Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 580
Jun 19, 2023
Alzheimer’s: Excessive alcohol consumption may accelerate progression
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience
Nima Majlesi, director of Medical Toxicology at Staten Island University Hospital, also not part of the research, said the new study is “fascinating, and the more research that can be done on neurodegenerative diseases such as [Alzheimer’s disease], the more answers that can then be obtained for the betterment of everyone’s health.”
“There has never been any doubt that excessive alcohol use and recurrent intoxication [are] unhealthy in the medical community. There has occasionally been some doubt on whether a small amount of alcohol use daily can have health benefits. Even in patients not at risk for [Alzheimer’s disease], excessive alcohol use and recurrent intoxication [have] many detrimental effects on human health.” — Dr. Nima Majlesi
However, Dr. Majlesi cautioned that “in this study, they exposed mice to ethanol vapors, which is not the typical route for human consumption.”
Jun 19, 2023
Scientists Use Stem Cells to Create Model Human Embryos
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: biotech/medical
“I’d like to emphasize that these are neither embryos, nor are we trying to make embryos actually,” Dr. Jitesh Neupane, of the University of Cambridge’s Gurdon Institute, said.
Jun 19, 2023
Critical cancer drug shortage forces doctors, patients to make tough choices
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, health
Hospitals and cancer centers are running out of two major injectable cancer drugs: carboplatin and cisplatin. Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky, head of breast medical oncology for the Valley Health System in New Jersey, joins Ali Rogin to discuss the causes and effects of the shortages, and the dilemmas that providers and their patients now face.
Jun 19, 2023
New Research Shows HIV Can Lie Dormant in the Brain
Posted by Omuterema Akhahenda in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience
Scientists from the HIV Cure Center at the UNC School of Medicine, University of California San Diego, Emory University, and University of Pennsylvania have been searching for where exactly these latent cells are hiding in the body. New research published in the Journal of Clinical Investigations confirms that microglial cells – which are specialized immune cells with a decade-long lifespan in the brain – can serve as a stable viral reservoir for latent HIV.
Yuyang Tang, PhD, and Guochun Jiang, PhD, in the UNC School of Medicine extracted living brain tissue to conclude that specialized immune cells in the brain can harbor latent but replication-competent HIV.
As a part of its life cycle, the human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) inserts a copy of its DNA into human immune cells. Some of these newly infected immune cells can then transition into a dormant, latent state for a long period of time, which is referred to as HIV latency.
Continue reading “New Research Shows HIV Can Lie Dormant in the Brain” »
Jun 19, 2023
Robot-assisted deep brain stimulation surgery could treat epilepsy
Posted by Gemechu Taye in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI
Three of these procedures have thus far been undertaken in Canada.
A neurosurgeon in Canada has become the first in the nation to perform robot-assisted deep brain stimulation surgery on a patient suffering from epilepsy with success.
This is according to a report by CTV News published on Wednesday.
Continue reading “Robot-assisted deep brain stimulation surgery could treat epilepsy” »
Jun 18, 2023
Smart drugs fall short as cognitive function enhancers
Posted by Shubham Ghosh Roy in categories: biotech/medical, information science, mathematics, neuroscience
Background
Many everyday tasks can fall under the mathematical class of “hard” problems. Typically, these problems belong to the complexity class of nondeterministic polynomial (NP) hard. These tasks require systematic approaches (algorithms) for optimal outcomes. In the case of significant complex problems (e.g., the number of ways to fix a product or the number of stops to be made on a delivery trip), more computations are required, which rapidly outgrows cognitive capacities.
A recent Science Advances study investigated the effectiveness of three popular smart drugs, namely, modafinil (MOD), methylphenidate (MPH), and dextroamphetamine (DEX), against the difficulty of real-life daily tasks, i.e., the 0–1 knapsack optimization problem (“knapsack task”). A knapsack task is basically a combinatorial optimization task, the class of NP-time challenging problems.
Jun 18, 2023
SpaceX successfully launches world’s first “space factory”
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, space travel
SpaceX has successfully deployed a “space factory” developed by startup Varda Space Industries to manufacture drugs in microgravity.
Jun 18, 2023
‘World’s first radio station with an AI DJ’: Oregon’s Live 95.5 uses a cloned human voice to host segments
Posted by Kelvin Dafiaghor in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI
Portland locals can tune in daily to Live 95.5 to hear AI Ashley, which is powered by RadioGPT, host programming, deliver news, and interact with callers.
Jun 18, 2023
Scientists create human embryos without egg or sperm
Posted by Josh Seeherman in category: biotech/medical
This week, during The Global Stem Cell Event in Boston, Mass., scientists revealed that they have created a synthetic human embryo without an egg or sperm.
It isn’t clear yet whether these embryos could eventually mature into living, breathing, humans. However, their mere existence is “groundbreaking,” according to The Guardian, the first outlet to report on the discovery.
Details of this research has not yet been published.