Future Tech: Doctor on-Call? Cell-Phone Cameras Can Diagnose Disease

Developing nations often have a lack of medical facilities but good cell phones. The CellScope turns the latter into the former.

by Rebecca Day

Many regions of the developing world exist in a strange technological limbo. Places that are well served by advanced cellular phone networks may lack the modern medical facilities necessary to diagnose and treat serious illness. As a result, a remote village in, say, South Africa—a region hard hit by malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS—might be able to contact top medical experts and yet have no way to apply their knowledge.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley are bridging the gap with the CellScope, a microscope that attaches to a camera-equipped cell phone and produces two kinds of imaging, called brightfield and fluorescence microscopy. The CellScope can snap magnified pictures of disease samples and transmit them to medical labs across the country or around the world. The goal is to use mobile communications networks as a cost-effective way for medical personnel to screen for hematologic and infectious diseases in areas that lack access to advanced micro­scopic equipment.

Scientists have demonstrated the CellScope’s potential in two types of test case. They have used white light to image the red blood cells of sickle-cell anemia and the parasite that causes malaria. They have also used an LED and fluorescent dye to identify tuberculosis bacteria in sputum samples. Fluorescence is increasingly being touted as the future of clinical imaging due to its selectivity. In fluorescence microscopy, certain specimens, such as TB bacteria, can be dyed so that they emit light when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. To date, only a few diseases have been examined using fluorescent dyes, but David Bres­lauer, co-lead author of the study and a graduate student in the UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley Bioengineering Graduate Group, says that medical researchers are likely to target more and more pathogens this way as fluorescence microscopy becomes more widely adopted.

The CellScope tests were conducted using an off-the-shelf 3.2-megapixel cell phone. According to Breslauer, anticipated improvements in cell phone image sensors will boost the amount of information carried by each photo. Rather than having to take 50 pictures to provide adequate data for diagnosis, field workers may soon be able to capture enough detail in five. Boosts in processing power will improve productivity too, allowing software in the phone to facilitate on-site diagnosis.

Clinical and field trials of Cell­Scope will continue into 2010. Shrinking the device into a package that is compact and rugged enough for remote use will require significant strides in manufacturing. But the interest is there, and not just from the medical world: Agricultural experts have spoken with the Berkeley researchers to see if their technology could be used remotely to detect crop diseases.

The color of an LED is chosen according to the fluorescent dye applied to the specimen. To test for the presence of TB bacilli, for instance, researchers use a high-power blue LED to illuminate the sample. After the light passes through the sample and the objective lens, an emission filter blocks all light except for that emitted by the green fluorescent dye specific to the TB bacilli. The green-glowing microbes are then easily detectable against the dark background. To detect malaria parasites, for which a reliable fluorescent dye has not been developed, the LED and two filters are removed and researchers use conventional light, or bright­field, microscopy to illuminate the sample. CellScope prototypes have achieved effective magnification of 28× and spatial resolution of 1.2 microns, sufficiently detailed for screening and diagnosis of these common diseases.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/oct/20-future-tech-doctor-on-call-cell-phone-cameras-can-diagnose-disease

This article is interesting because it presents an idea that would probably help many people who are normally deprived of basic medical care. This technology could also help track the prevalence of certain diseases due to its versatility since I think a lot of diseases go undocumented in these under developed countries. It is also cool that we are now able to diagnose patients with light and fluorescent dyes that are specific to the bacteria. This would make it harder to misdiagnose patients and therefore making treatment more effective.

Scientists patch damaged lungs for transplanting

As of today only 15% of donor lungs are considered suitable for transplantation. This statistic alone is reason enough to crush the hopes of those waiting for this life saving procedure. And to add to these low odds, employing current techniques of transplantation, the 5-year survival rate of patients who have been lucky enough to be a recipient of donor lungs is approximately 50%. This number is greatly below those of heart transplants, liver transplants, and kidney transplants.

The lungs that are discarded are usually done so not because they are diseased, but because they are damaged while trying to save the donor or massive inflammation caused by brain death (the most common requirement for organ donation). If the lungs are not damaged and undergo transplantation, there is still a long list of problems that can be incurred including bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS). BOS is the chronic rejection of the transplant lungs and is the leading cause of death in recipients of lung donations.

New research is being conducted to fight the battle to increase the numbers of successful lung transplants on two different fronts. First, the study is aimed at saving donated lungs that would otherwise be judged as unsuitable for transplantation. And second, to try to stop post transplantation damage. Dr. Shaf Keshavjee approached the problem with a two part solution. First, his team created atmosphere mimicking the body in which the lungs would be placed. The lungs would be pumped with oxygen and proteins simulating the body without the blood. Second, Dr. Shaf Keshavjee inserted a gene which produces a substance called interleukin-10 (IL-10). One of IL-10’s jobs is to reduce inflammation. Currently lungs are stored on ice to reduce deterioration of the tissue. Unfortunately, ice also keeps IL-10 from doing its job. And if the IL-10 lasts long enough, it could help with inflammation after the lungs have been transplanted.

Using lungs from pigs and damaged lungs from human donors, the team has seen great improvements in the lungs’ ability to take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. Although this is a great step towards the team’s goal, they realize there is still a ways to go. Optimistically, the team believes within the next year damaged lungs that would have been discarded will be treated and used for transplantation in humans.

Each step forward gives hope to those on a list waiting for a miracle. And for those of us who can’t or could not do anything for those we love but wait and pray, it seems an answer to our prayers is on its way. If too late for our loved ones, then for those who can be saved in the future.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091028/ap_on_he_me/us_med_donated_lungs

http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/1/4/4ps5.full

In 2008, John Kanzius developed a revolutionary idea of using radio waves to treat cancer. He developed a working prototype of his design in his garage. He then modified his idea, and his machine, to incorporate new technology involving micromolecules and metal atoms in order to isolate cancer cells. His idea was to inject the metallic atoms into a cancerous tumor and they would then attach to all cancerous cells in the surrounding area. The atoms would even spread throughout the body, even reaching out to cancerous cells that had metastasized. The patient would then enter a radio wave machine which would then heat only the cells with the metallic atoms, killing them. The novel idea is now in its animal-testing stage.

I think this idea has the potential to effectively treat cancer. The fact that the treatment would isolate only the cancerous cells, and would not target healthy cells, which is one of the issues with chemotherapy, makes it very selective in its approach. It also greatly reduces the nausea and other symptoms that are normally associated with cancer treatment as it is not attacking healthy cells. The fact that this treatment would also be able to reach out and kill the cancer cells that had metastasized to other parts of the body means that all cancer cells can be, effectively, eliminated, removing all cancer from the patient. These two facts make this treatment a very promising possibility in the fight against caner.

Information and videos detailing the Kanzius machine were found at: http://www.technotechniques.com/2009/10/kanzius-machine.html

New Treatment for Actinic Keratoses that Possibly Lowers Odds of Getting Skin Cancer

Each year in the United States, 1 million people are diagnosed with skin cancer. More than 5 million people in the United States are living with actinic keratoses, which is a precursor of skin cancer. Actinic keratoses is a skin condition that makes thick and crusty lesions on the skin. It is caused by being outside in the sun for extended periods of time and not using sunscreen that block UVA and UVB rays. 7000 people die annually from skin cancer and other complications caused by skin cancer. Doctors have developed a new therapy that keeps cancer from spreading in some patients that involves an interesting combination of blue light and Levulinic acid.

Doctors are trying to stop the actinic keratoses from developing into squamous cell skin cancer. Specialists apply a Levulinic acid to the lesions to make them sensitive to light. A blue light activates the acid and destroys the lesions. 18 hours later, a second treatment may be necessary to finish the procedure or until the lesions are completely destroyed.

Although this therapy is effective most of the time, it treats only 85 percent of precancerous growth and is not a cure. Being exposed to the sun will mean more lesions will form and more treatment will be necessary.

I thought this article was interesting since there is skin cancer in my family. If there are treatments that involve light to activate chemicals to destroy lesions in the skin, it may be possible to use the same concept to treat skin cancer itself and not just precancerous cells.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/New-treatment-Found-To-Help-Skin-Cancer-2497-1/

Aging Muscles: 'Hard To Build, Easy To Lose'

A team of Nottingham researchers has already shown that when older people eat, they cannot make muscle as fast as the young. Now they’ve found that the suppression of muscle breakdown, which also happens during feeding, is blunted with age.

