markers than was previously practical.
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  • The greater the glow, the more of the biomarker is present.
  • if the amount of biomarker is too small, the fluorescent light is too faint to be detected, setting the limit of detection
  • major goal in immunoassay research is to improve the detection limit.
  • involves a common biological test called an immunoassay, which mimics the action of the immune system to detect the presence of biomarkers
  • When biomarkers are present
  • the immunoassay test produces a fluorescent glow (light) that can be measured in a laboratory
  • tackled this limitation by using nanotechnology to greatly amplify the faint fluorescence from a sample
  • fashioning glass and gold structures so small they could only be seen with a powerful electron microscope
  • able to drastically increase the fluorescence signal compared to conventional immunoassays, leading to a 3-million-fold improvement in the limit of detection
  • key to the breakthrough lies in a new artificial nanomaterial called D2PA
  • a thin layer of gold nanostructures surrounded glass pillars just 60 nanometers in diameter.
  • A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; that means about 1,000 of the pillars laid side by side would be as wide as a human hair.
  • e pillars are spaced 200 nanometers apart and capped with a disk of gold on each pillar
  • sides of each pillar are speckled with even tinier gold dots about 10 to 15 nanometers in diameter
  • a sample such as blood, saliva or urine is taken from a patient and added to small glass vials containing antibodies that are designed to "capture" or bind to biomarkers of interest in the sample
  • Another set of antibodies that have been labeled with a fluorescent molecule are then added to the mix
  • biomarkers are not present in the vials
  • fluorescent detection antibodies do not attach to anything and are washed away
  • immunoassays are commonly used in drug discovery and other biological research.
  • plays a significant role in other areas of chemistry and engineering, from light-emitting displays to solar energy harvesting
Mars Base

Robotic Rehab Helps Paralyzed Rats Walk Again - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...tic-rehab-helps-paralyzed.html

scibyte49 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • employing a combination of drugs, electrical stimulation, and robot-assisted rehabilitation, researchers have restored a remarkable degree of voluntary movement in rats paralyzed by a spinal cord injury
  • After several weeks of treatment, the rodents were able to walk—with some assistance—to retrieve a piece of food, even going up stairs or climbing over a small barrier to get it
  • Spinal injuries cause paralysis because they sever or crush nerve fibers that connect the brain to neurons in the spinal cord that move muscles throughout the body
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  • These fibers, or axons, are the long extensions that convey signals from one end of a neuron to another, and unfortunately, they don't regrow in adults
  • Restoring axons' ability to regrow using growth factors, stem cells, or other therapies has been a longstanding—but frustratingly elusive—goal for researchers.
  • Most spinal injuries in people do not sever the spinal cord completely
  • To approximate this situation in rats, his team made two surgical cuts in the spinal cord, severing all of the direct connections from the brain, but leaving some tissue intact in between the cuts
  • had the rodents begin a rehab regime intended to bypass the fractured freeway, as it were, by pushing more traffic onto neural back roads and building more of them
  • This regime, which began about a week after the rats were injured, lasted about 30 minutes a day
  • During each session, the researchers injected the animals with a cocktail of drugs to improve the function of rats' neural circuits in the part of the spinal cord involved in leg movements
  • stimulated this area with electrodes
  • With its spinal cord thus primed for action, a rat was fitted into a harness attached to a robotic device that supported its weight and allowed it to walk forward on its hind legs to the extent that it was able
  • At first, the rats could not move their legs at all, let alone walk.
  • after 2 or 3 weeks, the rodents began taking steps toward a piece of food after a gentle nudge from the robo
  • By 5 or 6 weeks, they were able to initiate movement on their own and walk to get the food
  • after a few additional weeks of intensified rehab, they were able to walk up rat-sized stairs and climb over a small barrier placed in their path
  • did not undergo rehab, in contrast, showed no improvement at all
  • Rats suspended over a moving treadmill that elicited reflex-like stepping movement
  • full recovery depends on making intentional movements, not just any movement
  • Additional experiments in the paper make a compelling case that the rats' recovery is due to new neural connections forming to create a detour around the injury
  • s work suggests that all three components of the rehab strategy—the drugs, the electrical stimulation, and the robot-assisted physical therapy
  • case study published last year reported some recovery of voluntary movements in a man paralyzed in a vehicle accident, after he underwent a combination of electrical stimulation and physical therap
  • two more patients are undergoing similar rehab now, and his group hopes to add drug therapy to enhance nerve repair in the future
  • the strategy's limitations. For one thing, it wouldn't work if the spinal cord were completely severed
  • treated rats could only make voluntary movements while the electrical stimulation was turned on, and the same was mostly true of the patient Edgerton and colleagues worked with. "This is not a cure for spinal cord injury," Courtine says. "It's a promising proof of principle."
Mars Base

