A new artificial intelligence system called a semantic decoder can translate a person’s brain activity — while listening to a story or silently imagining telling a story — into a continuous stream of text. The system developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin might help people who are mentally conscious yet unable to physically speak, such as those debilitated by strokes, to communicate intelligibly again. The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, was led by Jerry…
Surgeons with Keck Medicine of USC launch clinical trial to enroll first-ever bladder transplant patient after multiple successful research procedures. No one has ever performed a bladder transplant in humans. But that may be about to change. Urologists with Keck Medicine of USC have launched a clinical trial to perform the world’s first human bladder transplant. The trial is actively screening potential participants for this first-ever type of transplantation. During the procedure, the patient’s diseased bladder will be removed and…
The technology, which mimics the body’s natural clotting process, could help keep severely injured people alive until they are treated at a hospital. MIT engineers have designed a two-component system that can be injected into the body and help form blood clots at the sites of internal injury. These materials, which mimic the way that the body naturally forms clots, could offer a way to keep people with severe internal injuries alive until they can reach a hospital. In a…
The new diagnostic, which is based on analysis of urine samples, could also be designed to reveal whether a tumor has metastasized. MIT engineers have designed a new nanoparticle sensor that could enable early diagnosis of cancer with a simple urine test. The sensors, which can detect many different cancerous proteins, could also be used to distinguish the type of a tumor or how it is responding to treatment. The nanoparticles are designed so that when they encounter a tumor, they shed…
The printer generates vaccine-filled microneedle patches that can be stored long-term at room temperature and applied to the skin. Getting vaccines to people who need them isn’t always easy. Many vaccines require cold storage, making it difficult to ship them to remote areas that don’t have the necessary infrastructure. MIT researchers have come up with a possible solution to this problem: a mobile vaccine printer that could be scaled up to produce hundreds of vaccine doses in a day. This…
“We have developed a technique in our laboratories that allows us to obtain an antibiogram within 2-4 hours – instead of the current 24 hours for the most common germs and one month for tuberculosis,” says Dr Sandor Kasas at EPFL. Professor Ronnie Willaert at Vrije Universiteit Brussel adds: “Our technique is not only faster but also simpler and much cheaper than all those existing now.” Antibiotic resistance happens when bacteria develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to…
Max Planck and Harvard research teams develop DeMAG, a new method shared as an open-source web server (demag.org) to help interpret mutations in disease genes and improve clinical decision-making. Despite the increasing use of genomic sequencing in clinical practice, interpreting rare genetic mutations, even among well-studied disease genes, remains difficult. Current predictive models are useful for interpreting those mutations, but they are prone to misclassify those that do not cause diseases, contributing to false positives. Researchers from the Max Planck…
First graphene-based cardiac implant senses irregularities, then stimulates the heart. Researchers led by Northwestern University and the University of Texas at Austin (UT) have developed the first cardiac implant made from graphene, a two-dimensional super material with ultra-strong, lightweight and conductive properties. Similar in appearance to a child’s temporary tattoo, the new graphene “tattoo” implant is thinner than a single strand of hair yet still functions like a classical pacemaker. But unlike current pacemakers and implanted defibrillators, which require hard,…
MRI technology from Duke-led effort reveals the entire mouse brain in the highest resolution. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is how we visualize soft, watery tissue that is hard to image with X-rays. But while an MRI provides good enough resolution to spot a brain tumor, it needs to be a lot sharper to visualize microscopic details within the brain that reveal its organization. In a decades-long technical tour de force lead by Duke’s Center for In Vivo Microscopy with colleagues…
– visualizing reactive astrocyte-neuron interaction. PET imaging of reactive astrocyte-neuron interaction reveals new insights into Alzheimer’s disease pathology, offering a potential breakthrough in diagnosis and treatment. Recently, a team of South Korean scientists led by Director C. Justin LEE of the Center for Cognition and Sociality within the Institute for Basic Science made a new discovery that can revolutionize both the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. The group demonstrated a mechanism where the astrocytes in the brain uptake elevated…
Taming pancreatic cancer with intratumoral immunotherapy. Houston Methodist nanomedicine researchers have found a way to tame pancreatic cancer – one of the most aggressive and difficult to treat cancers – by delivering immunotherapy directly into the tumor with a device that is smaller than a grain of rice. In a paper recently published in Advanced Science, Houston Methodist Research Institute researchers used an implantable nanofluidic device they invented to deliver CD40 monoclonal antibodies (mAb), a promising immunotherapeutic agent, at a…
Small proteins play a critical role in the regulation of immune response, inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases. In order to better detect and study them, scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Science of Light have combined one of the most effective microscopy methods, called iSCAT, with artificial intelligence. Biological molecules such as proteins are central constituents of all living systems and dictate all physiological reactions in health and disease conditions. In particular, many small proteins play critical roles in the regulation…
Neuroscientists at the University of Zurich have developed innovative objectives for light microscopy by using mirrors to produce images. Their design finds correspondence in mirror telescopes used in astronomy on the one hand and the eyes of scallops on the other. The new objectives enable high-resolution imaging of tissues and organs in a much wider variety of immersion media than with conventional microscope lenses. Some species of mussels can see. Scallops, for example, have up to 200 eyes that help…
Head and neck cancer may not be as common as breast or prostate cancer, but it’s one of the most challenging to treat. Its five-year survival rate can be as low as 25%, while its recurrence rate can be as high as 43%. West Virginia University researcher Raymond Raylman has developed a new technology to improve the treatment of head and neck cancers. The scanner that he and his team prototyped — which combines positron emission tomography and X-ray computed tomography — showed…
Infection and immunity status of the population are considered key parameters for handling pandemics. For this purpose, detecting antigens and antibodies is of great importance. The devices currently used for this purpose – what are known as point-of-care (POC) devices- are one option for rapid screening. Their sensitivity, however, needs further improvement. Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have been successful in such improvement by developing a nanobiosensor based on gold nanowires. Originally only intended for the detection of COVID-19-associated…
Detailed PSMA PET mapping of cancer recurrence in the prostate bed shows that current radiotherapy contouring guidelines—which determine the target areas for treatment—miss a significant number of lesions and may irradiate healthy tissues unnecessarily. In a new study published online by The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, researchers are calling for the redefinition of prostate bed contouring guidelines to improve outcomes for patients. Approximately one-third of prostate cancer patients who undergo radical prostatectomy experience disease progression within 10 years. Salvage radiation therapy…
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