The scientists and doctors at The University of Nottingham Schools of Graduate Entry Medicine and Biomedical Sciences believe that a ‘double whammy’ affects people aged over 65. However the team think that weight training may “rejuvenate” muscle blood flow and help retain muscle for older people.

These results may explain the ongoing loss of muscle in older people: when they eat they don’t build enough muscle with the protein in food; also, the insulin (a hormone released during a meal) fails to shut down the muscle breakdown that rises between meals and overnight. Normally, in young people, insulin acts to slow muscle breakdown. Common to these problems may be a failure to deliver nutrients and hormones to muscle because of a poorer blood supply.

The work has been done by Michael Rennie, Professor of Clinical Physiology, and Dr Emilie Wilkes, and their colleagues at The University of Nottingham. The research was funded by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) as part of ongoing work on age-related muscle wasting and how to lessen that effect.

Research just published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition compared one group of people in their late 60s to a group of 25-year-olds, with equal numbers of men and women. Professor Rennie said “We studied our subjects first — before breakfast — and then after giving them a small amount of insulin to raise the hormone to what they would be if they had eaten breakfast, of a bowl of cornflakes or a croissant.”

“We tagged one of the amino acids (from which proteins are made) so that we could discover how much protein in leg muscle was being broken down. We then compared how much amino acid was delivered to the leg and how much was leaving it, by analysing blood in the two situations.

“The results were clear. The younger people’s muscles were able to use insulin we gave to stop the muscle breakdown, which had increased during the night. The muscles in the older people could not.”

“In the course of our tests, we also noticed that the blood flow in the leg was greater in the younger people than the older ones,” added Professor Rennie. “This set us thinking: maybe the rate of supply of nutrients and hormones is lower in the older people? This could explain the wasting we see.”

Following this up led Beth Phillips, a PhD student working with Professor Rennie, to win the Blue Riband Award for work she presented at the summer meeting of The Physiological Society in Dublin. In her research Beth confirmed the blunting effect of age on leg blood flow after feeding, with and without exercise. The team predicted that weight training would reduce this blunting. “Indeed, she found that three sessions a week over 20 weeks ‘rejuvenated’ the leg blood flow responses of the older people. They became identical to those in the young,” said Professor Rennie.

“I am extremely pleased with progress,” he said. “Our team is making good headway in finding more and more out about what causes the loss of muscle with age. It looks like we have good clues about how to lessen it with weight training and possibly other ways to increase blood flow.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090911103807.htm

Muscle physiology has always been an big interest of mine. I found it quite intriguing to find out there is a legitimate reason why older people cannot build muscle as easily. This article proved that younger people are able to synthesize more amino acids into muscle compared to old people. Being into working out and fitness, it gives me more insight into how muscle physiology works while a person ages.

Placental Precursor Stem Cells Require Testosterone-Free Environment To Survive

Trophoblast stem cells (TSCs), which are found in the peripheral embryonic stem cells, are thought to have an immune system that can fight off many diseases and survive through many infections in order to be transplanted. It has also been shown that the lack of male hormones allow extended transplanted cell survivability. When transplanting cells, it has also been found that it is not required to only transfer to a uterus. Many other organs and tissues of the body can also except these cells, but from research, it has been shown that women are more prone to accepting these cells than men. Although, this research was done on mice. "This was not unexpected, given the natural uterine environment for TSCs," said Dr. Binas. "However, castration of the male mice abolished the sex hormone difference and the livers of the castrated male mice provided a perfect environment for the TSCs." With this experiment, it goes to show that testosterone has some effect on the survival or death of the cells. The document goes on to say how TSC cells become toxic when entered into a male system. That is why the cells do not survive in their living conditions. This study, for the first time, demonstrates that long term survival of trophoblast cells in the absence of ovarian hormones is possible. It is also possible for these cells to survive along with other cells and give them a chance of surviving by living off of each other.

This research study shows that cell transplant is a possible phenomenon. For the fact that TSC cells can be transplanted into another person to reproduce, into other tissues to help survive, and work along with another type of cell to promote its well being is astonishing. The greatest downfall to this aspect is that males producing testosterone do not apply. The cells become toxic and die. On the other hand, women can benefit from this discovery.


http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/169359.php

Ghost Heart- Reanimating Lifeless Organs

I found this article particularly interesting and appropriate considering today is Halloween. It describes the cardiac research of Doris Taylor, who has devised a method to reanimate a "ghost heart." She treats a rat heart with detergent, which flushes all the cells away and leaves only the translucent extracellular matrix of the heart. Mature and progenitor cardiac cells are then added to this organ scaffolding. The infused cells seem to inherently know how to proliferate and grow into the functional shape of a heart that is capable of beating. Several obstacles still remain before this procedure can create fully functional implantable organs. One such obstacle is creating the vasculature that surrounds, leads in, and leads out of the heart. Dr. Taylor is addressing this problem by flushing vascular tissue of other animals, such as rats, and using them to replace human arteries of similar size. Innervating the reanimated heart is also another issue, but it could be stimulated with a pacemaker like current organ transplants. This method is especially exciting because the organ can be made from donor cells from the patients own body, so there is no risk of rejection. The ultimate goal is to be able to engineer a functional heart that can be implanted in a patient from a detergent flushed pig heart, which has proportions similar to a human heart. This process can also be applied to other organs such as kidneys, lungs, livers, etc.

This article makes me excited about the future. It is such an ingenious, relatively simple idea that has seemingly endless applications. The flexibility of being able to get an organs overall structure from an animal source, and infuse it with a patients own cells to make a compatible functioning organ is almost too good to be true. If the technology can be refined, it could certainly make heart disease, or any major organ disease a thing of the past.

http://www.popsci.com/elizabeth-svoboda/article/2008-09/ghost-heart

Contact High: Lenses That Deliver Drugs

Scientists have come up with a new contact that would could deliver drugs for problems such a dry eyes and glaucoma. For years the only real treatment option for many conditions concerning the eyes have been using eye drops. These drops are inefficient in both delivery and making sure the patient is using the drugs. According to doctors only about 7% at most of the medication in drops actually make into the eye. Also, only about 40% of patients regularly take the drops due to the irritation it can bring.

The idea of drug dispensing contacts has been around for quite sometime although it was only until recently that a good consistent contact has been made.“The main way our lens differs is that it can provide large amounts of drug released at constant rates for long periods of time, which previous discoveries have not been able to do,” said drug-delivery researcher Daniel Kohane of Harvard Medical School, who co-authored the paper published in the July issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. Past lenses have only been able to release a small amount of drug over a long period of time, or a substantial amount of drug for a day or two, he said.

Their design is much different than past designs. Most past designs involved mixing the drug into the hydrogel the contacts are made of. This design proved unusable due to its lack of control on releasing the drug. Others used nanoparticles but also proved ineffective. The new design places the drug between two lens. The drug is literally sandwiched between the lens.

To make the lens they use a polymer called PLGA dissolved in a organic solvent and add the drug. After the solvent evaporates what is left is coated with PHEMA, a polymer used in contact lenses.hs

These materials were chosen because they are FDA approved for use. “Both the polymer film and pHEMA have some influence over slowing diffusion of the medication,” said ophthalmologist Joseph Ciolino of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, a co-author on the study. “So we can change the rate of drug release depending on the ratio of polymer to drug, and depending on the molecular weight of the polymer we use.”

It is still being tested but it looks promising right now. I thought this article was interesting. Many people, including myself, use contact lenses and anyone who has seen an optometrist knows the irritation from eye drops. This could a real good alternative for people with serious conditions like glaucoma.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/druglens/

Stents Increase Blood Flow

Stents are most often used in narrow or blocked arteries for atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is when fatty substances build up and eventually block the artery. The lipid buildup reduces the blood flow in the arteries. Arteries carry blood from your heart to other parts of your body. The stent around the balloon is inserted into the groin through an opening in the blood vessel. The balloon is on the end of the catheter. Then the tip of the catheter is inserted into the narrow part of the artery and the balloon is inflated. The doctor uses a dye to help see which part of the artery is narrowed. Then the stent opens up and pushes against the walls of the artery. This compresses the plaque against the wall of the artery. The stent holds the artery open and helps improve blood flow after the balloon catheter is removed. X-ray movies help the doctor position the catheter in the correct position within the artery. Cells will eventually grow over the stent so the inside will look like a blood vessel. When stents are not used the chance of artery narrowing are twice as high.

