|  Author | Topic: Medtech III: R & D (Read 15,245 times) |
Big Bunny
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|  | Re: Medtech III: R & D
« Reply #300 on Aug 24, 2009, 11:33am » | |
Sun, Sea And Sickness: Better Technology Aims To Improve Healthcare On Travel
ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — Europeans love to travel, but hate getting sick while away. Help is at hand with better technology and cross-border administration that make the ‘sun, sea and sickness’ formula sound less dreadful.
Whether it is for business, leisure, visiting friends and family or education, Europeans are frequent travellers – making hundreds of millions of trips abroad each year. This sort of mobility – of people, products and services – is enshrined in European Treaties. It is good for economies and good for everyone.
But one area in particular still causes headaches. Getting healthcare while travelling can still be tricky for many Europeans, despite a long-standing legal framework for healthcare provision across Member States.
The situation got better with the launch of the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC), entitling European citizens to equal access to healthcare in another Member State if needed.
But EHIC’s arrival in 2004 has proven to be no silver bullet. Awareness of its benefits is still quite low among Europeans. Meanwhile, support systems – administrative and technological – have struggled to keep pace with growing leisure travel and labour mobility.
Welcome announcement
But European initiatives are keen to do something about that. Two projects developing IT-based services for cross-border healthcare provision, TEN4Health and NetC@rds eEHIC ID, have agreed on common European messaging standards that link hospitals and other healthcare providers with health insurance organisations, and with national healthcare IT infrastructure.
The common web services agreed by the EU-funded projects are specified in WSDL, a web-services description language, and messaging is communicated through XML, a software mark-up language for documents containing structured information, like healthcare records.
The agreement is considered a major step towards full interoperability of web services throughout the European healthcare sector.
"With this agreement, we are paving the way for a European standard supporting the necessary communication and data exchange processes for cross-border healthcare in Europe," commented an EU official close to the projects.
Pain-free treatment?
It means if an Austrian or German breaks his leg on a jet ski in Italy or the Netherlands, he can get equivalent healthcare to what he might expect in his home country. And now the healthcare provider can reliably and quickly determine that the patient has valid health insurance, making reimbursements faster and less painful.
TEN4Health and NetC@rds are both co-funded by the EU’s eTEN programme for market validation and initial deployment respectively.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090814101953.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Medtech III: R & D
« Reply #301 on Sept 1, 2009, 7:14am » | |
Gold nanotech breath test may show lung cancer early
By Kate Kelland
Posted 2009/08/30 at 1:01 pm EDT
LONDON, Aug. 30, 2009 (Reuters) — A sensor made with gold nanoparticles can detect lung cancer in a patient's breath and may offer a diagnosis before tumors show up on an x-ray, Israeli scientists said on Sunday.
The device, which the developers say would be cheap enough for everyday use by family doctors, detected lung cancer with 86 percent accuracy and may offer a way to screen for a disease not usually diagnosed until it has spread and is no longer curable.
It uses sensors based on gold nanoparticles to detect specific compounds -- volatile organic compounds (VOC) -- that lung cancer patients have in high levels in exhaled breath.
Breath testing is already recognized as a way of linking specific VOCs in exhaled breath to a certain medical conditions. In 2006, researchers found dogs could be trained to smell cancer on the breath of patients with 99 percent accuracy.
Hossam Haick, one of the scientists working on the sensor, said he hoped it could soon allow doctors to have a simple test at hand to screen people during routine appointments.
"Conventional diagnostic methods for lung cancer are unsuitable for widespread screening because they are expensive and occasionally miss tumors," Haick and colleagues wrote in Nature Nanotechnology.
"This device is not at all expensive. The whole idea in this development was to devise something very sensitive, and very cheap and very portable," Haick, of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, told Reuters.
Lung cancer kills 1.3 million people a year and is the leading cause of cancer death across the world. Only 15 percent of patients live more than 5 years, in part because the disease is usually diagnosed so late.
The device developed by Haick and his colleagues is a nine-sensor array consisting of gold nanoparticles combined with different organic groups that respond to various VOCs released by lung tumors.