Common Lab Dye Found to Interrupt Formation of Huntington's Disease Proteins: Scientifi... - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte59 GrabBag MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • methylene blue, gets a mention in medical literature as early as 1897 and was used to treat, at one time or another, ailments ranging from malaria to cyanide poisoning
  • never formally approved it as a therapy for any illnesses.
  • Because of existing knowledge of methylene blue and the fact that it’s not harmful to humans, I would hope that progress toward clinical trials could go relatively quickly," says 
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • a neurobiologist at University of California–Irvine
  • Huntington’s disease occurs when the C-A-G sequence of DNA base pairs repeat too often on the HTT gene, resulting in an abnormally long version of the huntingtin protein, that therefore folds incorrectly and forms clumps in the brain
  • usually begins to affect people in their 30s and 40s, causing movement problems and early death
  • No drug is currently available to stop the disease from progressing
  • For their experiment, researchers fed methylene blue mixed with food for a week to Drosophila flies
  • brains showed that protein clumps had been reduced by 87 percent compared with a control group
  • given methylene blue
  • underwent several tests to assess mobility
  • At two months of age, the treated mice showed abnormal clasping of their hind claws only 20 percent of the time
  • untreated counterparts clasped at a 60 percent rate
  • the number of mice used was not sufficient to provide statistically significant results and the difference in the test quickly dropped off at nine weeks of age
  • the data as hopeful, because even a delay in Huntington’s symptoms would be very helpful
  • more research is needed
  • Methylene blue would absolutely require further testing in mouse models and would need safety and efficacy trial before it could be used for humans."
  • This study shows promise pre-clinically and follow-up studies are needed in a more representative mouse model that expresses the full-length Huntingtin protein
Mars Base

Pioneering heart disease treatment - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...8-heart-disease-treatment.html

scibyte59 GrabBag MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers at King's College London have developed the first artificial functioning blood vessel outside of the body, made from reprogrammed stem cells from human skin
  • could have real potential to treat patients with heart disease
  • by either injecting the reprogrammed cells into the leg or heart to restore blood flow or grafting an artificially developed vessel into the body to replace blocked or damaged vessels
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • could also benefit diabetic patients with poor circulation, preventing leg amputation
  • Stem cell therapy to treat heart disease is already being carried out in the clinic using bone marrow cells
  • the long-term effectiveness at the moment is minimal and some types of stem cells have the potential to become a tumour
  • a new type of partial stem cell developed from fibroblasts (skin cells) can be reprogrammed into vascular cells before going into the body, which have no risk turning into tumours.
  • The process of developing vascular cells from skin cells took two weeks
  • the next step is to test this approach in cells from patients with vascular disease
  • This is an early study and more research needs to be done into how this approach works in patients, but the aim is to be able to inject reprogrammed cells into areas of restricted blood flow, or even graft an entirely new blood vessel into a patient to treat serious cardiovascular diseases
  • This team showed they can derive so-called ‘partial pluripotent’ cells from human skin cells in just four days, and convert them directly into a type of cell that lines our blood vessels
  • Traditional methods take longer and come with an increased chance of tumours forming from the new cells
  • discovery could help lead towards future therapies to repair hearts after they are damaged by a heart attack
  • possible future regenerative treatment, these cells might also be used in drug screening to find new treatments to tackle inherited diseases
Mars Base

