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WANT TO CHECK YOUR SKIN TO SEE IF YOU HAVE SKIN CANCER
Then do it yourself with a new application for the smartphone which you can download for under $6
Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha
Open-source project intends to advance robotic surgery
A couple of years ago, the Willow Garage robotics company gave ten of its PR2 robots away to deserving research groups. The idea behind the project was that these groups would use the PR2s for robotics research, then share their discoveries with each other, thus advancing the field farther than would be possible if they each had to build their own unique robots from scratch. Now, a similar but unrelated project is underway, and this time the robots are designed specifically to perform surgery.
Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha
20:32 April 11, 2011
This tiny microfluidic device uses carbon nanotubes 30 microns in diameter to separate cancer cells from normal blood cells (Image: Brian Wardle)
A cross-discipline project that brings together biomedicine and nano-engineering has led to the development of a dime-sized microfluidic device that can rapidly detect cancer cells in a blood sample. The new device is based on a cancer cell-detector created four years ago by Mehmet Toner, professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard Medical School. In its latest incarnation, carbon nanotubes have been introduced into the design resulting in an eight-fold improvement in the collection of cells.
The original version of the device – which is currently undergoing hospital tests with a view to commercialization – uses a forest of tiny silicon posts coated with antibodies to capture tumor cells from a blood sample. The aim is to detect circulating tumor cells which indicate that a cancer has metastasized, but because only a handful of these tumor cells are found among billions of normal blood cells, this is a big challenge. The drawback with this version of the device is that not all of the cells come into contact with the silicon posts.
With the assistance of Brian Wardle, an MIT associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics, the silicon tubes have now been replaced with porous carbon nanotubes just 30 microns in diameter which filter the blood far more effectively and therefore significantly improve the chances of collecting circulating tumor cells.
Because the nanotubes can be coated with different antibodies, the device also has great potential in other areas such as HIV diagnosis and could lead to the creation of versatile, low-cost handheld diagnostic devices that would be particularly beneficial in developing countries.
Details of Professor Toner’s microfluidic device were published in the March 17 online edition of the journal
Sourced & Published by Henry Sapiecha
Head-worn device uses sonar to rapidly diagnose stroke
A team of radiologists and retired US Navy sonar experts have used technology developed for submarines as the basis for a new device which offers quick detection, diagnosis and monitoring of stroke. Combined with a portable laptop based console, the head-worn device enables different types of stroke and brain injury to be discovered and located, differentiating normal blood flow from life threatening conditions and delivering an initial diagnosis in under a couple of minutes. Read More
Received & published by Henry Sapiecha
Nasal Screens help you keep your nose clean
Nobody likes having pollen or dust allergies, nor do they enjoy suffering through airborne viruses such as colds or the flu. One approach to lessening the likelihood of being bothered by either of these conditions is to wear a mouth and nose mask, but that could get rather awkward and uncomfortable, plus it would make you look kind of funny in some situations. If you’re OK with still looking a little funny, however, you might be interested in slapping on a pair of First Defense Nasal Screens – that’s right, we’re talking nostril filters.
Received & published by Henry Sapiecha
Experimental shock therapy device offers hope for sleep apnea sufferers
Noisy snoring is not just a tiring irritation for partners but also can be a sign of sleep apnea. The National Institutes of Health reports that more than 12 million Americans suffer from the most common of the three varieties – obstructive sleep apnea, where the upper airway is repeatedly blocked during sleep. There are several treatment options already available and Minneapolis-based Inspire Medical Systems is about to add a shocking new addition to the treatment options on offer. The new system – which is about to enter clinical trials – electrically stimulates the nerve at the base of the tongue & keeps it from blocking the air’s journey to and from the lungs, and so offers the patient a good night’s sleep. Read More
Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha
AIRPORT screenings can give you a sexually transmitted disease
You could pick up a sex disease on your next trip – and you don’t even have to visit a hooker in a foreign city to get it.
Just a visit to the airport will do, because the perverted American government is spreading germs as it forces passengers to spread for its new “enhanced security screenings.”
You’ve probably heard a bit about these government-sanctioned gropings. One TV news producer singled out for a special pat down said the agent stuck a hand inside her pants and even felt around inside her panties.
“It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist,” she said. “It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate.”
It’s also a very real public health threat.
The TV news producer didn’t mention the rubber gloves worn by the screeners, but there have been multiple reports of Transportation Security Admininstration (TSA) workers using the same gloves from one passenger to the next.
And that means every visit with a TSA worker could be like a quick dip in a Tijuana whorehouse – because these guys could be passing out everything from herpes to the crabs all day and night.