Drug eluting stents gradually release a drug to the artery. The drug helps prevent the artery from becoming blocked again. The stents are made of a metal framework and coated with a polymer that holds and releases the drug. Drug eluting stents can lead to late stent thrombosis. This is when blood clotting inside the stent occurs years after the procedure.

Bare metal stents have a metal alloy framework. Many problems still persist from using bare metal stents though. Bare metal stents experience reblocking of the artery after the procedure. The restenosis experienced after the procedure is the body’s response by growing smooth muscle cells. Restenosis is when stenosis occurs again which is the narrowing of the artery restricting blood flow. Drug eluting stents have been proven to be superior to bare metal stents for the treatment of narrow arteries.

Cardiologists have to make many decisions for the stent to be successful. The stent has to be sized correctly to match the length of the blocked area of the artery. The stent also has to have the correct diameter to equal the width of the healthy part of the artery. The cardiologist also has to make sure that the stent expands against the walls of the artery correctly.

Stents are used in many different diseases. In coronary heart disease plaque builds up and narrows the coronary artery. This leads to less blood flow to the heart and can lead to a heart attack. The stent improves the blood flow to the heart and helps reduce the risk of narrowing of the artery and a heart attack. Peripheral arterial disease is when arteries are narrowed in the legs and arms. This causes pain and reduces blood flow to the arms and legs. Stents can fix this problem by increasing the blood flow to the arms and legs. In the kidneys, the arteries can become narrowed. This affects the blood flow to the kidneys and can cause high blood pressure. Inserting a stent into the narrowed part of the arteries in the kidney can decrease the risk of high blood pressure. Also, aneurysms can occur in the aorta. The aorta supplies blood to the body from the heart. An aneurysm is weakened areas of the artery that form a bulge. So the aneurysm will not burst, a stent is inserted to the weakened part of the aorta to help make it stronger. The aorta also can have a tear which decreases the blood flow to the body. A stent is usually placed at the tear to increase blood flow. In carotid artery disease the carotid arteries in your neck are narrowed. This can lead to a stroke by the decreased blood flow to the brain. I am interested in this topic because it fascinates me that engineering of stents can help prevent many different diseases and help improve the lives of many people.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/stents/stents_all.html

Estrogen helps ward off belly fat

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researcher Deborah Clegg recently announced her answer to a question she was surprised no one had ever asked: “Are male fat cells the same as female fat cells?” It has long been known that men and post-menopausal women tend to collect fat in their abdomen around their internal organs, and pre-menopausal women tend to collect their fat subcutaneously (just under the skin). The subcutaneous fat is a much healthier form than the abdominal form. This is what led Clegg to ask the question. She also noted that most researchers do not like to work with female rats due to their 4 day estrous cycle. However, she pointed out that male and female rats have a similar fat distribution to that of male and female humans respectively.

In her research, she removed the ovaries from female rats, and the rats’ fat distribution shifted as it does in post-menopausal women. When she removed the ovaries but gave the rats estrogen injections every 4 days (simulating the rats’ natural cycle), the fat did not shift. In order to further examine the effects of estrogen on fat cells, she genetically engineered male and female rats that were lacking the gene that enabled them to grow the “estrogen receptor alpha”(ER-alpha) on the surface of their cells. Her studies indicate that the binding of estrogen to the ER-alpha molecules is what enables the cells to break down fat. Females have a higher number of ER-alpha molecules than males do. When examining male fat cells for obesity-related health conditions, Clegg’s team found that the male fat cells were alarmingly unhealthy. Clegg concluded by stating that estrogen plays a key role in maintaining healthy fat cells in both males and females.

I find this article interesting because the obesity rate in the United States has risen so much. Scientific discovery should provide a means of making people healthier. There are many different types of research working toward reducing obesity in people, but until we know which one will be the most fruitful, they should all continue. Obviously, more research needs to be done before we start haphazardly injecting estrogen into men with the hopes of reducing their fat deposits, but a more thorough understanding of what causes and effects of fat distribution is the first step toward solving the problem overall.

Article: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48646/title/Estrogen_helps_ward_off_belly_fat

Peter "Alex" Smith
VTPP 434-501

Doctors Will Start Using Nanotechnology to Treat Cancer

Chemotherapy is the most know and most successful cancer treatment currently. However, chemotherapy not only destroys cancer cells, it also attacks healthy cells. Chemo patients lose their appetite, and its toxins affect fast-growing cells such as hair and intestinal lining. Chemo therapy drugs spread everywhere in the body, and it can destroy some organs. The question was, could there be other way to deliver these drugs?

Mark E. Davis knew nanoparticles, though extremely small, were still too large to pass through normal blood vessel walls. Interesting enough, the blood vessels that feed directly to the cancer cells are not normal; they have holes and gaps in the walls that aren’t found in normal vessels. Nanoparticles are small enough to pass through the holes of these cancerous blood vessels.

Cyclodextrin is the name of the sugar polymer Mark created; and camptothecin , the toxic drug encapsulated in the nanoparticle.

The first phase of trials proved to be a success. At no time did the patient suffer from any side effects. After two months, lung cancer in a particular patient was completely arrested. After six months, MRI scans showed cancer cell death.

The second phase of trials is still taking place, and though no data has been collected thus far, it’s still very promising based on the results from phase I. If the second and third phase of trials proved relatively successful, it won’t be long until doctors start using nanotechnology to treat cancer.

I found this article particularly interested because even though nanotechnology is developing extremely quickly and it's a hot topic right now, researchers are actually starting to apply laboratory work. The fact that nanotechnology can help fight a disease that we have been trying to cure for ever is amazing to me, specially because this treatment doesn't even have any side effects and is so simply in theory. I think this just proves that nanotechnology will become, in a near future, the answer to multiple diseases.

SOURCE:
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-nano-technology-may-be-applied-to-medicine

Giuliana Salazar-Noratto

GE Healthcare to track H1N1 for CDC

GE Healthcare to track H1N1 for CDC

October 29, 2009 | Diana Manos, Senior Editor

BARRINGTON, IL – GE Healthcare has been selected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide surveillance data for H1N1 and seasonal flu activity throughout the nation.

According to GE officials, the Barrington, Ill.-based company will report daily to the CDC with information gathered from its Medical Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC) database of nearly 14 million patient records. This will help the CDC better understand the characteristics of H1N1 outbreaks and determine trends.

Participating physicians automatically contribute de-identified data to the MQIC each day through normal use of GE's Centricity electronic medical record when they document information collected during patient visits to physician offices and clinics.

The MQIC collates clinical data documented by primary-care physicians using GE's Centricity EMR, giving the CDC tools to help track clinical symptoms such as fever, nausea and chills, prescriptions written and vaccination rates, as well as variables such as procedures performed, pregnancy and patient age, within 24 hours of being documented in thousands of participating doctors' offices across the country.

"We are pleased to help the CDC monitor this important public health issue," said GE Healthcare IT Vice President and General Manager Jim Corrigan. "This is a strong example of the power of digitizing the nation's medical records. With EMR data, not only are we able to accelerate the reporting of any aggregate changes to the health of the U.S. population, we're able to provide valuable and timely clinical data to health professionals."

Operated by GE Clinical Data Services, which also provides research and analytical services, the MQIC database is growing at a rate of nearly 30 percent each year, according to Corrigan. In peer-reviewed studies the database has been validated as representative of demographic and co-morbidity averages in the U.S. population.

The CDC's Office of Program Grant Officials said GE Healthcare was chosen for the database's built-in reporting capabilities. The resulting information helps the CDC better understand the characteristics of H1N1 outbreaks and determine who is at most risk for developing complications from the virus. Traditionally, this data is collected using insurance claims data, a process with a significant lag time.

