A new helper in the fight against cancer and other diseases of the gut may be genetically altered bacteria that release medicines to tumors or the gut. Now, a new study performed using mice demonstrates how doctors might one day better regulate those therapeutic microbes by engineering them to respond to temperature. For instance, if engineered bacteria were administered to a patient with a disease, doctors could, in theory, instruct the bacteria to release medicine to just the site of intere...

Red means "Green light, go for it!" Green means: "hmm, better not!" Like an upside down traffic light in our brain, color helps us decide whether or not to eat something. This, according to a study at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste and recently published in the journal Scientific Reports stating that vision is the main sense we use to guide us in food choices. To evaluate calorie intake, we rely on a "color code." Non-human primates evaluate food quality base...

Vegetables and fruits are an important part of a healthy diet, and variety is as important as quantity. No single fruit or vegetable provides all of the nutrients you need to be healthy. Eat plenty everyday. A diet rich in vegetables and fruits can lower blood pressure, reduce risk of heart disease and stroke, prevent some types of cancer, lower risk of eye and digestive problems, and have a positive effect upon blood sugar which can help keep appetite in check. Eat a variety of types and c...

The transparent belly of a tiny beast has revealed how algae-infecting chloroviruses bloom in freshwater around the world, says a new study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Millimeter-sized crustacean known as a copepod excretes partially digested paramecia and the green algae living inside those paramecia. A new study has shown that this partial digestion exposes the otherwise-protected algae to chloroviruses, allowing the viruses to replicate and bloom in their freshwater habitats. ...

The research is a step toward the development of a system that might help in rehabilitating people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. An international team of scientists has used a wireless “brain-spinal interface” to bypass spinal cord injuries in a pair of rhesus macaques, restoring intentional walking movement to a temporarily paralyzed leg. The researchers, who describe their work in the journal Nature, say this is the first time a neural prosthetic has been used to restore walking m...

Vacuum-Operated Auto Retractable Safety Syringe - 2010 Award Winner The purpose of this safety syringe is to prevent needle stick injuries. The Vacuumed Auto Retractable Safety Syringe is a patented disposable syringe that is designed for one-handed operation and incorporates vacuum-operated automatic retractable technology. It is the ONLY Syringe that uses vacuum force (instead of spring) to retract the used needle into the barrel of the syringe after an injection is administered. Th...

An increased concentration of air pollution within metropolitan areas is associated with progression in coronary calcification and with acceleration of atherosclerosis, according to a study published in The Lancet. In the prospective, 10-year cohort study, Northwestern Medicine scientists and collaborators at other institutions repeatedly measured coronary artery calcium by CT scan in 6,795 participants aged 45 to 84 years, who were enrolled in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Ai...

Physical forces like blood pressure and the shear stress of flowing blood are important parameters for the tension of blood vessels. Scientists have been looking for a measurement sensor for many years that enables the translation of mechanical stimuli into a molecular response, which then regulates the tension in blood vessels. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now discovered just such a sensor in the inner layer of the blood vessel wall: t...

BioTrace Medical, Inc. today announced U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance for the company’s Tempo® Lead, an innovative temporary pacing lead designed for use in procedures in which temporary pacing is indicated, including transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and electrophysiology (EP) procedures. BioTrace Medical’s Tempo® Lead incorporates innovations designed for secure and stable cardiac pacing with the goal of reducing complications and allowing patients to a...

In early studies on mice, a research team has found a Zika virus antibody that when given to pregnant animals protected their fetuses, and also protected adult mice from the disease. The findings raise hope for a potential treatment to prevent maternal-fetal transmission of the virus to prevent microcephaly and other devastating birth defects until a vaccine is available and also may help guide vaccine development. The team, based at Washington University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt Uni...

Lancaster (UK) based Cardiocity Limited have developed their second variant of the RhythmPad product range to successfully screen from Hypertension through simple hand placement. The RhythmPadGP is a simple USB connected lead1 and 6 lead screening tool. In under 30 seconds the subject’s lead1 and 6 lead ECG may be obtained and analysed giving instant outputs ranging from Sinus Rhythm to Atrial Fibrillation through to Right Bundle Branch Block. The RhythmPadGP makes screening for cardia...

Arterys, a pioneer in cloud-based medical imaging software, announced that it has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Arterys Software. This clearance allows the Arterys product to be used in clinical settings for the quantification of cardiac flow, which includes 4D flow and 2D Phase Contrast workflows, and cardiac function measurements. The product seamlessly integrates into clinical practice to provide comprehensive, simple and quick Cardiac MR i...

The importance of foot comfort cannot be overstated, especially for those suffering from conditions such as diabetes. That is, while ordinary discomfort in shoes can be frustrating to anyone, it can actually be dangerous for those with diabetes, as atrophied nerve endings in the foot caused by the disease can dull or eliminate the sensation of pain, which can in turn result in serious foot injuries or wounds. Custom padded insoles have been an important part in curbing this problem, though un...

TransEnterix Completes Successful Pre-Clinical Robotic Surgical Procedures; Management Affirms FDA Timeline A medical device company that is pioneering the use of robotics and flexible instruments to improve minimally invasive surgery, today announced the successful completion of four general surgery and urology procedures using its SurgiBot system patient-side robotic surgery system. Management also stated that the preparation of its FDA 510(k) filing is proceeding as planned, and affi...