This 'mousetrap' may save lives: Students create mechanism to regulate IV fluids for ch... - 0 views

phys.org/...dents-mechanism-iv-fluids.html

scibyte47 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 12 - No Cached
  • team of Rice University freshmen took a mousetrap and built a better way to treat dehydration among children in the developing world.
  • goal was to regulate the amount of fluid delivered to children so we could prevent over-hydration and under-hydration
  • designed to be used in severely underdeveloped parts of the world, where conditions can be pretty primitive and they may not even have electricity."
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • physicians have mentioned to us that they would like a tool that can better moderate IV-fluid delivery to children, who are often connected to adult IV-bags
  • it is of critical importance that the appropriate amount of fluid is delivered."
  • In understaffed medical settings, monitoring IV-fluid delivery to patients can be a challenge
  • device designed by the IV DRIP team is inexpensive; it costs about $20 to manufacture
  • mechanical, durable, autonomous and simple-to-operate volume regulator that uses a lever arm with a movable counterweight similar to a physician's scale to incrementally dispense IV fluid.
  • uses the change in torque as an IV bag is drained of fluid to set off a mousetrap-like spring that clamps the IV tube and cuts off the flow of saline solution or other prescribed fluids
  • Tests have shown the device dispenses fluid within 12 milliliters of the desired volume in increments of 50 milliliters.
  • device can be mounted on a wall or attached with clamps to a portable hospital IV pole
  • the clamp goes off and it folds the tubing in a V-shape, the way you would crimp a garden hose to make the water stop coming out
  • most time-consuming part of assembling the device was calibrating the counterweight and determining the precise spacing of the notches the counterweight falls into and holds as the fluid drains
  • This summer
  • four of their prototypes to Malawi and Lesotho, respectively, to test them under practical field conditions
Mars Base

Doctor uses printed 3D heart to assist in infant heart surgery - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...r-3d-heart-infant-surgery.html

scibyte122 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 27 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • 14 month old infant
  • had been born with four congenital heart defects—doctors had known since before he was born that his heart had problems
  • Fixing them all would prove to be a challenge. When it came time to plan the surgery
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • surgeons and found each of them had different ideas on the best way to fix the hear
  • The ideal approach would involve the least amount of cutting and suturing—but that can be hard to plan using only conventional scanning techniques
  • Researchers
  • worked with radiologists
  • to create a means for converting data from a CT scan of
  • s heart to data that could be used with a 3D printer.
  • The two seemed a perfect match as CT scanning uses the same basic idea as 3D printing
  • it takes pictures of slices and puts them together on a computer screen to form a whole, and 3D printing is achieved by laying down one layer or "slice" of material at a time.
  • The 3D printing
  • to print the heart (in three pieces) at twice its normal size
  • also used a flexible type of plastic known as "Ninja Flex" instead of AB
  • allowed the surgeon to bend the finished heart in ways that resembled a real human heart.
  • Printing the heart took approximately 20 hours at a cost of roughly $600
  • it allowed for a single surgery
  • and greatly reduced cutting and suturing, which ultimately led to a much quicker recovery
  • heart surgery on such a young patient is not unheard of, of course, what's new is that Austin was able to map out his surgical approach using a nearly exact model of the patients heart—it had been printed on a 3D printer.
Mars Base

Cell therapy shows remarkable ability to eradicate cancer in clinical study - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...arkable-ability-eradicate.html

scibyte121 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 20 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The largest clinical study ever conducted to date of patients with advanced leukemia found that 88 percent achieved complete remissions after being treated with genetically modified versions of their own immune cells.
  • Adult B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), a type of blood cancer that develops in B cells, is difficult to treat because the majority of patients relapse.
  • Patients with relapsed B-ALL have few treatment options; only 30 percent respond to salvage chemotherapy.
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • In the current study, 16 patients with relapsed B-ALL were given an infusion of their own genetically modified immune cells, called T cells.
  • The cells were "reeducated" to recognize and destroy cancer cells that contain the protein CD19.
  • one of the first patients to receive this treatment more than two years ago. He was able to successfully undergo a bone marrow transplant and has been cancer-free and back at work teaching theology since 2011
  • Cell-based, targeted immunotherapy is a new approach to treating cancer that harnesses the body's own immune system to attack and kill cancerous cells.
  • Cell-Based Therapies
  • Unlike with a common virus such as the flu, our immune system does not recognize cancer cells as foreign and is therefore at a disadvantage in eradicating the disease.
  • researchers
  • have been exploring ways to reengineer the body's own T cells to recognize and attack cancer.
  • In March 2013, the same team of researchers first reported the results of five patients with advanced B-ALL who were treated with cell therapy. Remarkably, all five patients achieved complete remissions.
  • In 2003, they were the first to report that T cells engineered to recognize the protein CD19, which is found on B cells, could be used to treat B cell cancers in mice.
  • In the current study, seven of the 16 patients (44 percent) were able to successfully undergo bone marrow transplantation
  • the standard of care and the only curative option for B-ALL patients
  • following treatment.
  • Three patients were ineligible due to failure to achieve a complete remission
  • three were ineligible due to preexisting medical conditions
  • two declined
  • one is still being evaluated for a potential bone marrow transplant.
  • Historically, only 5 percent of patients with relapsed B-ALL have been able to transition to bone marrow transplantation.
  • The study also provides guidelines for managing side effects of cell therapy, which can include severe flu-like symptoms such as fever, muscle pain, low blood pressure, and difficulty breathing
  • The researchers developed diagnostic criteria and a laboratory test that can identify which patients are at greater risk for developing this syndrome.
  • Additional studies to determine whether cell therapy can be applied to other types of cancer are already underway
  • studies to test whether B-ALL patients would benefit from receiving targeted immunotherapy as frontline treatment are being planned.
Mars Base