"Using MQIC, the GE Centricity EMR's H1N1 surveillance reports communicate clinical findings at an early point of detection as many patients with milder flu symptoms will visit their primary care provider, instead of a hospital," said Peter Basch, MD, an internist with MedStar Health in Washington, DC, and a program participant. "The data passed along by doctors is a clinically accurate representation of H1N1-related symptoms and trends, which enables CDC researchers to track hotspots as the flu season evolves and quickly communicate that information to healthcare providers to improve awareness and response for better clinical outcomes."

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ge-healthcare-track-h1n1-cdc

I thought this arcticle was really interesting due to the fact that in the case the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) which is a government agency is working together with the private sector. The situation right now with tracking and treating H1N1 has changed the way many governmental agencies work. Early diagnosis and tracking of H1N1 has become vital and by using the information from primary health providers (which is provided by GE healthcare in this case), the CDC can determine certain patterns or simply more information about the H1N1 virus itself to be able to treat it.

Influenza Testing and Treatment Rocket Forward

While it's true the 2009 H1N1 pandemic has mentally induced fear more than it has physically produced illness, scientists are still working on novel concepts to end influenza as we know it. It's imperative that we evolve our techniques before the viruses have a chance to evolve. A non-profit group called the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and an Alabama research team are doing just that.

TGen has been pioneering new testing methods to be used on the virus. Their test not only detects the H1N1 virus but informs the doctors of the type of strain and whether it is resistant to oseltamivir, the most prevalent anti-viral drug in the market for treating H1N1. Interestingly enough, this test will be the only one available that uses a standard molecular technique that rapidly makes exact copies of specific components of H1N1's genetic material. This new assay improves on existing resistance testing, which requires labs with cumbersome and time-draining technologies, by putting the power into the hands of the doctor to determine if their drugs will work or not. TGen is expected to elucidate more on the details of their design at the 47th annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

What has many individuals sweating with fear is that influenza is becoming increasingly resistant to the anti-viral drugs that exist. The World Health Organization has seen more than 3 dozen instances of resistance to tamiflu. An Alabama team of researchers appear to have launched a counter-offensive against influenza. They have found what they call an "Achilles' heel" for all strains of the influenza virus, antioxidants as they claim. Antioxidants, found in plant-based foods, seem to minimize the damage the virus does to the human lungs. The virus attacks the lungs through its M2 protein, which targets the epithelial cells by hindering their ability to remove liquid from inside our lungs. This can culminate into pneumonia and other respiratory complications. The team reached this supposition by testing the affect of the M2 protein on lung proteins in frog eggs. They deduced the segment of the M2 protein that caused the damage to the lung protein, and subsequently discovered it could be inhibited with antioxidants. This experiment was replicated with cells from human lungs with the same results. Opening the door to a whole host of new treatments for people suffering from the flu, this new treatment is not ready to replace vaccines, but it is step in that direction.

These articles impressed me because I like seeing progress in the realm of curing the incurable. I view viruses as basically nanomachines that should be working for us and not against us. Any step towards making this dream a reality is noteworthy in my opinion

Resources:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/169349.php
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/169338.php

Jason Dwight
Section 502

Therapy Dog Gets Prosthetic Paws

(CBS/AP) When Helen dePinto first laid eyes on Footsie, she just knew she had to adopt the dog.

The shepherd mix wasn’t just any abandoned dog. It had no paws on its hind legs. Six years later, Footsie really lives up to its name, thanks to Steve Hoover and Ken Woodward, who made a pair of prosthetic paws that allowed Footsie to walk normally.

DePinto tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler about how she came to adopt Footsie.

She says, “He has a great personality. And he just didn’t seem to mind the fact that he didn’t have any hind feet. He loved everybody at the Erie County ASPCA (Buffalo, N.Y.), where I rescued him. I just felt that this dog should be doing work. He should be out there in the community, doing therapy work.”

Footsie was found in an apartment, dePinto says. “They think that possibly the umbilical cord might have been wrapped around his feet in uterus and they didn’t develop. They don’t know.”

Initially, he had some prosthetic paws. “A gentleman in western New York made him a set of feet. And they did the trick for a while,” she explains. But by the time she and her family relocated to Ann Arbor, Mich., Footsie had outgrown them.

Now the dog has prosthetic legs, thanks to an Ann Arbor prosthetist and orthorist who tackled the project of creating legs for the dog.

In more than 30 years of combined experience with humans, Steve Hoover and Kenneth Woodard say this was the first time they worked with an animal.

Hoover got involved in the project after getting a call from Brad Pearsall, a physical therapist assistant at Rainbow Rehabilitation Centers, a brain-injury treatment center in Ypsilanti.

DePinto and Footsie had been visiting clients there for nearly three years because Footsie works as a certified therapy dog. The dog's job is to cheer people who are disabled in some way and are receiving rehabilitation.

Hoover says, “When Brad called me and said, ‘There is a therapy dog seeing patients and has these limbs off. Would you come take a look?’ I was really surprised. And didn’t know quite what to say.

"But as soon as you meet the dog - he’s such a great dog - you knew you had to do something. So I got Ken involved to help me out, because neither one of us have really ever dealt with anything like this before.”

Woodard normally fits braces on humans, from head to toe.

After about a year of work, they made a pair of paws, which allows Footsie to run around just like any other dog. Both worked during their lunch and after work hours.

Hoover says, “It took a long time. There was a lot of trial and error. And we finally got it right, I think.”

Woodard adds, “We had the help of a veterinarian in Baxter, Dr. Maves, who put Footsie to sleep for us so we could take a good impression. We ended up with a very, very good impression - a good model to make a comfortable prosthesis for Footsie.”

Using a process called vacuum-forming, they shaped a layer of foam and a layer of plastic over the mold, then added a hard, black shell with tread material on the bottom, to give Footsie a grip. The shell is fastened to the dog with a Velcro strap.

Working on Footsie’s paws might have led them to some applications they can use in humans, Hoover says. "We used a lot of the things that I use normally every day with Footsie. And part of bringing Ken on board was because there’s some different joints involved with Footsie and different range of motions, he says. "I really wanted his expertise in the joint movement because I’m used to replacing things that are missing. But in this case, we wanted to really let Footsie have that range of motion so that he could continue to get around.”

And dePinto says Footsie adjusted quite well to the new paws. “He just takes off like a normal dog,” she says.

I was interested in this article mostly because I had no idea that prosthetic paws existed. I have a dog at home and I know that if she had an accident and lost her feet, it would be hard to watch her try to run and play again. I also find it interesting that the prothetist and orthorist who worked on making the prosthetic paws had only made human prosthetics previously. I'm glad that there are biomedical engineering applications geared towards animals as well as humans.

- Sarah Biemer, 502

Commandos Evaluate a... Lightsaber?

US Special Forces have begun field tests on a technology that borders the realm of science fiction; a functional “plasma knife”. The plasma knife operates by focusing an ionized gas that has been heated to extremely high temperatures into a practical cutting edge. However, before you start daydreaming of light saber battles, the usage of the plasma knife is primarily medical. The Special force’s interest in this technology stems from the all too common scenario where a commando finds himself in remote locations without the benefit of medical backup. When placed in the situation where the soldier is severely wounded, prompt medical care is pivotal in saving the life of that soldier. The plasma knife is capable of being utilized as a surgical scalpel that has the added benefit of instantly cauterizing the wound.

When in the field, an important consideration of surgical procedures is the sterility of the tools being used. The risk of infection is high in the midst of a military operation, so being able to eliminate the risk imposed by the tool in use is immensely helpful. The plasma knife is capable of maintaining a sterile cutting edge even within harsh field conditions due to the temperatures at which it operates.

Because the most immediate cause of death after massive tissue damage is the excess loss of blood, a means to stop the bleeding that can be easily carried by soldier is an invaluable tool. Cauterization is the process of creating an impermeable layer of necrotic tissue; actively preventing the loss of any more blood. This necrotic tissue is composed of two layers: the first, a porous outer layer where all the moisture has been vaporized, and the second, an impenetrable layer where all the proteins have been destroyed but contains some moisture. Merely applying a high amount of heat can worsen the injury; the plasma knife however, is able to bypass the outer porous layer of the necrotic tissue without damaging it; allowing larger blood vessel damage to be sealed without simultaneously creating major damage to the system.

