Antibiotics are usually only needed at particular sites, where infection is likely to start. Yet, they’re delivered throughout the entire body via pills and injections. This results in poor localized effectiveness, unnecessary effects on the rest of the body, and sometimes leads to the development of resistance. Researchers at Flinders Univer (Read more...)
Tag: Public Health
Chip to Evaluate Health of Immune System from Blood Sample
Knowing how well a patient’s immune system is functioning may be very useful in diagnosing a disease and guiding the course of therapy. Researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are making this a reality, having developed a hybrid chip that assesses the health of white blood cells in a whole blood sample. The microfluidic (Read more...)
Microfluidic Device for Rapid Lyme Disease Diagnosis
Researchers at Columbia University have developed a microfluidic device that can diagnose Lyme disease in as little as 15 minutes. The device is particularly accurate in identifying antibody biomarkers that are present during early stage Lyme disease, raising hopes that it could be useful in detecting cases of early infection in a doctor’s of (Read more...)
Light Therapy Device to Treat Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
Carbon monoxide (CO) is one of the most common substances that people are poisoned by. It has no smell and is invisible to the naked eye, but can cause severe damage to tissues and lead to death. Patients who have already suffered significant lung damage because of CO inhalation too often don’t respond sufficiently to […]
Electrified Graphene Filters Kill All Pathogens and Their Byproducts
Pathogenic bacteria are usually the culprits responsible for the spread of nosocomial infections, but there are other sources of disease in hospitals, including viruses, fungi, their spores, prions, and endotoxins produced by bacteria. Existing methods and standards usually involve two filter beds being used within hospitals’ ventilation syst (Read more...)
Nanoparticles for RNA Vaccine Delivery Help Stop Melanoma Tumor Growth
RNA vaccines are a promising way to harness the immune system to fight cancers and infections. Some are currently in clinical trials, but the technology is still in its early stages. A major impediment to the effectiveness of RNA vaccines is the difficulty in getting them into the correct immune cells to produce the desired […]
Temporary Medical Tattoos of Anatomy, Injuries, Pathologies
Part of the difficulty in training the public in how to respond to medical emergencies is that many don’t understand the human anatomy below the skin. Moreover, knowing what different conditions actually look like on the body is another problem. Knowing where arteries run and where muscles connect to bone, as well as how bruises, […]
Self-Sterilizing Polymer to Reduce Healthcare-Acquired Infections
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new nanostructured polymer that can kill many different strains of bacteria and viruses within minutes. Their work demonstrates that the unique chemical modifications on the polymer allow it to kill bacteria like E. coli, along with the “superbug” methicillin-resistant St (Read more...)
Plasmapp Making Cool Gas Plasma Sterilization Available to Small Clinics
Many of today’s smaller surgical clinics have to sterilize equipment in-house, and autoclave sensitive instruments are processed using ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic, explosive, and irritating gas. Gas plasma is another low temperature option, but it requires large and expensive equipment that doesn’t make sense for small practices. A n (Read more...)
Graphene Clothing Prevents Mosquitoes from Being Attracted to Skin
Throughout history, diseases spread by mosquitoes to humans have probably caused more suffering than all the wars combined. Current techniques for fighting mosquitoes usually involve chemicals, but these may have side effects for us as well as the surrounding environment. Heavy clothing can help, but as anyone who has spent time outdoors where mosq (Read more...)
Smartphone and Paper Microfluidic Device for Norovirus Detection
Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed a simple and inexpensive method that can be used to detect tiny traces of norovirus in water samples. The technique involves a smartphone camera and a paper microfluidics device, and could help to identify sources of norovirus before it can cause illness. In the US, norovirus causes […]
(Read more...)Seraph 100 Blood Filter For Blood Stream Infections Cleared in Europe
ExThera, a company based outside of Oakland, California, won European regulatory approval for its Seraph 100 Microbind Affinity Blood Filter. The device removes a variety of pathogens in patients with bloodstream infections thanks to its “sorbent-type” filter. It can remove not only molecular compounds, such as cytokines and endotoxin, (Read more...)
Self-Healing Bacteriophage Hydrogel to Target Infections, Cancer
Antibiotics are the predominant tool when fighting bacterial infections, but bacteriophages could potentially be a lot more effective. Bacteriophages are viruses that attack bacteria and because they avoid injuring human cells they are a promising therapeutic tool, if used correctly. Moreover, they can be used alongside antibiotics, since the two d (Read more...)
Low Cost Medical Devices for Low-Resource Regions: Interview with Prof. Saad Bhamla, Georgia Tech
Advances in medical technology continue apace, with sophisticated new medical devices and therapies becoming available on an ongoing basis. However, medical technology often comes at a premium, and for low-resource regions sometimes even relatively basic medical devices, such as hearing aids, are inaccessible because they are too expensive. Similar (Read more...)
Ellavi, a Cheap Uterine Balloon Tamponade for Menstrual Bleeding, Wins EU Clearance
Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is one of the most common ways that new mothers do not survive childbirth. Although such severe, uncontrolled bleeding is extremely rare in the developed world, in places such as sub-Saharan Africa it is still pervasive. Ellavi, a uterine balloon tamponade (UBT) developed by Sinapi Biomedical, a company based in South Af (Read more...)
Preserving Vaccines at Room Temperature Finally Possible
The availability of vaccines in poor and remote regions is usually the result of a lack of proper storage and transportation options. For most vaccines to survive, they must be kept cold and within a prescribed temperature range. Storage areas have to have fridges with access to reliable electricity and the delivery cars and trucks […]
ControlRad Trace Add-On for C-arms Reduces Radiation Exposure
ControlRad, a company based outside of Atlanta, Georgia, won FDA clearance for its ControlRad Trace radiation reduction solution. Designed for integration with C-arms, the product can help reduce X-ray radiation exposure to patients and nearby clinicians in most fluoroscopic procedures. The system works thanks to titanium filters that move in front (Read more...)
Scope Pro-tech Coming Out to Protect Endoscope Tips
Meditech Endoscopy, a company out of Essex, England, just won FDA clearance for its Scope Pro-tech endoscopic tip protector. The device is designed to protect the optics found on the tips of endoscopes while they’re in storage or when they’re moved from place to place. The design of the Scope Pro-tech is such that air […]
Bioengineered Viruses Used to Kill Antibiotic-Resistant Infection
Scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have achieved a world’s first of beating a bacterial infection using an engineered virus. This was done in a 15-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis who had a severe case of Mycobacterium. The girl received a double lung transplant, but then developed the infection that antibiotics could not kil (Read more...)
Video Game Shown to Help Reduce Sugar Intake, Drop Weight, for People with Sweet Tooth
Sugar is considered to be a devil in much of the nutritional community these days. It is blamed for the obesity epidemic, increased rates of diabetes, and many other maladies that are on the rise. But the stuff is readily available just about everywhere in all kinds of enticing formats, so self-control is a major […]