Cardiocity limited has developed ‘RhythmPad’ that screens hypertension through simple hand placement.

Posted on November 7, 2016 by

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 4D Blood Flow MRI Imaging System Cleared by FDA

Posted on November 7, 2016 by

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...

Fraunhofer researchers are developing 3D printed bespoke insoles for diabetes patients

Posted on November 6, 2016 by

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

Posted on November 6, 2016 by

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...

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY -Sunshine matters a lot to mental health.

Posted on November 4, 2016 by

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 ...

Berkeley Lab scientists have identified ‘How our cells keep errors in the transporting genetic information in cells process in check’

Posted on November 4, 2016 by

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 ...

GEORGETOWN RESEARCHERS STUDY REAL TIME CANCER INVASION

Posted on November 3, 2016 by

A research team at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center has described the steps, in both written and video format, that allow cancer investigators to track, in real time, cancer cell invasion and metastasis in transparent zebrafish embryos. Using these fish models, researchers can find answers to cancer questions in one to three days instead of months for the typical mouse model. Because of this rapidity and the ability to image cancer movement in blood, investigators say the use o...

University of California San Diego Engineers Have Developed New Magnetic Ink to Print Self-Healing Devices That Heal in Record Time

Posted on November 3, 2016 by

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...

Northwestern’s Michael Markl has developed a new imaging technique that can help predict who is most at risk for stroke.

Posted on November 2, 2016November 2, 2016 by

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...

Kent University research suggests, transcranial direct current stimulation improves isometric time to exhaustion of the knee extensors

Posted on November 2, 2016 by

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...

Iron-munching microbe discovered

Posted on November 1, 2016 by

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. ...

Northwestern’s Java gene study suggests, not everyone responds to coffee in the same way

Posted on November 1, 2016 by

Genetic variants might also impact nicotine and other drug metabolism Depending on a person’s genetic make-up, he or she might be able to guzzle coffee right before bed or feel wired after just one cup, based on continuing research at Northwestern Medicine. Studying how genes impact coffee consumption habits is nothing new. In previous work from Marilyn Cornelis, assistant professor in the department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, she identif...

Nanofiber Coating Prevents Infections in Artificial Joints

Posted on November 1, 2016 by

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...

New Tools for Preventing Hospital-Acquired Infections

Posted on October 31, 2016 by

As the focus on hospital-acquired infections intensifies, some medical device manufacturers are considering deep UV light emitting diodes for smaller, portable disinfection devices. Here's how the technology can be used in medical device design. Mark Pizzuto According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) one in every 25 hospital patients in the United States will contract a hospital-acquired infection (HAI) during their visit. Often expensive and sometime...

Reducing Stroke Risk – St. Jude Medical’s Amplatzer PFO Occluder for patent foramen ovale (PFO) has received FDA approval.

Posted on October 31, 2016 by

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 College research suggest circadian clocks in muscle tissue that control the muscle’s metabolic response and energy efficiency depending on the time of day

Posted on October 30, 2016 by

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

Posted on October 29, 2016 by

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’ method of testing visco-elastic properties of whole blood clot formation under low shear stress

Posted on October 29, 2016 by

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...

University of Alabama research have found vaccination of newborn mice with bacteria suppresses asthma as adults

Posted on October 29, 2016 by

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 ...

Bristol robotics lab has created soft robot to assist with emergency rescue

Posted on October 27, 2016 by

Robots have traditionally been made from hard materials such as metal and plastic. They have been driven by motors and other heavy electro-mechanical actuators. These robots are more like machines than biological organisms. Soft robotics on the other hand seeks to make robots that are soft, flexible and compliant, just like biological organisms. The ‘body’ of a soft robot is soft like natural tissue. A soft robot is driven not by heavy motors but by soft artificial muscles. The energy stor...

Everykey is a Bluetooth device that replaces your keys and passwords.

Posted on October 26, 2016 by

Everykey is a Bluetooth device that replaces your keys and passwords. Using military grade security, Everykey unlocks your phone, laptop, tablet, house door, car door, and other access-controlled devices when you are nearby, then locks them back down when you walk away. Everykey also generates secure passwords for your website accounts, then automatically logs you in when you visit a website. If you lose your Everykey, you can remotely freeze it, so no one else can use it. Cleveland-based sta...

FDA approves Merck’s Pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA) Checkpoint Inhibitor

Posted on October 26, 2016 by

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 research

Posted on October 26, 2016 by

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...

FDA Cleared – Colorado Therapeutics Xenograft Dry for Immediate Implantation

Posted on October 26, 2016 by

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...

Brown University – Machine learning technique helps identify cancer cell types

Posted on October 25, 2016 by

Identifying whether a potential drug is having an effect on cancer cells is not always obvious. If enough cells change their morphology, it’s fairly easy to see the change under a microscope. Spotting individual cells that are unique among millions of others is what researchers at Brown University have been working on. They developed a high speed vision system that outlines cells that just went through an epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT). Within tumors such cells lead to greater malignanc...

The quantum sniffer dog

Posted on October 24, 2016October 24, 2016 by

As humans, we sniff out different scents and aromas using chemical receptors in our noses. In technological gas detection, however, there are a whole host of other methods available. One such method is to use infrared lasers, passing a laser beam through the gas to an adjacent separate detector, which measures the degree of light attenuation it causes. TU Wien's tiny new sensor now brings together both sides within a single component, making it possible to use the same microscopic structure for ...

OrCam My Eye Helps Patients with Low Vision to Read Text and Recognize Objects in Everyday Life

Posted on October 24, 2016October 24, 2016 by

Approximately 2% of Americans have a visual disability— vision that cannot be corrected even with the strongest prescription—and in developing countries where infectious disease or untreated cataracts are more common, the percentage is often higher. Many different diseases and conditions can cause low vision, including age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and cone dystrophy (a genetic mutation affecting the cone cells of the retina). People with low vision find everyday act...

Gold Nanoparticles Fight Off Pancreatic Tumor Growth

Posted on October 24, 2016 by

Recent research suggests that nanotechnologies may lead to the development of novel cancer treatment. Gold nanoparticles with their unique physical and chemical properties hold great hopes for the development of thermal-based therapies against human malignancies. This review will focus on various strategies that have been developed to use gold nanoparticles as photothermal agents against human cancers. Pancreatic cancer begins in the tissues of your pancreas — an organ in your abdomen that li...

Touch Surgery, Episurf Medical Release Episealer Surgical Training Simulation

Posted on October 23, 2016 by

Touch Surgery, based in London, UK, is a mobile-first platform for the surgical community. Their services provide a virtual simulation environment to help surgeons learn and practice procedures, with the intent of driving better decisions and practices in the operating room. Since the mobile application’s initial release in 2010, Touch Surgery has amassed 1.3 million users globally and purportedly has been used in every country worldwide. In addition to its utility in training surgeons, the p...

Brain Modulyzer Provides Interactive Window Into the Brain

Posted on October 20, 2016 by

Did you know that your brain processes information in a hierarchy? As you are reading this page, the signal coming in through your eyes enters your brain through the thalamus, which organizes it. That information then goes on to the primary visual cortex at the back of the brain, where populations of neurons respond to very specific basic properties. For instance, one set of neurons might fire up because the text on your screen is black and another set might activate because there are vertical l...