This aspect of surgical technology is interesting in the sense that it demonstrates the advances being made to improve field medicine. The plasma knife is able to eliminate one problem associated with field medical tools; sterility, while maintaining efficiency; cuts and seals, and ease of use. Despite being an obvious step forward to me finally owning a light saber, the plasma knife is a beneficial medical tool that has to potential to save many lives in the armed forces.


http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/commandos-field-test-plasma-knife/

Joshua Mott
VTPP 434 – 501
30 Oct 2009

Gene Therapy Techniques Offer Promising Improvements for Lung Transplants

Researchers are conducting experiments regarding lung transplantation and how to make them more effective and successful. Lung transplants have one of the lowest success rates of any organ because they sustain such damage in the time between harvesting and transplantation. Most critically, the lungs suffer from a great deal of inflammation after harvest; this is due to a lack of the IL-10 molecule and this can also cause organ rejection after transplantation. The remaining IL-10 that does exist in the lungs after being harvested is destroyed when they are chilled on ice to preserve the tissue.

The new approach that is being tested to fix these issues involves two steps. First of all, they have developed a dome-like vessel that keeps the lungs at room temperature and circulates a solution containing oxygen and other nutrients. This alone increases chances of success because the lungs are kept alive longer and suffer from less deterioration. The second aspect is performing a special gene therapy on the lungs. This is done through use of a “defanged adenovirus,” which delivers a gene that creates cells that are actually able to produce the essential IL-10 molecule. When tested on human lungs, this IL-10 persisted for 30 days, which means rejection rates will be significantly decreased and overall success rates will improve.

This is a very interesting topic to me, especially since my great-grandfather died from emphysema. Also, most patients that receive lung transplants are suffering from emphysema or cystic fibrosis, so I found that to be particularly interesting as well.

link to article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-lungs29-2009oct29,0,6019138.story

Charlcie Northrop
VTPP434-502

A Material Based on Sharkskin Stops Bacterial Breakouts

Scientists from a biotech based company named Sharklet Technologies have recently patented a material that mimics the skin pattern of sharks. Sharks have the remarkable ability to avoid parasites that commonly affect the skin of other salt water animals such as whales. While the skin of a whale is covered with an array of bacteria and barnacles, sharks have no such problems as a result of the texture of their skin. They have a unique diamond like pattern that prevents bacteria and larger organisms from attaching to the skin and proliferating. Bacteria fail to grow on this surface essentially because it is a very energy inefficient setting for a colony. Furthermore, there is little risk of bacteria forming any kind of resistance to the material since the material does not actually kill any bacteria, but rather inhibits their proliferation. This assumption is further supported by the fact that sharks have had skin like this without problems of bacteria for hundreds of millions of years now. Due to all of this, Sharklet Technologies have created a shark like material that is being progressively tested and implemented into some of the dirtier and medically important facets of our society. With many dangerous bacteria that are found in hospitals, such an innovation could greatly improve the cleanliness of the typical hospital.

I found this article particularly interesting since it addressed a common problem with a very simple and time proven solution. It also dealt with bioengineering in a very practical way and application. To me, this article reinforced the diversity of the biomedical engineering and the fact that many solutions are easy to find if we simply approach problems correctly and look in the right location. Although not as intensive a solution as many biomedical engineering innovations, the idea to make a material that mimics shark skin to slow the spread of bacteria is nevertheless an idea that could increase the efficiency and cleanliness of the hospital environment, and correspondingly save lives.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-10/saving-skin

Michael Kosh

VTPP 434

The Effects of Terahertz Radiaton on DNA

Terahertz radiation is a narrow band of electromagnetic radiation between the infrared spectrum and the microwave spectrum. A great deal of research has been done on terahertz waves in the last 10 years because they appear to be safer than ultraviolet or x-ray radiation. Because terahertz waves are so similar to infrared radiation (which is all around us), they have relatively low energy photons compared to x-ray or ultraviolet photons. On the other hand, because they are so close to visible light, they can be used to create high resolution images. They also have the ability to travel through non-conducting materials including paper and brick. The applications of terahertz waves on security are obvious. They go through non-conductive material, don’t harm the person being scanned, and produce high resolution images.

There is a problem, though. Laboratory tests on the effects of terahertz waves seem to provide contradictory results. While some labs find that terahertz waves are harmless, others found that they could damage cells. Recently a team at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico found what they think is the cause of the confusion. According to their research, terahertz waves do not usually damage DNA, but occasionally the waves can cause nonlinear resonance that can cause sections of DNA to unravel. The fact that the resonance must be nonlinear to cause this unraveling explains why different laboratories found different results; the terahertz wave damage is probabilistic not deterministic.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24331/

Writing Memories to the Fly Brain

Researchers at the University of Oxford have elucidated the pathway by which experiences and memories are stored in the Drosphilia brain. By artificially activating dopaminergic pathways in the presence of certain odors, the research team was able to condition the flies to react adversely just as well as if the flies had been conditioned with electric shocks.

Fruit flies can be conditioned to react adversely to odors. It was known that dopaminergic receptors play a role in this learning process, but the study aimed to probe the details of this pathway. For a control group, the team placed flies in a T-shaped tube with a total of two scents, one at either end of the T. The control group was conditioned via electric shocks to react adversely to one of the scents.

The experimental group was genetically modified so that dopaminergic neurons near the brain center responsible for olfactory learning (the "mushroom body") expressed an ATP receptor that activated them. Next, a special form of ATP that remains inactive until exposed to light was injected into the flies' brains. The ATP could be activated by a pulse of laser light. The experimental group was conditioned to react adversely to one of the scents by aiming a small pulse of laser light at their head, which released the ATP, activating the dopaminergic neurons and "writing" an aversive reaction into the flies' brains. The experimental group exhibited the same scale of aversive response as the control group.

By silencing certain groups of neurons and examining tissues microscopically, the group was able to isolate a group of only 12 neurons that mediated the dopamine response to olfactory information. This group is known as the PPL1 neurons; they sit to the side of the mushroom body.

This is of interest because the formation of memories is not well understood, and the advancement of our knowledge of how the brain learns, stores experience information, and stores memories is exciting. From an engineering perspective, the small advances made in our understanding of memory formation give hope that one day we will be able to manipulate memories, though for the present this is a wild speculation. Our knowledge of this area is still very primitive, and engineering applications in humans of memory formation are not likely to be realized in my lifetime.

The citation to the original paper is as follows:
Claridge-Chang, Adam; Roorda, Robert D., et. al. Writing Memories with Light-Addressable Reinforcement Circuitry. Cell 139, 405-415.
There are a plethora of news sites/blogs that summarize this story. I used http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/10/laser_light_false_memories_fruit_fly_brain.php.

Curry Powder Ingredient Kills Cancer Cells

Researchers under Dr. Sharon McKenna discovered that curcumin, a compound found in the popular Indian ingredient used in curry powder, destroyed resistant esophageal cancer cells in recent lab studies. Within 24 hours of being introduced to cancer cells, cells began dying under a process not related to apoptosis. To prove the cells did not undergo apoptosis, McKenna applied a molecule that stops caspases from triggering cell suicide, which did not make a difference in the number of cell deaths. This lead researchers to believe that the cells were killed via another cell signaling path. Mckenna has long believed that natural compounds can aid in treating cancerous cells and previously suspected curcumin was among them. These results can help researchers develop a possible treatment for esophageal cancer. Professor Gerald O’Sullivan of the University of College Cork (Ireland) is optimistic of these results, stating, "The development of natural compounds as chemo-preventative agents is also a very promising area of research."