They tested 56 healthy people and 40 patients who had been diagnosed with lung cancer using conventional methods.
They found the sensor could distinguish the breath of lung cancer patients from the of the control group with more than 86 percent accuracy.
Haick said the patented device needed to be more rigorously tested and obtain approval from drug licensing authorities before it could go into production.
"I would say that could take three to five years," he said.
Various other methods exist to measure VOCs, including a breath test using color spots, but existing techniques are often expensive, slow and sometimes require the breath to be concentrated or dehumidified first.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre57t1mf-us-cancer-sensor/
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: Medtech III: R & D
« Reply #302 on Sept 1, 2009, 7:28am » | |
Tumors Feel The Deadly Sting Of Nanobees
![[image]](http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/6175/090810174226large810405.jpg "[image]")
Bee on a finger. Researchers have recently harnessed the toxin in bee venom to kill tumor cells. (Credit: iStockphoto/Tatiana Buzuleac)
ScienceDaily (Aug. 31, 2009) — When bees sting, they pump poison into their victims. Now the toxin in bee venom has been harnessed to kill tumor cells by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers attached the major component of bee venom to nano-sized spheres that they call nanobees.
In mice, nanobees delivered the bee toxin melittin to tumors while protecting other tissues from the toxin's destructive power. The mice's tumors stopped growing or shrank. The nanobees' effectiveness against cancer in the mice is reported in advance online publication Aug. 10 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
"The nanobees fly in, land on the surface of cells and deposit their cargo of melittin which rapidly merges with the target cells," says co-author Samuel Wickline, M.D., who heads the Siteman Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence at Washington University. "We've shown that the bee toxin gets taken into the cells where it pokes holes in their internal structures."
Melittin is a small protein, or peptide, that is strongly attracted to cell membranes, where it can form pores that break up cells and kill them.
"Melittin has been of interest to researchers because in high enough concentration it can destroy any cell it comes into contact with, making it an effective antibacterial and antifungal agent and potentially an anticancer agent," says co-author Paul Schlesinger, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of cell biology and physiology. "Cancer cells can adapt and develop resistance to many anticancer agents that alter gene function or target a cell's DNA, but it's hard for cells to find a way around the mechanism that melittin uses to kill."
The scientists tested nanobees in two kinds of mice with cancerous tumors. One mouse breed was implanted with human breast cancer cells and the other with melanoma tumors. After four to five injections of the melittin-carrying nanoparticles over several days, growth of the mice's breast cancer tumors slowed by nearly 25 percent, and the size of the mice's melanoma tumors decreased by 88 percent compared to untreated tumors.
The researchers indicate that the nanobees gathered in these solid tumors because tumors often have leaky blood vessels and tend to retain material. Scientists call this the enhanced permeability and retention effect of tumors, and it explains how certain drugs concentrate in tumor tissue much more than they do in normal tissues.
But the researchers also developed a more specific method for making sure nanobees go to tumors and not healthy tissue by loading the nanobees with additional components. When they added a targeting agent that was attracted to growing blood vessels around tumors, the nanobees were guided to precancerous skin lesions that were rapidly increasing their blood supply. Injections of targeted nanobees reduced the extent of proliferation of precancerous skin cells in the mice by 80 percent.
Overall, the results suggest that nanobees could not only lessen the growth and size of established cancerous tumors but also act at early stages to prevent cancer from developing.
"Nanobees are an effective way to package the useful, but potentially deadly, melittin, sequestering it so that it neither harms normal cells nor gets degraded before it reaches its target," Schlesinger says.
If a significant amount of melittin were injected directly into the bloodstream, widespread destruction of red blood cells would result. The researchers showed that nanoparticles protected the mice's red cells and other tissues from the toxic effects of melittin. Nanobees injected into the bloodstream did not harm the mice. They had normal blood counts, and tests for the presence of blood-borne enzymes indicative of organ damage were negative.
