In the three years between Brett Johnson’s brain cancer surgeries, Brigham and Women's Hospital opened the Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating (AMIGO) suite, designed to guide complex treatments and procedures with navigation tools and imaging technologies including MRI, CT (computed tomography), PET (positron emission tomography), fluoroscopy, angiography, and ultrasound.
Read more at Brigham Health magazine.
Biomedical engineers report they have worked out a noninvasive way to release and deliver concentrated amounts of a drug to the brain of rats in a temporary, localized manner using ultrasound. Read more at DotMed.com
A process using human stem cells can generate the cells that cover the external surface of a human heart.
Researchers have made a major breakthrough that allows people to control a robotic arm using only their minds. The research has the potential to help millions of people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases. Read more at University of Minnesota News.
Researchers have invented a novel live-cell imaging method that could someday help biologists better understand how stem cells transform into specialized cells and how diseases like cancer spread. The Photonic Crystal Enhanced Microscope (PCEM) is capable of monitoring and quantitatively measuring cell adhesion, a critical process involved cell migration, cell differentiation, cell division, and cell death. Read more at Engineering at Illinois News.
In the near future, hemophiliacs could be able to treat their disease by simply swallowing a capsule. Thanks to a new breakthrough, treatment for hemophilia can now be administered via a biodegradable system, a capsule, giving people affected by the hereditary bleeding disorder hope for a less expensive, less painful treatment option than conventional injections or infusions. Read more at UT News.
Scientists report using human pluripotent stem cells to grow human intestinal tissues that have functioning nerves in a laboratory, and then using these to recreate and study a severe intestinal nerve disorder called Hirschsprung’s disease. Read more at Engadget.
Imagine swallowing a pill today that continues releasing the daily dose of a medicine you need for the next week, month or even longer. Investigators have developed a long-acting drug delivery capsule that may help to do just that in the future. To test the capsule's real-world applications, the team used both mathematical modeling and animal models to investigate the effects of delivering a sustained therapeutic dose of a drug called ivermectin, which is used to treat parasitic infections. Read more at MIT News.
Researchers have combined one of nature’s tiny miracles, the diatom, with a version of inkjet printing and optical sensing to create an exceptional sensing device that may be up to 10 million times more sensitive than some other commonly used approaches. Read more at Phys.Org.
A magnetic ink has been developed that can be used to make self-healing batteries, electrochemical sensors and wearable, textile-based electrical circuits. Read more at UC San Diego News Center.