This type research is vital because esophageal cancer is a common cause of death related to cancer. More than 80% of patients die within 5 years of diagnosis, and the number of cases have grown over the past decades. I support research for a cure because I personally knew somebody who passed away due to this illness.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/168987.php

Nathan Poon

VTPP 434-502

Stem Cell Therapy may Help the Lungs Heal

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a major problem right now, and many people die from it every year, as many as 74,500 people die from it in the United States alone. ALI affects the epithelial cells of the lungs, which have a very long life span of a few years. This causes the the healing process to be very slow. The body is just not very will equipped to regenerate those cells. There is no drug treatment out right now for it that works. Researchers at the University of Illinois were studying this problem by working with mice. They found progenitor stem cells in the bone marrow of the mice called FLK-1 and CD34 that might help prevent and heal ALI. Flk-1 and CD34 are named for the proteins that are covering them. There is only a limited amount of them in the marrow, but scientists were able to grow more of them in the lab and insert more integrin proteins into their membranes, helping them "stick". The mice in the trial were given drugs that induced ALI and then were given the stem cells. They showed promising signs of recovery from the lung injury.

I found this article to be very interesting because stem cell therapy is very fascinating to me. There is so much possibility for new treatments in the field of stem cells, the future looks like it could be very fruitful in that field of study.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091028162629.htm

Scott Eagleston

VTPP 434-502

Psychiatric Meds Can Bring on Rapid Weight Gain in Kids

Younger children and adolescents who take drugs such as Zyprexa and Seroques are showing increased LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blood. These drugs are used to treat patients suffering from schizophrenia, autism, tics, severe bipolar disorder, and aggressive behavior. Consequences of not taking prescription drugs include suicidal thoughts, educational problems, and emotional scars. Children who do take the drug subsequently gain weight during youth and are predisposed to develop chronic health problems later on.

More studies are needed to draw conclusions on the long-term effects that these drugs have on metabolism. Short-term tests show that children taking antipsychotic drugs for the first time gained 10 to 19 pounds. The control group was composed of children who refused treatment and, on average, they gained less than 1 pound. Weight gain had gone unnoticed before, as tests were conducted on children who had already been taking the drug. Weight gain also appears to level off with time.

Researchers have not determined the mechanism by which weight gain occurs in these patients. There are obvious signs as the children have noticeably larger carbohydrate cravings. The drugs have a mild sedative effect, and the patients consequently burn fewer calories than they would if they were not taking the drug.

This article is important to consider because it serves as a reminder to us of the complexity of the human body. As bioengineers, we are always trying to find new ways to improve the human condition. In the process we look for certain aspects of the system to manipulate in order to bring about positive change. The antipsychotic drugs mentioned in the article drastically improve the lives of children and adults with psychiatric problems. It is now apparent that there are sizable side effects which may drastically alter the metabolic systems of these patients. Thus we are constantly faced with the task of designing a solution that minimizes its effects on other parts of the body, which is very difficult.

Jason George
Vtpp 434-501

Article:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48851/title/Psychiatric_meds_can_bring_on_rapid_weight_gain_in_kids

Cholesterol Drugs May Improve Flu Survival

The cholesterol-lowering statin drugs Lipitor and Zocor may be a cost-effective and abundant new treatment for swine flu. In a recent study, patients who were taking these prescriptions, when hospitalized for seasonal flu, were twice as likely to survive as those who were not; however, this may not prove that statins cure the flu or that beginning a treatment with statins after catching the flu will help. Current vaccines for swine flu are slow to reach the public and treatments such as Tamiflu are being reserved for only the sickest patients, so finding a possible treatment that is so widely used already is a step in the right direction

The H1N1 virus is so damaging mostly because it causes severe inflammation and an overreaction of the immune system. Statins may be so promising because they have been proven to reduce inflammation along with cholesterol. These drugs have not only been shown to help with influenza, but other serious illnesses such as pneumonia and other bacterial bloodstream infections.

Even though statins are usually prescribed to those with heart-related problems, only 1.5% of patients who were hospitalized with H1N1 died as opposed to 3% who were not taken these cholesterol-lowering drugs. For this reason, using these medications on seriously ill patients as a last-ditch effort can only help the situation, not hurt it.

This article interested me so much because it shows how medications that Americans take in their everyday life may do more than just treat the condition that they were prescribed for. Members of my family have a history of high cholesterol and have taken both Lipitor and Zocor, so to know that these two drugs are beneficial in more ways than one is comforting. Hopefully, this will be proven as a sound treatment for swine flu so more individuals can be treated and relieved of their symptoms.

Link to Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091029/ap_on_he_me/us_med_swine_flu_treatment


Brittany Guth
VTPP 434-501

Diseases from Humans to Animals

Researchers at The Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh have identified a strain of bacteria that has crossed from humans to chickens. The study has identified that the bacteria is Staphylococcus aureus, residing in chickens but originally came from humans. The unique fact about this bacteria is that it has been confined to one geographical area for humans, but has spread pervasively across different continents in chickens. This spread may be caused by the monopoly of poultry by a select few multinational companies, which supply chickens from a limited number of breeding lines across the globe, which will promote the bacteria even more greatly. This bacteria has been known to cause problems such as bone infections in chickens. If this trend in bacteria spread is known to jump from humans to more types of livestock, this could potentially cause a significant rise in food security. With the globalization of the food market, once a strain of bacteria is found in a livestock, the bacteria may have spread across continents already. Further research is now conducted to test more emerging bacteria jumping from humans to other livestock.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091026152810.htm

Stem cells may offer promise for damaged hearts

This article talks about the stem cell research going on right now in cardiology. Scientists are trying to promote regeneration of the heart or preventing scar formation. One of the studies that reportedly successful in humans involves harvesting the patients’ own stem cells, purify them, and inject them directly into cardiac muscle. “It’s important to point out that this is a use of a patient’s own body’s repair capabilities,” says Losordo, a cardiologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. If all goes well this treatment could be widely available in a little over four years. The target population would be end-stage cardiac patients who have tried all the other options.

However, as with all procedures there are some health risks. Since the stem cells are injected through a catheter, there is about a 1% risk of perforation. The injection of stem cells in cardiac muscles carries the risk of arrhythmia and blood clotting due to the drug that mobilizes stem cells.

Scientists are working on a less invasive technique. In a study using mice, they took stem cells from the bone marrow and injected it into skeletal muscles in the limbs. The stem cells produced growth factors that traveled to the heart which improved cardiac function. The challenging part for making this method work in humans is that it would take close to a billion stem cells, which is far too expensive. Scientists are working on a way to make this method more realistic. One of the main ideas is to inject stem cells from a stem cell bank into the patient via an IV.

The FDA regulates which adult stem cell techniques are allowed to go into clinical trials. This limits the research going on with stem cells, and whether the FDA will become more or less lenient is unclear at the time.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/14/heart.stem.cells/index.html

Kelli Martinez
VTPP 434-502

Stem Cells May Offer Promise for Damaged Hearts

The article talks about stem cells and how they can be used to help ‘regenerate’ the heart and other body parts. Basically, stem cells, obtained from the patient himself, are used to help rebuild certain problems with the heart, promoting growth and preventing scar tissue formation. The issue with embryonic stem cells can be avoided completely in this case since the stem cells being used are from the adult patients themselves. Though the embryonic stem cells can prove more advantageous in ways, including being pluripotent, the adult stem cells are safer due to possible rejection problems. The stem cells can even be “programmed,” so to say, to go to certain areas of the body from veins in the arm. This use of stem cells can very soon become a means for immunity from diseases for so many patients. Imagine a world where an organ or even a limb can be completely regenerated.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/14/heart.stem.cells/index.html

Ryan Rihani

VTPP 434 507

UT Southwestern Patient First In North Texas To Receive Newest-generation Heart Failure Device

UT Southwestern Medical Center transplanted a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) as a transition before receiving a heart transplant. It is meant to improve heart function. LeBlanc, the patient, had been diagnosed with heart failure and was having great discomfort with the use of defibrillators.

The HeartWare Ventricular Assist System is two and half times smaller than the earliest versions of LVADs and only has one movable part. The pump rests inside the patient's chest, connected to a cable attached to an external controller. A small cable attached to the device exits the body and connects to an externally worn controller. The controller is powered by a battery pack.