Sunshine matters. A lot. The idea isn't exactly new, but according to a recent BYU study, when it comes to your mental and emotional health, the amount of time between sunrise and sunset is the weather variable that matters most. Your day might be filled with irritatingly hot temperatures, thick air pollution and maybe even pockets of rainclouds, but that won't necessarily get you down. If you're able to soak up enough sun, your level of emotional distress should remain stable. Take away sun ...

Mistakes happen. This is the case in the process of transporting genetic information in cells. How our cells keep errors in this process in check is the subject of a new paper by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). They found that RNA-binding proteins are regulated such that gateway proteins can recognize and block aberrant strands of genetic code from exiting the nucleus. Unused messenger RNA (mRNA) strands that cannot exit the ...

A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego has developed a magnetic ink that can be used to make self-healing batteries, electrochemical sensors and wearable, textile-based electrical circuits. The key ingredient for the ink is microparticles oriented in a certain configuration by a magnetic field. Because of the way they’re oriented, particles on both sides of a tear are magnetically attracted to one another, causing a device printed with the ink to heal itself. The device...

Affecting 33.5 million patients worldwide, atrial fibrillation is the most common form of cardiac arrhythmia. As if having an irregular heart beat wasn’t troubling enough, patients with atrial fibrillation are also much more likely to have a stroke. Michael Markl “Atrial fibrillation is thought to be responsible for 20 to 30 percent of all strokes in the United States,” said Northwestern’s Michael Markl, the Lester B. and Frances T. Knight Professor of Cardiac Imaging. “While atrial fibril...

Research led by the University shows that stimulation of the brain impacts on endurance exercise performance by decreasing perception of effort. Researchers led by Dr Lex Mauger from Kent’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences found that tDCS delayed exhaustion of the leg muscles by an average of 15% during an exercise task, and that this was likely caused by the participants feeling less effort during the exercise. However, tDCS elicited no significant effect on the neuromuscular response t...

Newly discovered archaebacteria converts methane into carbon dioxide with the help of iron A microbe that ‘eats’ both methane and iron: microbiologists have long suspected its existence, but were not able to find it - until now. Researchers at Radboud University and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen discovered a microorganism that couples the reduction of iron to methane oxidation, and could thus be relevant in controlling greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. ...

In a proof-of-concept study with mice, scientists at The Johns Hopkins University show that a novel coating they made with antibiotic-releasing nanofibers has the potential to better prevent at least some serious bacterial infections related to total joint replacement surgery. A report on the study, published online the week of Oct. 24 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted on the rodents’ knee joints, but, the researchers say, the technology would have “broad appli...

St. Jude Medical's Amplatzer PFO Occluder for patent foramen ovale (PFO) has received FDA approval, the company announced on October 28. The device, made of two nitinol mesh disks with thin polyester fabric, can now be used in the United States to close the PFO—a congenital hole in the tissue between the heart's left and right atria—in patients who have suffered an ischemic stroke, in order to reduce risk of recurrent stroke. Although PFO is relatively common, observed in about a quarter of a...

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered circadian clocks in muscle tissue that control the muscle’s metabolic response and energy efficiency depending on the time of day. Muscles have circadian clocks that control exercise response. The finding in mice sheds light on the time-of-day differences in muscle’s ability to adapt to exercise and use oxygen for energy. Muscle cells are more efficient during an organism’s normal waking hours, the study found. All cells in the body, includin...

Nucleotide database is a collection of sequences from several sources, including GenBank, RefSeq, TPA and PDB. Genome, gene and transcript sequence data provide the foundation for biomedical research and discovery. National Library of Medicine / National Institutes of Health. Offers many important databases (PubMed, GenBank, OMIM) and some tools. GenBank sequence database is an open access, annotated collection of all publicly available nucleotide sequences and their protein translations. ...

Thromboelastography (TEG) is a method of testing the efficiency of blood coagulation. It is a test mainly used in surgery and anesthesiology. Thromboelastography is a viscoelastic hemostatic assay that measures the global visco-elastic properties of whole blood clot formation under low shear stress. it shows the interaction of platelets with the coagulation cascade (aggregation, clot strengthening, fibrin cross linking and fibrinolysis). https://youtu.be/SjH05uGSGv0 EG® measures the ph...

The hygiene hypothesis proposes that a 20th century surge in allergies and asthma is because people are living in increasingly hygienic environments. Rather than the rural farm life of the agricultural 19th century, families live in urban and suburban communities, have fewer children who can exchange infections, bathe and wash their hands more frequently, and use antibiotics excessively. This all means reduced infant exposure to microbes that would have tempered excessive immune reactions, such ...

U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA, Merck & Co., Inc.) for the treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors express PD-L1 as determined by an FDA-approved test. This is the first FDA approval of a checkpoint inhibitor for first-line treatment of lung cancer. This approval also expands the indication in second-line treatment of lung cancer to include all patients with PD-L1-expressing NSCLC. The FDA approval ad...

Kidney cancer—also called renal cell cancer—is one of the major types of cancer for which new immune-based cancer treatments are currently in development. This page features information on kidney cancer and immunotherapy clinical trials for kidney cancer patients, and highlights the Cancer Research Institute’s role in working to bring effective immune-based cancer treatments to kidney cancer patients. In its early stages, kidney cancer typically has no symptoms. As a tumor grows, symptoms may...

Colorado Therapeutics LLC, a privately held medical device company with a proprietary technology platform for the production of innovative cross-linked tissue products, announced today that it has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) for a novel xenogenic biologic tissue matrix. The Colorado Therapeutics xenograft implant is intended to be used for implantation to reinforce soft tissue where weakness exists and for the surgical repair of damaged or rupt...