Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 1778
Feb 13, 2020
Can art be effective medicine for treatment of mental and physical illness?
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, education, health, neuroscience
Yes! In this video with my dear friend, artist Nicholas Wilton, I review the scientific data linking creativity and disease remission from Mind Over Medicine. Plus, Nick reads the quote he wrote in Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly about art-making as treatment for perfectionism. If you or someone you love has been hoping to become a “health outlier” who experiences a better than usual outcome from a health struggle, or if you just love art and want to improve your art-making as part of your prescription for optimal health and a vital, fully expressed life, we hope this will offer you inspiration—and a few medicinal laughs! (As an OB/GYN, I couldn’t resist drawing the female reproductive systems when we got to the art-making part.)
Nick will be teaching a wonderful free online art class ART 2 LIFE that starts on Valentine’s Day, so give yourself this gift of your love of art-making. You can sign up for the free course here. https://share.tellafrienda2l.com/a/a2lworkshop/LissaR
Feb 13, 2020
Childhood brain tumor discovery may unlock new treatments for many cancers
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience
“” This cancer seems simple. Basically, it has been known for many years it is just one type of cells that proliferate out of control,” Zong said. “However, we noticed an interesting paradox. While tumor cells grow really fast in the body, they grow poorly and only for a limited time when we take them out and put them in a [lab] dish. So we suspected some other cells may be in play.”
His investigation of that suspicion turned science’s understanding of medulloblastoma on its head. Using an innovative model of the disease, Zong and his team marked tumor cells so that they would appear green. That led to the first surprise: While all other cell types outside the tumor are colorless, a cell type called astrocyte appeared green, which never happens in normal brain regions.
“Astrocyte actually has been linked to poor prognosis of medulloblastoma, but nobody has ever suspected its origin, since the cell of origin for medulloblastoma normally never gives rise to astrocytes. The fact that tumor-associated astrocytes share the same color with tumor cells suggests that they actually come from tumor cells,” he said. “So some tumor cells basically completely change their identity to make a separate cell type.”
Continue reading “Childhood brain tumor discovery may unlock new treatments for many cancers” »
Feb 13, 2020
Antibiotics discovered that kill bacteria in a new way
Posted by Paul Battista in category: biotech/medical
A new group of antibiotics with a unique approach to attacking bacteria has been discovered, making it a promising clinical candidate in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
The newly-found corbomycin and the lesser-known complestatin have a never-before-seen way to kill bacteria, which is achieved by blocking the function of the bacterial cell wall. The discovery comes from a family of antibiotics called glycopeptides that are produced by soil bacteria.
The researchers also demonstrated in mice that these new antibiotics can block infections caused by the drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus which is a group of bacteria that can cause many serious infections.
Feb 13, 2020
Biomedical engineers create ‘smart’ bandages to heal chronic wounds
Posted by Gerard Bain in category: biotech/medical
Chronic and non-healing wounds—one of the most devastating complications of diabetes and the leading cause of limb amputation—affects millions of Americans each year. Due to the complex nature of these wounds, proper clinical treatment has been limited.
Feb 13, 2020
Huge bacteria-eating viruses close gap between life and non-life
Posted by Roderick Reilly in category: biotech/medical
Scientists have discovered hundreds of unusually large, bacteria-killing viruses with capabilities normally associated with living organisms, blurring the line between living microbes and viral machines.
These phages—short for bacteriophages, so-called because they “eat” bacteria—are of a size and complexity considered typical of life, carry numerous genes normally found in bacteria and use these genes against their bacterial hosts.
University of California, Berkeley, researchers and their collaborators found these huge phages by scouring a large database of DNA that they generated from nearly 30 different Earth environments, ranging from the guts of premature infants and pregnant women to a Tibetan hot spring, a South African bioreactor, hospital rooms, oceans, lakes and deep underground.
Feb 13, 2020
New nanosensor can detect cancer from a SINGLE DROP of blood
Posted by Victoria Generao in categories: biotech/medical, innovation
Researchers in the Netherlands have developed an incredibly accurate nanosensor which can detect metastatic cancer cells from just a single drop of blood in a major breakthrough for early detection and treatment of the disease.
PhD students Dilu Mathew from University of Twente and Pepijn Beekman from Wageningen University pooled their resources and developed a tiny system to detect tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (tdEVs), a particular type of cancer biomarker.
Their nanosensor is so sensitive it can detect cancer biomarkers on a broad spectrum of concentrations from 10 particles per microliter to 1 million particles per microliter, thanks to its incredibly small and delicate electrodes, shaped like two combs facing each other, with a gap of just 120 nanometers between them.
Feb 13, 2020
LifeXtenShow – Loss of Proteostasis
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience
Lifespan.io
On this informative episode of X10, Giuliano explains proteins and how they misfold, causing the hallmark of aging known as loss of proteostasis- which leads to Alzheimer’s disease and other dangerous diseases.
Feb 13, 2020
Can ageing be delayed, stopped or even reversed? BBC News
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, life extension
Is ageing a disease? One that can be ‘cured’? BBC’s Gabriela Torres meets the self-experimenters and scientists who are trying to dramatically extend our lives.
Please subscribe HERE http://bit.ly/1rbfUog
Continue reading “Can ageing be delayed, stopped or even reversed? BBC News” »
Feb 13, 2020
Molecular Switch Reverses Chronic Inflammation & Aging
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience
A molecular switch has been identified by scientists at the University of California that controls the immune machinery which is responsible for chronic inflammation within the body; findings published in the journal Cell Metabolism may lead to new ways to halt and/or reverse age related conditions such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
“My lab is very interested in understanding the reversibility of aging,” said senior author Danica Chen, associate professor of metabolic biology, nutritional sciences and toxicology at UC Berkeley. “In the past, we showed that aged stem cells can be rejuvenated. Now, we are asking: to what extent can aging be reversed? And we are doing that by looking at physiological conditions, like inflammation and insulin resistance, that have been associated with aging-related degeneration and diseases.”
A bulky collection of NLRP3 inflammasome immune proteins which are responsible for sensing potential threats to the body and launching an inflammatory response were shown to be essentially switched off by removing some molecular matter in a deacetylation process. Overactivation of NLRP3 inflammasomes is linked to a range of chronic conditions such as cancer, dementia, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis; this study suggests that drugs targeted towards deacetylation these NLRP3 inflammasomes may help to prevent and/or treat many age related conditions and even possibly age related degeneration itself in general.