This article interests me because I attended a lecture on heart pumps in high school. It is impressive because the pump really isn't a pump at all, which showcases bioengineer's ingenuity. I think it is important for people, especially engineers, to think beyond currently working systems in order to innovate solutions to problems.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/printerfriendlynews.php?newsid=169025

Fast Myosin Motor Gene Transfer Increases Contractions Of Heart Muscle Cells

Scientists from the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota show in a research report published online in the FASEB Journal that gene therapy may be used to improve an ailing heart's ability to contract properly. In addition to showing gene therapy's potential for reversing the course of heart failure, it also offers a tantalizing glimpse of a day when "closed heart surgery" via gene therapy is as commonly prescribed as today's cocktail of drugs.

"We hope that our study will lead some day to the development of new genetic-based therapies for heart failure patients," said Todd J. Herron, Ph.D., one of the researchers involved in the study and research assistant professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Michigan. "The advent of molecular motor-based gene transfer for the failing heart will hopefully improve cardiac function and quality of life for heart failure patients."

To make this advance, Herron and colleagues treated heart muscle cells from the failing hearts of rabbits and humans with a virus (adenovirus) modified to carry a gene which produces a protein that enables heart cells to contract normally (fast molecular motor) or a gene that becomes active in failing hearts, which is believed to be part of the body's way of coping with its perilous situation (slow molecular motor). Heart cells treated with the gene to express the fast molecular motor contracted better, while those treated with the gene to express the slow molecular motor were unaffected.

"Helping hearts heal themselves, rather than prescribing yet another drug to sustain a failing organ, would be a major advance for doctors and patients alike," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal. "Equally important, it shows that gene therapy remains one of the most promising approaches to treating the world's most common and deadliest diseases."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart failure is a condition where the heart cannot pump enough blood and oxygen to meet the needs of other body organs. Approximately 5 million people in the United States have heart failure, about 550,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, and more than 287,000 people in the United States die each year of heart failure. The most common causes of heart failure are coronary artery disease, hypertension or high blood pressure, and diabetes. Current treatments usually involve three to four medicines: ACE inhibitors, diuretics, digoxin, and beta blockers.

Current clinical agents and treatments focus on the amount of calcium available for contraction, which can provide short-term cardiac benefits, but are associated with an increased mortality in the long-term. Results from this study show that calcium-independent treatments could have implications for heart diseases associated with depressed heart function, due to the effectiveness of fast molecular motor gene transfer on the improved contractions of human heart muscle cells.



This article interest me because of the idea that one day serious illnesses such as heart failure will be treated without highly invasive surgery's and instead rely on gene therapy. This also relates to our nano-bot device design project since in the study they treated a virus as a carrier for a gene and allowed it to reach the heart cells to create the protein needed. The virus was the nano-bot in this application. Research in gene therapy may one day make treating illnesses a lot more successful and safe.

Shan Rizvi

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/166382.php

Lungs Deemed Too Damaged for Transplanting Repaired With Outside-the-Body Gene Therapy

Lung transplants lag behind other major organ transplants in number of procedures performed and in how long patients with transplants live post-op. Researchers at Toronto's University Health Center have developed a procedure for protecting and repairing lungs as they are stored before a transplant operation.

Only approximately 15% of lungs from healthy organ donors are usable for transplant. This is caused by several things. One of the major problems is the lungs being damaged as the patient is being treated. Another problem is inflammation; as the brain dies, the lungs generally become inflamed. The gene interleukin-10 attempts to reverse the inflammation, but the lungs are immediately put on ice after they are removed from the donor. This low temperature environment stops the gene's ability to reduce inflammation. The solution to this problem is to place the donor lungs into a oxygen rich chamber instead of on ice. The oxygen environment keeps the lungs much more healthy than leaving them in ice. In addition, the IL-10 gene is able to reduce inflammation in the lungs. The doctors at Toronto University found that using adenovirus gene therapy to administer large amounts of IL-10 gene to the lungs found favorable results.

In the experiments performed, both pig and human lungs responded favorable to the treatment. The pig lungs were transplanted back into pigs after they were left in the chamber for a few days and showed greater function than lungs left on ice. Lungs that have undergone this treatment have not been transplanted into a human yet, but doctors propose that as the next logical step and expect it to take place in the next year. This new method of lung transplant shows great promise in increasing the number of lungs available for transplant and in increasing the life span of patients who have received lung transplants.

I found this particular article interesting because up until it was mentioned in class the other day, I did not know that lung transplants were performed. Then reading this article I found that they have a much lower success rate than other organ transplants and I found that pretty interesting. Research in areas such as gene therapy show a lot of promise for treatment in the years to come.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570090,00.html

David Szafron

Some blood pressure drugs may help protect against dementia, study shows

It has been proven that high blood pressure, or hypertension, is a key risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia. One study from Wake Forest University School of Medicine analyzed the difference in development of dementia in elderly patients being treated for hypertension with different high blood pressure medications. The study found that the drugs classified as angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, specifically the ones that are centrally- acting significantly reduced the development of dementia in patients. Some specific examples of these drugs are captropril (Capoten®), fosinopril (Monopril®), lisinopril (Prinivil® or Zestri®), perindopril (Aceon®), ramipril (Altace®) and trandolapril (Mavik®).Centrally- acting ACE inhibitors are drugs that allowed to cross the blood brain barrier, an extensive system of highly specialized blood vessels that protect the brain from harmful substances in the blood stream, and get into the brain. This allows the drug to reduce the inflammation in the brain that could contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. In the past, ACE inhibitors in general have been found to be beneficial to the heart and kidneys; it turns out that they are equally beneficial to the brain, if allowed into the brain. In the study, it found that patients taking centrally- acting ACE inhibitors saw a 65% decline in loss of cognitive function per year as compared to those taking other high blood pressure medications. This was measured by the Modified Mini-Mental State Exam which evaluates memory, language, abstract reasoning and other mental functions in humans. This finding contrasts the previous physician’s recommendation of taking drugs that are not allowed to get into the brain.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/wfub-sbp072009.php

This article is uniquely important to me because my grandfather was diagnosed with dementia 5 years ago. He, along with many of my family members, has high blood pressure. This study shows the link between different high blood pressure drugs and preventing the development of dementia. It contrasts previous beliefs that drugs that cross the blood brain barrier are harmful, when in fact at times, they can be beneficial. This is a key example of why medical research and re-evaluation of previous research is important in improving the quality of life of individuals.

Catheter Delivered Valve May Help People With Heart Defects Avoid Multiple Surgeries

Children born with certain heart defects have impaired blood flow from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery leading to the lungs, requiring implanted devices (known as right-ventricular outflow tract conduits) to maintain the flow. However, these conduits fail over time, and children typically face multiple open-heart operations during their lives to reopen the passage. Now, a prospective multicenter study in the October 27 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, led by Children's Hospital Boston cardiologist Doff McElhinney, MD, finds good preliminary outcomes with a valve that can be delivered non-surgically -- threaded up a leg vein to the heart -- potentially avoiding the need for repeated open-heart operations.

The device, known as the Melody transcatheter pulmonary valve (Medtronic, Inc), received backing from an FDA advisory panel in July, suggesting FDA approval may come soon for certain patients. The device is currently approved in Europe and Canada; if approved by the FDA, it could be the first catheter-placed heart valve to be approved in the U.S.

"With a transcatheter valve, you don't have to open the chest and put the patient on heart-lung bypass machine, with all that that entails," says McElhinney. "Patients can come in, have a catheter procedure, stay overnight, then go home the next day."

The study, the first prospective, multicenter study of the device, involved 34 children and young adults at Children's Hospital Boston, Miami Children's Hospital and Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital (New York, NY) whose existing right-ventricular outflow conduits were malfunctioning, causing blood to flow backward from the pulmonary artery into the right ventricle (known as pulmonary regurgitation) or obstruction of blood from the right ventricle to the lungs. They had various forms of congenital heart disease, including tetralogy of Fallot, truncus arteriosus, aortic valve disease and transposition of the great arteries.

All patients underwent cardiac catheterization with the intention of implanting the artificial valve, and 30 of the 34 underwent actual implantation attempts, of which 29 were successful. Three patients (9 percent) had complications during implantation, but all survived.

At follow-up six months later, no patient had more than mild pulmonary regurgitation. Of 24 patients who had Class II or III heart failure (mild to moderate limitation of physical activity) before the procedure, 19 had improved by at least one functional class at six months, and no patient's function had declined.

