Lifeboat Foundation

Every day in a San Diego lab, raw material derived from donated tissue unsuitable for organ transplantation goes into a machine, and three-dimensional human liver tissue is printed out.

Pioneered by a company called Organovo, this 3D bioprinting technology may one day achieve the Holy Grail of its industry: the manufacturing of whole human organs to replace damaged ones. But for now, it’s already making an impact on human health, as pharmaceutical and biotech companies are using its manufactured human liver tissue to test the toxicity of new drugs and therapies.

Organovo is developing multiple tissue types for therapeutic use, with strong early results in animal models. In three to five years, there’s a good chance that it will have an Investigational New Drug Application in at least one tissue. The company’s strategic plan is coming to fruition just as its chief scientific officer, Sharon Presnell, envisioned when she joined the startup in 2011.

Antibiotic resistance continues to rise, and new drugs made to battle these increasingly formidable microbes could take more than a decade to develop. In an effort to stress the urgency of this rising resistance, the World Health Organization (WHO) created a list of the twelve deadliest superbugs with which we are currently dealing.

The list is broken into three categories based on the severity of the threat (medium, high, or critical) that a given superbug poses. The three critical bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacteriaceae, are all already resistant to multiple drugs. One of these (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) actually explodes when they die, making them even more deadly.

Pathogens that cause more common diseases like food poisoning or gonorrhea round out the rest of the list. Some big hitters include MRSA and salmonella.

Continue reading “These 12 Superbugs Could Wipe Out Humanity” »

A core set of genes involved in the responses of honey bees to multiple diseases caused by viruses and parasites has been identified by an international team of researchers. The findings provide a better-defined starting point for future studies of honey-bee health, and may help scientists and beekeepers breed honey bees that are more resilient to stress.

“In the past decade, honey-bee populations have experienced severe and persistent losses across the Northern Hemisphere, mainly due to the effects of pathogens, such as fungi and viruses,” said Vincent Doublet, postdoctoral research fellow, University of Exeter. “The genes that we identified offer new possibilities for the generation of honey-bee stocks that are resistant to these pathogens.”

According to the researchers, recent advances in DNA sequencing have prompted numerous investigations of the genes involved in honey-bee responses to pathogens. Yet, until now, this vast quantity of data has been too cumbersome and idiosyncratic to reveal overarching patterns in honey-bee immunity.

Continue reading “Scientists reveal core genes involved in immunity of honey bees” »

Research from McMaster University has found that bacteria in the gut impacts both intestinal and behavioural symptoms in patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a finding which could lead to new microbiota-directed treatments.

The new study, published today in Science Translational Medicine, was led by researchers from the Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute at McMaster, Drs. Premysl Bercik and Stephen Collins, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Waterloo.

IBS is the most common gastrointestinal disorder in the world. It affects the large intestine and patients suffer from abdominal pain and altered bowel habits like diarrhea and constipation, which are often accompanied by chronic anxiety or depression. Current treatments aimed at improving symptoms have limited efficacy because the underlying causes are unknown.

Continue reading “Intestinal bacteria alter gut and brain function” »

Arsenic poisoning from drinking water is still a health concern for 137 million people in more than 70 countries around the world.

But a new filtration system created by Australian researchers could be the cheap and easy technology required to help solve this huge health issue — and best of all, it can be made using recycled parts.

Current systems for removing arsenic from ground water, such as reverse osmosis or iron exchange, aren’t cost effective or efficient, which means they’re not much use in the countries that really need them, like Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Continue reading “Australian Scientists Have Designed a Filter That Removes Arsenic From Drinking Water” »

On 10 February 2017, the London-based charity Cancer Research UK announced that a team of molecular biologists, astronomers and game designers would receive up to £20 million (US$25 million) over the next five years to develop its interactive virtual-reality map of breast cancers. Currently there are animations for tumor that allow virtual flew throughs. However, they are mock-up. The real models will include data on the expression of thousands of genes and dozens of proteins in each cell of a tumor. The hope is that this spatial and functional detail could reveal more about the factors that influence a tumor’s response to treatment.

The project is just one of a string that aims to build a new generation of cell atlases: maps of organs or tumors that describe location and make-up of each cell in painstaking detail.

Cancer Research UK awarded another team up to £16 million to make a similar tumor map that will focus on metabolites and proteins. Later this year, the US National Institute of Mental Health will announce the winners of grants to map mouse brains in extraordinary molecular detail. And on 23–24 February, researchers will gather at Stanford University in California to continue planning the Human Cell Atlas, an as-yet-unfunded effort to map every cell in the human body.

Continue reading “Making 3D maps of every cell in the human body” »

(Natural News) KFC makes much of its “secret blend of herbs and spices,” but there’s a much simpler reason that people tend to find the flavor of the restaurant’s chicken so striking and find themselves craving more: All KFC chicken is literally marinated in MSG.

MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is an artificial salt designed to activate the “umami” taste receptors on the tongue that give food a full, savory flavor. Unlike naturally occurring glutamate, which is an amino acid found in foods such as anchovies, tomato paste, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and parmesan cheese, MSG has been connected with various health problems, with some individuals more sensitive than others.

Some of the dangers of MSG might stem from the fact that it is a highly concentrated form of glutamate, which is not only an amino acid but also a neurotransmitter. Such chemicals are known as excitotoxins, meaning that while they are beneficial in low doses, in high doses they can overstimulate neurons literally to death.

Continue reading “KFC menu found to be loaded with MSG ‘excitotoxins’ that can damage neurology” »

BMI is coming fast and will replace many devices we have today. Advances we making in deep brain development are huge markers that pushes the BMI needle forward for the day when IoT, Security, and big data analytics is a human brain’s and a secured Quantum Infrastructure and people (not servers sitting somewhere) owns and manages their most private of information. I love calling it the age of people empowerment as well as singularity.

Small study in 16 people suggests technique is safe and might help improve mood, anxiety and wellbeing, while increasing weight.

Deep brain stimulation might alter the brain circuits that drive anorexia nervosa symptoms and help improve patients’ mental and physical health, according to a small study published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Continue reading “Deep brain stimulation for patients with chronic anorexia is safe and might improve symptoms” »

Bill and Melinda Gates say “the future will surprise the pessimists.”

They discovered childhood mortality is a symptom of other issues

Children’s deaths are often a result of lack of birth control, gender inequality, and poor women’s health. Melinda wrote, “Virtually all advances in society—nutrition, education, access to contraceptives, gender equity, economic growth—show up as gains in the childhood mortality chart, and every gain in this chart shows up in gains for society.”

Continue reading “Melinda and Bill Gates’s Letter to Warren Buffett Reveals the One Thing Successful People Value Most” »