Scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington have developed a nanoparticle messenger RNA (mRNA) delivery system to temporarily change gene expression in treated cells. Growing specific cell types in a lab and then administering them to patients is the goal of cell therapies, and these types of treatments are comin (Read more...)
Author: Medgadged
SmartTouch for Symbicort Smart Inhaler Cleared by FDA
Adherium, a company out of Auckland, New Zealand, won FDA clearance to introduce its SmartTouch for Symbicort device that monitors and promotes prescribed inhaler usage. Symbicort is an inhaled medication used to treat symptoms of asthma and COPD. The device is placed over the inhaler itself and, once paired with the patient’s smartphone (Read more...)
Neuropace Epileptic Seizure Control System: Interview with Dr. Martha Morrell, CMO of NeuroPace
People with certain types of epilepsy may have the option to use a therapy that doesn’t include drugs. The RNS system from Neuropace, a company out of Mountain View, California, monitors the brain for signs of an oncoming seizure and stimulates it to disrupt the process. It has been approved in the U.S. for about […]
HeartSciences MyoVista High Sensitivity ECG Now Available in Europe
HeartSciences, a firm based outside of Dallas, Texas, is releasing in Europe its MyoVista high sensitivity electrocardiograph (hsECG) device that helps to screen patients for cardiac disease. It relies on a mathematical method known as continuous wavelet transform to process ECG data in a manner very different than conventional ECG. The c (Read more...)
Nanomachines to Drill Through Cell Membranes
An international team of scientists has developed tiny motorized molecules that can drill holes in cells membranes when stimulated by light. The nanomachines could be useful for drug delivery or directly killing cancer cells. The nanomotors are paddle-like chains of atoms, which spin up to 2–3 million times a second when supplied with energy (Read more...)
Novel Smartphone App for Bilirubin, Pancreatic Cancer Screening
Pancreatic cancer patients have one of the lowest five-year survival rates, due in large part to the disease going undiagnosed in its early and intermediate stages. There are no overt symptoms during the critical early period, and non-invasive screening tools for identifying early pancreatic tumors before they metastasize have yet to be developed a (Read more...)
Researchers Replace Most of Lung’s Cells While Retaining Vascular Functionality to Repopulate New Ones
Some tissue types have the ability to have their cells populate a synthetically created scaffold or re-populate decellularized tissue harvested elsewhere. Bioengineered lungs, on the other hand, require a vascular network to exist in order for new cells to settle and for the organ’s normal functions to take place. This has been one reaso (Read more...)
MRI Inside Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Interview with Uri Rapoport, CEO of Aspect Imaging
The smallest patients may require numerous imaging scans, including MRIs of the brain, in order to receive proper care so they can graduate from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). MRI machines are usually situated far away from the NICU, requiring moving fragile dependent patients sometimes across the entire hospital and up and down mult (Read more...)
Technique to Produce Multi-Target Antibody Therapies
Researchers in The Netherlands and Switzerland have devised a new technique to reliably produce antibodies that can bind to two different target molecules at the same time, which could be very useful for cancer immunotherapy. Antibodies are Y-shaped protein structures that can recognize and bind to highly specific target molecules at the tip of eac (Read more...)
Drug Loaded Nanoparticles Turn Fat Cells Brown to Help Control Obesity
Brown fat cells are much easier for the body to burn than regular white lipocytes. Obese people with a particularly high ratio of white to brown fat cells can have a hard time losing weight even when while dieting and exercising. Nanotechnology may soon help people turn white fat into brown fat, turning a daunting challenge […]
FDA Grants First Clearance for Patients to Perform Hemodialysis on Themselves at Home
NxStage Medical, a company based in Lawrence, MA that focuses on hemodialysis equipment, won FDA clearance for its System One to be used by the patients at home and by themselves. This is the first such clearance that gives people with end stage renal disease a new level of independence from clinics and at-home carers. […]
Lyra Health and Welking Health Announce New Partnership to Improve Employee Access to Behavioral Health Services [Interview]
Earlier this year we shared news of a partnership between Welkin Health, a technology platform on which organizations can build their own digital therapeutic solutions, and Common Sensing, developers of the Gocap, a dose-capturing insulin pen cap, to evolve the paradigm of at-home diabetes management. Recently, Welkin Health announced a new pa (Read more...)
CORolla, a New Device to Treat Diastolic Heart Failure
At the Rambam Health Care Campus in Israel, a new device has just been implanted for the first time in a patient with diastolic heart failure. The CORolla device from CorAssist Cardiovascular, a company based in Haifa, Israel, is designed to help the left ventricle open up to a greater volume during the diastolic filling […]
(Read more...)Photoacoustics Measures Oxygenation of Tumors to Help Choose Treatment
Different tumors respond differently to radiation and chemotherapy. There’s a lot of evidence that solid tumors that are poorly oxygenated don’t respond well to these therapies. So having a way to assess tumors for tissue oxygenation can help mitigate and avoid therapies that are dangerous to the rest of the body. At University of Cambr (Read more...)
New Study Shows MR-HIFU Effective for Treating Bone Tumors in Children
Nine children were successfully treated for osteoid osteoma, a benign bone tumor, by doctors from Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC. The completion of the clinical trial marks a triumph for the new, noninvasive treatment method called magnetic resonance-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MR-HIFU). This incisionless su (Read more...)
Abbott’s Latest Heart Pump FDA Approved
Abbott received FDA approval for its HeartMate 3 left ventricular assist device (LVAD), a pump designed to augment cardiac output in patients with severe heart failure that are waiting for their heart to recover or that are in line for a transplant. Featuring the “Full MagLev”, as the technology is called by Abbott, the HeartMate [&hell (Read more...)
Study Foreshadows Possibilities of 3D Printing in Medicine
Medgadget has covered quite a number of applications of 3D printing in medicine, but the field is developing so rapidly that a couple researchers feel that clinicians generally are not fully aware of the possibilities. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, allows for creation of variously shaped objects made of unconventional materials (Read more...)
Flexible Skin Worn Electricity Generator Powered by Sweat
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed what they claim is by far the most powerful wearable fuel cells that run on sweat and produce enough electricity to energize small components such as LEDs and Bluetooth radios. The stretchable devices stick to the skin and conform to its movements, maintaining the ability to [ (Read more...)
Integrated Heart/Cancer on a Chip Helps Discover Side Effects of Drugs
At Kyoto University in Japan researchers have created what they call an Integrated Heart/Cancer on a Chip (iHCC) that was designed to help discover side effects of anti-cancer and other medications. The microfluidic system, which is smaller than a common glass slide used with microscopes, consists of healthy myocardial cells populating some&nb (Read more...)
Ultrasound and Microbubbles for Targeted Chemotherapy Delivery
Researchers in Norway have developed a chemotherapy delivery system consisting of microbubbles containing drug-loaded nanoparticles. When the researchers apply ultrasound to the microbubbles in a tumor, the microbubbles burst, releasing the nanoparticles and the chemotherapeutic drug. Researchers worldwide are trying to develop new ways to increase (Read more...)