Eight of the 29 devices developed partial fractures during follow-up, and 3 patients required a second Melody valve (inserted inside the first one) for recurrent blockage. In July, the advisory panel members called for longer-term monitoring of patients, but said the potential benefits outweighed concerns about fractures. Medtronic is now working on an improved version.

"This study shows that the valve can be used safely and effectively in the hands of many different trained cardiologists," says McElhinney. "These are early and short term data, but if the longer-term data are equally encouraging, this technology could have a major impact on the long-term health of our patients and their hearts."

"Currently, when patients have conduits that become dysfunctional, we are faced with the choice of tolerating that dysfunction or sending them back to surgery," McElhinney explains. "Because conduits may develop regurgitation or obstruction relatively quickly, we almost inevitably end up accepting some degree of dysfunction, often for many years, because patients can't keep going for surgery every couple of years."

Chronic conduit dysfunction can cause symptoms and eventually lead to dysfunction of the ventricle. Because the transcatheter valve can be implanted without the risks and morbidity of surgery, the threshold for intervening can be lowered, offering patients a chance at an improved quality of life, preserved heart function and fewer surgeries, McElhinney says.

"Of course, we need to learn more before we know whether the promise of this technology is realized," he adds.

Founded in 1869 as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children's Hospital Boston today is one of the nation's leading pediatric medical centers, the primary pediatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, and the largest provider of health care to Massachusetts children. In addition to 396 pediatric and adolescent inpatient beds and more than 100 outpatient programs, Children's houses the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries benefit both children and adults. More than 500 scientists, including eight members of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 members of the Institute of Medicine and 13 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children's research community.

Source: Children's Hospital Boston

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/168761.php


This article was interesting to me because I have witnessed an open heart surgery and it looked like a very intensive surgery and I couldn't imagine having a patient undergoing multiple operations to fix a defective piece in a device. Now the device can be fixed though a simple catheter procedure and the patient can be out the next day and without the intensity of an open heart surgery. It is an example of how engineering is not just finding new devices and fixing new problems, but improving old, sometimes flawed, methods and devices.

Improving Artificial Limbs

The prosthetic limbs that are currently used have served a great purpose in that they look natural and the person can open and close the hand, but that is about all they are good for. The people that have these prosthetics can't feel any sensation in the area and have barely any neurological control. Two studies done by Physicians at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Plastic Surgery 2009 conference has revealed that they have discovered a polymer (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene or PEDOT) that can stimulate nerve growth in the severed nerves of the amputees. This would allow the amputees to develop more neurological control over their artificial limbs. This new nerve growth could potentially allow amputees the ability to move individual fingers, feel sensation, and apply the right amount of pressure to fragile objects. The U.S. Department of Defense has given a $5.5 million grant to fund this research to hopefully allow soliders that have lost their arms or hands in battle to be able to regain sensation in those areas.

The first study involved surgeons electrically conducting the PEDOT polymer to regrow the damaged nerve cells in the amputated limbs. The PEDOT was put inside of a tube with other biological materical and grafted into a leg nerve of a rat. Over time this caused new nerves to grow inside the previously dead limb and function normally as they used to. The targeted muscles "came back to life" and functioned like they used to.

The second study was generally the same concept but it used a cup that had cells and muscle inside of it and the PEDOT polymer was wrapped around those cells and muscle to create an electrical charge.. This cup was placed around the severed leg nerve of the rat. After 114 days this caused new blood vessles and muscles to form, new nerve growth, and sensation to return to the rat's leg.

This article was of interest to me because it involved the regrowing of the nerve cells. My device design project involves a disease that is caused by dead nerve cells (Parkinson's). This caught my attention because it could potentially be used to cure the disease or at least lessen the effect of having it.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091025194629.htm#

Brush your teeth, save your life?

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States each year. Some risk factors of heart disease include high cholesterol, poor diet, and obesity. Most recently gum disease has been added to this list. Doctors have acknowledged the link between gum disease and heart disease for years. Recent research shows that high-sensitivity C-reactive-protein (hs-CRP) may play a role in this connection. Inflammation causes an increased about of hs-CRP in the bloodstream, and gum disease can cause this inflammation. Further research is being conducted to determine whether hs-Crp is a direct risk factor or mealy a danger signal. The American Dental Association recommends proper brushing, flossing and dental visits in order to prevent gum disease.

Other researchers are studying the link between mouth bacteria and heart disease. Bacteria in the mouth travel into the bloodstream where the form clumps with the blood cells; the clumps then flow to the heart increasing the risk of a heart attack. A group of researchers in Dublin are developing a drug that will hinder the proteins that allow the bacteria to clump with the blood cells. As we’ve learned in class, one way to hinder the effects of this protein is to denature it.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/11/18/dental.heart/index.html

Why Sleepyheads Forget

Neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania have found one way that lack of sleep can alter the process of learning. It has been known for some time now that lack of sleep can affect episodic memory retention, but this study has found one specific cause of this detrimental effect of sleep deprivation – an increase in enzyme that breaks apart cAMP in the hippocampus. This enzyme is a phosphodiesterase called PDE4A5, and it was found to be elevated up to 40% in sleep deprived mice.

To verify their hypothesis that this increased enzyme production caused the lack of memory retention in sleep deprivation, the scientists administered a drug called rolipram to slow phospodiesterase production in the mice’s hippocampus. According to their results, sleep deprived mice that were given rolipram were capable of remembering as well as mice that were allowed to rest normally. The repercussions of this study and those like it could be helpful to college students who wish to have all-night study sessions and still retain the information for the test on the next day and possibly even the final, or this could usher in new memory drugs that help the brain process information better and retain knowledge longer.

Source:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1021/1

Stephen Infanger
VTPP 434-502

Smart Hands

There is an invention available that caters specifically to those with amputated hands, called the Smart Hand. This prosthetic hand incorporates four motors and forty sensors, but unlike previous prosthetic hands which merely allowed the wearer to control movement of the hand, the Smart Hand sends feelings back, allowing the wearer to feel what he touches. It also eliminates “phantom limb syndrome” from those who wear it. In the past, amputees would suffer from this syndrome, which gave the sensation that their lost body part still remained. This occurred because the brain was still able to receive input from, and also send neurons to the site of amputation. The Smart Hand makes use of those pathways still being open, connecting electronic sensors to nerves in the arm. This is an incredible and important improvement, because now these artificial hands are becoming more and more similar to the real thing. Although it is incredibly sophisticated, the Smart Hand still does not integrate as much freedom or provide quite as much feeling as a natural hand gives. It took ten years to develop the Smart Hand, but advancements to it should come much faster, since the foundation is finished. Over time, the ability to feel should spread to prosthetics of the entire body. The improvements that have been made over the past ten years show that there are many possibilities in prosthetics, and the future may provide us with prosthetics which exceed human limitations.

Amanda Rose

http://singularityhub.com/2009/10/21/prosthetic-smart-hand-lets-amputee-feel-and-move-objects/

Nanomagnets Guide Stem Cells to Damaged Tissue

This article was about how the UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging has been working on ways to use a iron-containing clinical agent to tag stem cells that can be used in fixing arterial or other cardiovascular problems. The magnets used are of nano-size. The reason iron is used to tag these cells, is because the cells are then targeted to the site of interest using a magnet outside of the body. This allows for very specified and controlled, localized delivery of the stem cells. Researchers also found a way to use already approved MRI imaging techniques to see and follow the cell as it is being targeted.

In addition to all this, another positive aspect of this research is that it already is using FDA approved material, so clinical trials in humans could begin very soon (3-5 years).

An exciting aspect of this research is that it is not limited to the localizing cells. This same method could be used to either localize antibodies or kill cancerous tumors.

I found that this article was very interesting because it shows all the possibilities that are available using this one method. The fact that it is a nano-sized magnet also applies to our class and device design project. I thought it was very fascinating that the nano-research going on in the labs are close to starting clinical trials in humans and that these devices might actually come onto the market very soon. I also thought it was exciting that this same method could be used in a variety of different scenarios and that you could watch the cell or tagged object actually being moved around using a MRI machine. The possibilities with the use of nanomagnets seems endless at this stage of research.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090817190640.htm