A nanocomposite that absorbs X-rays and then, with nearly perfect efficiency, re-emits the captured energy as light, could help to improve high-resolution medical imaging and security screening. The material’s near-100 percent energy transfer could bring efficiency gains in devices ranging from light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and X-ray imaging scintillators, all the way to solar cells1. During a medical imaging procedure, X-rays passing through the body are absorbed by a scintillator material, which converts X-rays into light for a digital camera type…
Researchers at the University of Tsukuba place a radio-frequency repeater inside an MRI machine that allows it to detect sodium ions, which may lead to enhanced clinical imaging and monitoring functionality at very low cost. Scientists at the University of Tsukuba demonstrated how conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines can be retrofitted to detect sodium ions using a cross band radio-frequency repeater. This work may allow for new medical diagnostics to be performed without expensive new equipment. Magnetic resonance imaging…
The method lets researchers more easily study factors that can lead to cell death, in conditions including neurodegenerative diseases. It’s surprisingly hard to tell when a brain cell is dead. Neurons that appear inactive and fragmented under the microscope can persist in a kind of life-or-death limbo for days, and some suddenly begin signaling again after appearing inert. For researchers who study neurodegeneration, this lack of a precise “time of death” declaration for neurons makes it hard to pin down…
It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: a man-made crystal that can be attached to antibodies and then supercharge them with potent drugs or imaging agents that can seek out diseased cells with the highest precision, resulting in fewer adverse effects for the patient. However, that is precisely what researchers from the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases at Monash University in collaboration with the TU Graz (Austria) have developed: the world’s first metal-organic framework (MOFs) antibody-drug delivery system that…
Research in Guy Genin’s lab finds new features of attachment system and serves as model for merging materials. Engineers often use nature to inspire new materials and designs. A discovery by a multi-institutional team of researchers and engineers about how tendon and bone attach in the shoulder joint has uncovered previously unsuspected engineering strategies for attaching dissimilar materials. The discovery also sheds new light on how the rotator cuff functions and on why rotator cuff repairs fail so frequently. Guy…
A new “image analysis pipeline” is giving scientists rapid new insight into how disease or injury have changed the body, down to the individual cell. It’s called TDAExplore, which takes the detailed imaging provided by microscopy, pairs it with a hot area of mathematics called topology, which provides insight on how things are arranged, and the analytical power of artificial intelligence to give, for example, a new perspective on changes in a cell resulting from ALS and where in the…
Special GSI expertise… Which are the best applications for tumor therapy with charged particles to realize its great potential for the future? In which cases can it be used most effectively? These aspects belong to the most exciting questions in radiation biology and medical physics. A group of top-class experts now evaluated and summarized the state-of-the-art of heavy ion radiotherapy and presented a review article in the world-renowned online journal “Nature Reviews”. Main author of the text with the title…
Engineers and physicians teamed up to develop a wireless device to monitor and protect bone health. A team of University of Arizona researchers has developed an ultra-thin wireless device that grows to the surface of bone and could someday help physicians monitor bone health and healing over long periods. The devices, called osseosurface electronics, are described in a paper published Thursday in Nature Communications. “As a surgeon, I am most excited about using measurements collected with osseosurface electronics to someday provide my…
Convolutional neural networks trained to identify abnormalities on upper extremity radiographs are susceptible to a ubiquitous confounding image feature that could limit their clinical utility: radiograph labels. According to an open-access Editor’s Choice article in ARRS’ American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), convolutional neural networks (CNN) trained to identify abnormalities on upper extremity radiographs are susceptible to a ubiquitous confounding image feature that could limit their clinical utility: radiograph labels. “We recommend that such potential image confounders be collected when possible…
MHH cardiology investigates the effect of digitoxin. Researchers include the 1000th patient in multicentre study. Can digitoxin, an active ingredient from foxglove leaves, help patients with heart failure? Many things point to this, but it has not yet been scientifically investigated and proven. Researchers have been investigating this question since 2015 in the large-scale DIGIT-HF study. The study, which involves 50 centres in Germany, Austria and now also Serbia, is coordinated by the Department of Cardiology and Angiology at Hannover…
The new science of heart health uses AI and algorithms to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and stress. When you’re staring petrified at the new Resident Evil movie, or breathlessly following along to a vintage Jane Fonda aerobics video, what happens to your blood flow? PhD candidate Joseph C. Muskat and a group from Purdue University created algorithms that model how healthy young adults respond to fear- and exercise-induced stress. The simulations allow scientists to probe parts of the cardiovascular system individually and…
An INRS team succeeds in measuring temperature in 2D, without contact, with an ultrafast single-shot camera. A new imaging technique, developed by the teams of Professors Jinyang Liang and Fiorenzo Vetrone at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), can measure temperature in 2D, without contact, and in just a snap. The results of their research were published in the journal Nature Communications. This accurate real-time temperature detection could one day improve photothermal therapy and help in the early…
How intestinal bacteria communicate with the body. Bacteria in the intestine pack a wide spectrum of their biomolecules into small capsules. These are transported via the bloodstream to various organs in the body and even absorbed and processed by nerve cells in the brain. This has now been shown for the first time by a team of researchers from Goethe University, FAU (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) and the University of California in San Francisco. The newly established research method will help…
Research team confirms blood vessel changes caused by infection with SARS-CoV-2. When the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus enters the lung, it causes massive tissue damage. A characteristic consequence of the infection is, among other things, the blockage of the pulmonary vessels due to a locally excessive blood clotting. Now, an international research team led by Professor Dr. Danny Jonigk and Christopher Werlein from the Institute of Pathology at the Hannover Medical School (MHH) and PD Dr. Max Ackermann from the University Medical…
MEDICA 2021: Point-of-care diagnostics. Resistance to antibiotics is on the rise worldwide. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM alongside the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich have developed a process for rapidly detecting multidrug-resistant pathogens. The unique feature: Even one single molecule of DNA is sufficient for pathogen detection. In future, the platform could be introduced as part of point-of-care diagnostics on hospital wards or in medical practices as an alternative to the established PCR analyses or…
Implants can actively support the body, as in the case of pacemakers, neuro-prostheses or cochlear implants. In the future, active implants will be smaller, less energy-intensive and, above all, more patient-friendly. This is why the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT is working on miniaturization, external power supplies and wirelessly networked implants. The latest developments will be presented at COMPAMED/MEDICA in Düsseldorf from November 15 to 18 (Hall 13, Stand D60). While dental implants “just” replace the tooth and help…
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