Lifeboat Foundation

Canadian researchers have developed a laser probe that uses changes in light patterns to detect melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

The device works on the principle that light waves change as they pass through objects. Cancerous cells have a different physical profile to healthy cells, and the researchers designed a system that can detect these patterns instantly. By determining the optical polarisation of different skin lesions, the team was able to distinguish cancerous from non-cancerous tissues.

“With skin cancer, there’s a saying that if you can spot it you can stop it – and that’s exactly what this probe is designed to do,” said researcher Daniel Louie, a PhD student who constructed the device as part of his studies in biomedical engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Chimeric antigen receptor–T cell therapy—already approved for some cancers—might help human patients with the autoimmune disorder.

Artificial intelligence researchers are building tools to quickly and accurately turn data into diagnoses. But practical limitations and ethical concerns mean humans should remain in charge.

In the world of things we already know.

MooDFOOD, the largest randomized clinical trial to study the effects of nutritional strategies on the prevention of major depressive disorder concludes that daily intake of nutritional supplements cannot prevent depression.

The products of wastewater treatment have been found to contain trace amounts of antibiotic resistant DNA. These products are often reintroduced to the environment and water supply, potentially resulting in the spread of antibiotic resistance. As such, researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering have been studying the development of these potentially harmful and dangerous genes in wastewater treatment processes. Their findings, published in Environmental Science & Technology, indicate that even low concentrations of just a single type of antibiotic leads to resistance to multiple classes of antibiotics.

“We’re quickly getting to a scary place that’s called a “post-antibiotic world,” where we can no longer fight infections with antibiotics anymore because microbes have adapted to be resilient against those antibiotics,” said Adam Smith, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at USC and lead investigator of the study. “Unfortunately, engineered water treatment systems end up being sort of a hot-bed for antibiotic resistance.”

The majority of the antibiotics we consume are metabolized in our bodies. However, small amounts pass through us in our waste, which are then carried to wastewater treatment plants. At these plants, one of the common ways in which the wastewater is treated is with a membrane bioreactor, which uses both a filtration system and a biological process where microscopic bacteria consume waste products.

Continue reading “Antibiotic resistance is spreading from wastewater treatment plants” »

A startup called CogitAI has developed a platform that lets companies use reinforcement learning, the technique that gave AlphaGo mastery of the board game Go.

Gaining experience: AlphaGo, an AI program developed by DeepMind, taught itself to play Go by practicing. It’s practically impossible for a programmer to manually code in the best strategies for winning. Instead, reinforcement learning let the program figure out how to defeat the world’s best human players on its own.

Drug delivery: Reinforcement learning is still an experimental technology, but it is gaining a foothold in industry. DeepMind has talked of using it to optimize the performance of data centers and wind turbines. Amazon recently launched a reinforcement-learning platform, but it is aimed more at researchers and academics. CogitAI’s first commercial customers include those working in robotics for drug manufacturing. Its platform lets the robot figure out the optimal way to process drug orders.

Continue reading “Now any business can access the same type of AI that powered AlphaGo” »

Experts’ opinions on the new drug, designed for people suffering from the most extreme forms of treatment-resistant depression and administered in the form of a nasal spray, are split.

The Berkeley biochemist helped discover a world-changing biotechnology.

(3D-printed heart scaffold)

As the head of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s innovative Cancer Center, Bhargava has been plugging away at injecting more advanced engineering solutions into medical problems. The freeform 3D printer is one of the first futuristic achievements of that effort.

But Bhargava’s project is just one of a wave of technologies that stand to transform medicine and healthcare as we know it; to make them faster, more accurate, and hopefully, drastically more affordable. Microneedle patches, handheld diagnostic machines, and better sensing capabilities, as well as 3D bioprinting, are just a few of the technologies coming to a doctor’s office near you—or maybe even into your home—in the next decade.

Continue reading “5 Amazing Projects That Will Change the Future of Healthcare” »