Research team successfully grows human lung in lab - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ccessfully-human-lung-lab.html

scibyte121 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 20 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • A team of researchers
  • has, for the first time, successfully grown a human lung in a lab
  • Windpipes, for example, have been successfully grown and implanted into human patients, and just last spring
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • a team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston successfully implanted lab grown kidneys into rats
  • Lungs from two deceased juveniles were obtained
  • The first lung was stripped of all of its cells leaving just a scaffolding of elastin and collagen
  • Healthy cells were then taken from the second lung and applied to the scaffolding
  • , the lung-to-be was placed in a glass tank full of a nutrient-rich solution where it soaked for four weeks.
  • the team repeated the whole exercise with another set of lungs and found the same result.
  • During that time, new cell growth filled in the scaffolding resulting in a new lung.
  • The researchers don't know how well the newly grown lung might work if it were implanted into a person, if at al
  • are confident that they are on the right track in growing lungs in a lab that will eventually be used to replace damaged lungs in actual patients
  • doesn't expect lab-grown lungs to be transplanted into humans for at least a dozen years
  • The team next plans to repeat the process with pig lungs and then to implant the results into a live pig to see how well they actually work
Mars Base

Cartilage, made to order: Living human cartilage grown on lab chip -- ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...140427185157.htm

scibyte128 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 28 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • The first example of living human cartilage grown on a laboratory chip has been created by scientists
  • The researchers ultimately aim to use their innovative 3-D printing approach to create replacement cartilage
  • Osteoarthritis is marked by a gradual disintegration of cartilage, a flexible tissue that provides padding where bones come together in a joint
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • is one of the leading causes of physical disability in the United States
  • some treatments can help relieve arthritis symptoms, there is no cure. Many patients with severe arthritis ultimately require a joint replacement
  • artificial cartilage built using a patient's own stem cells could offer enormous therapeutic potential
  • replacement cartilage could also be a game-changer for people with debilitating joint injuries, such as soldiers with battlefield injuries
  • Creating artificial cartilage requires three main elements: stem cells, biological factors to make the cells grow into cartilage, and a scaffold to give the tissue its shape
  • Tuan's 3-D printing approach achieves all three by extruding thin layers of stem cells embedded in a solution that retains its shape and provides growth factors
  • The ultimate vision is to give doctors a tool they can thread through a catheter to print new cartilage right where it's needed in the patient's body
  • other researchers have experimented with 3-D printing approaches for cartilage,
  • method represents a significant step forward because it uses visible light, while others have required UV light, which can be harmful to living cells.
  • In another significant step
  • used the 3-D printing method to produce the first "tissue-on-a-chip" replica of the bone-cartilage interface
  • the chip could serve as a test-bed for researchers to learn about how osteoarthritis develops and develop new drugs
  • Housing 96 blocks of living human tissue 4 millimeters across by 8 millimeters deep
  • As a next step, the team is working to combine their 3-D printing method with a nanofiber spinning technique they developed previously
  • They hope combining the two methods will provide a more robust scaffold and allow them to create artificial cartilage that even more closely resembles natural cartilage
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