When secured to the nanobees, melittin is safe from protein-destroying enzymes that the body produces. Although unattached melittin was cleared from the mice's circulation within minutes, half of the melittin on nanobees was still circulating 200 minutes later. Schlesinger indicates that is long enough for the nanobees to circulate through the mice's bloodstream 200 times, giving them ample time to locate tumors.
"Melittin is a workhorse," says Wickline, also professor of medicine in the Cardiovascular Division and professor of physics, of biomedical engineering and of cell biology and physiology. "It's very stable on the nanoparticles, and it's easily and cheaply produced. We are now using a nontoxic part of the melittin molecule to hook other drugs, targeting agents or imaging compounds onto nanoparticles."
The core of the nanobees is composed of perfluorocarbon, an inert compound used in artificial blood. The research group developed perfluorocarbon nanoparticles several years ago and have been studying their use in various medical applications, including diagnosis and treatment of atherosclerosis and cancer. About six millionths of an inch in diameter, the nanoparticles are large enough to carry thousands of active compounds, yet small enough to pass readily through the bloodstream and to attach to cell membranes.
"We can add melittin to our nanoparticles after they are built," Wickline says. "If we've already developed nanoparticles as carriers and given them a targeting agent, we can then add a variety of components using native melittin or melittin-like proteins without needing to rebuild the carrier. Melittin fortunately goes onto the nanoparticles very quickly and completely and remains on the nanobee until cell contact is made."
The flexibility of nanobees and other nanoparticles made by the group suggests they could be readily adapted to fit medical situations as needed. The ability to attach imaging agents to nanoparticles means that the nanoparticles can give a visible indication of how much medication gets to tumors and how tumors respond.
"Potentially, these could be formulated for a particular patient," Schlesinger says. "We are learning more and more about tumor biology, and that knowledge could soon allow us to create nanoparticles targeted for specific tumors using the nanobee approach."
Funding from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association supported this research.
Journal reference:
1. Soman NR, Baldwin SL, Hu G, Marsh JN, Lanza GM, Heuser JE, Arbeit JM, Wickline SA, Schlesinger PH. Molecularly targeted nanocarriers deliver the cytolytic peptide melittin specifically to tumor cells in mice, reducing tumor growth. Journal of Clinical Investigation, August 10, 2009 (advance online publication)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090810174226.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Medtech III: R & D
« Reply #303 on Oct 23, 2009, 11:56pm » | |
High-Speed Test To Improve Pathogen Decontamination Developed
![[image]](http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/4007/091022102338large003685.jpg "[image]")
Chemist Adrian Ponce has devised a new method to quickly validate - from days to minutes - a spacecraft's cleanliness. This sample holder (left) shows samples glowing under ultraviolet light. (Credit: NASA/JPL)
ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2009) — A chemist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has developed a technology intended to rapidly assess any presence of microbial life on spacecraft. This new method may also help the military test for disease-causing bacteria, such as a causative agent for anthrax, and may also be useful in the medical, pharmaceutical and other fields.
Adrian Ponce, the deputy manager for JPL's planetary science section, devised the new microscope-based method, which has the potential to quickly validate -- from days to minutes -- a spacecraft's cleanliness.
NASA adheres to international protocols by striving to ensure that spacecraft don't harbor life from Earth that could contaminate other planets or moons and skew science research. Microbes known as bacterial endospores can withstand extreme temperatures, ultraviolet rays and chemical treatments, and have been known to survive in space for six years. This resilience makes them important indicators for cleanliness and biodefense, Ponce said.
"Bacterial endospores are the toughest form of life on Earth," Ponce explained. "Therefore, if one can show that all spores are killed, then less-resistant, disease-causing organisms will also be dead."
The new technology works by looking for dipicolinic acid -- a major component of endospores and evidence of endospore growth -- by first applying terbium to a dime-sized area. Terbium is a chemical element used to generate the color green on television screens. That area is then illuminated under an ultraviolet lamp. Within minutes, one can see through a microscope aided by a digital camera whether live endospores are present. That's because they will literally glow: The terbium will show the endospores as bright green spots.
Ponce co-authored a paper on the new technology, called Germinable Endospore Biodosimetry, along with Pun To Young, a post-doctoral student at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The research was also highlighted in Microbe, a magazine of the American Society for Microbiology.
The technology has piqued the interest of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The federal agency is funding development of a portable instrument based on Ponce's research that could quickly check for decontamination of pathogens after a biological attack. Ponce is working with the Department of Homeland Security and Advance Space Monitor, a company based in Falls River, Mass., to develop the instrument, which they plan to have ready for use by 2011. JPL and Caltech licensed the technology to Advance Space Monitor.
"As part of the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate's near-term bioassays effort, the technology could enable the rapid assessment of facility sterilization. This could significantly reduce the time and cost of building restoration following a bio-contamination event," said James Anthony, chemical and biological research and development program manager at the Dept. of Homeland Security. A bioassay is an assessment of whether certain biological material is present on a surface being tested.
Anthony added that the technology could also be used in bio-containment facilities that have regularly scheduled decontamination requirements and rapidly reactivate important bio-defense research facilities.
Besides outer space and defense purposes, this new technology might also be applied in hospitals, child-care centers, dentists' offices and nursing homes.
"Given all the problems with hospital-acquired infections, assessing the sterility and hygiene of medical equipment and surfaces is becoming increasingly important," said Ponce.
Funding for Ponce's project was provided by NASA's Astrobiology Science and Instrument Development Program and Mars Technology Program, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Chemical and Biological Research and Development division.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091022102338.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: Medtech III: R & D
« Reply #304 on Oct 24, 2009, 12:12am » | |
Brief shocks may deliver AIDS vaccines better
By Tan Ee Lyn
Posted 2009/10/22 at 1:55 pm EDT
PARIS, Oct. 22, 2009 (Reuters) — Brief electric shocks may help the body better respond to certain kinds of experimental AIDS vaccines, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They used a device that looks like a handgun to inject vaccine along with three brief electrical pulses to open up cell membranes so that the vaccine can get inside.
Sandhya Vasan of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York said the technique, called electroporation, may be particularly useful in delivering DNA vaccines, which use an infectious agent's own genetic material to elicit an immune response.
"With a brief pulse of electricity, our cell membrane temporarily opens up and allows a lot more of the DNA to get inside. The reason why DNA vaccines by themselves don't trigger A powerful immune response is because most of it (DNA) does not get inside our cells," Vasan told Reuters in an interview.
In their study, Vasan and her colleagues used a relatively weak experimental DNA vaccine designed in 2001 using four genes from an AIDS virus circulating in China.
When the vaccine was given by injection alone, only 25 percent of participants developed any immune response. But in its latest trial in 2007-2009 when the same vaccine was delivered using electroporation, the immune response appeared far stronger, Vasan told a meeting of AIDS vaccine researchers in Paris.
"We improved the response rate, improved the duration of the response and it also improved the breadth of the response. There were four different genes of the virus, for the highest dose, people were responding to 3 or even 4 of the genes," Vasan said.
The study involved 40 people divided into five groups of eight. Three groups were given the vaccine in varying doses with the electric pulse. The fourth group was given placebos with electricity while the fifth was given the highest dose with a conventional injection.
Results later showed that those who got conventional injections had no immune response, while three out of the eight people given the lowest dose plus electrical pulse formed a response and everyone given the highest dose electroporally had immune response.
"This is the first clinical trial of electroporation in healthy volunteers for a preventative vaccine. It can be applied to many diseases, many vaccines, not just for HIV," Vasan said.
Her group plans to go into Phase 2 trial delivering another, stronger DNA vaccine through electroporation.
Researchers are struggling to develop an AIDS vaccine that can protect people from being infected with the fatal and incurable virus. While dozens are in the works, only one vaccine has shown any efficacy at all and researchers are not sure how strong the effect actually is.
People often develop some kind of immune response to HIV vaccines but this does not correlate into being protected, and scientists do not fully understand why not.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre59l4sv-us-aids-vaccine-electricity/
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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