That’s a bigger threat to passenger safety than any wannabe terrorist!
A breast cancer survivor was forced to remove her prosthetic breast. A bladder cancer survivor was left covered in his own urine when TSA workers caused his urostomy bag to burst. Children have been screaming through some very personal lessons in “bad touch.”
And in one case, a nursing mother who complained to the TSA after agents X-rayed bottles of pumped breast milk was singled out for retaliatory extra screening during her next trip.
Watch her 90-minute ordeal here.
Expect more stories like these, assuming people are still allowed to talk about them – because Uncle Sam has finally succeeded. He’s groped passenger rights away – and we might never get them back.
Happy New Year!
Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha
New biosensor quickly detects viruses such as Ebola
While there are already effective methods of screening samples of body fluids for viruses such as Ebola, these tend to require a fair amount of sample preparation time and a decent technological infrastructure. Time isn’t always in abundance at places such as airports, while infrastructure is lacking in many developing nations. Fortunately, researchers have created a diagnostic tool that can detect viruses quickly and easily, and that’s about the size of a quarter. Read More
Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha
Science (Oct. 9, 2010) — Researchers from Northwestern University and NorthShore University HealthSystem (NorthShore) have developed a method to detect early signs of lung cancer by examining cheek cells in humans using pioneering biophotonics technology.
Early detection is critical for improving cancer survival rates. Yet, one of the deadliest cancers in the United States, lung cancer, is notoriously difficult to detect in its early stages. Now, researchers have developed a method to detect lung cancer by merely shining diffuse light on cells swabbed from patients’ cheeks.
“By examining the lining of the cheek with this optical technology, we have the potential to prescreen patients at high risk for lung cancer, such as those who smoke, and identify the individuals who would likely benefit from more invasive and expensive tests versus those who don’t need additional tests,” said Hemant K. Roy, M.D., director of gastroenterology research at NorthShore.
The optical technique is called partial wave spectroscopic (PWS) microscopy and was developed by Vadim Backman, professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. Backman and Roy earlier used PWS to assess the risk of colon and pancreatic cancers, also with promising results.
The lung cancer findings are published online Oct. 5 by the journal Cancer Research. The paper will appear in print in the Oct. 15 issue.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Survival rates are high with surgical resection (removal of the tumor) but only if detected at an early stage. Currently there are no recommended tests for large population screening to detect lung cancer early. The disease is already advanced by the time most lung cancer patients develop symptoms. The five-year survival rate for lung cancer patients is only 15 percent.
PWS can detect cell features as small as 20 nanometers, uncovering differences in cells that appear normal using standard microscopy techniques. The PWS-based test makes use of the “field effect,” a biological phenomenon in which cells located some distance from the malignant or pre-malignant tumor undergo molecular and other changes.
“Despite the fact that these cells appear to be normal using standard microscopy, which images micron-scale cell architecture, there are actually profound changes in the nanoscale architecture of the cell,” Backman said. “PWS measures the disorder strength of the nanoscale organization of the cell, which we have determined to be one of the earliest signs of carcinogenesis and a strong marker for the presence of cancer in the organ.”
“PWS is a paradigm shift, in that we don’t need to examine the tumor itself to determine the presence of cancer,” added Hariharan Subramanian, a research associate in Backman’s lab who played a central role in the development of the technology.
After testing the technology in a small-scale trial, Roy and Backman focused the study on smokers, since smoking is the major risk factor related to 90 percent of lung cancer patients. “The basic idea is that smoking not only affects the lungs but the entire airway tract,” Roy said.
The study was comprised of 135 participants including 63 smokers with lung cancer and control groups of 37 smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 13 smokers without COPD and 22 non-smokers. The research was not confounded by the participants’ demographic factors such as amount of smoking, age or gender. Importantly, the test was equally sensitive to cancers of all stages, including early curable cancers.
The researchers swabbed the inside of patients’ mouths, and then the cheek cells were applied to a slide, fixed in ethanol and optically scanned using PWS to measure the disorder strength of cell nanoarchitecture. Results were markedly elevated (greater than 50 percent) in patients with lung cancer compared to cancer-free smokers.
A further assessment of the performance characteristics of the “disorder strength” (as a biomarker) showed greater than 80 percent accuracy in discriminating cancer patients from individuals in the three control groups.
“The results are similar to other successful cancer screening techniques, such as the pap smear,” Backman said. “Our goal is to develop a technique that can improve the detection of other cancers in order to provide early treatments, much as the pap smear has drastically improved survival rates for cervical cancer.”
Additional large-scale validation trials are necessary for PWS. If it continues to prove effective in clinical trials at detecting cancer early, Backman and Roy believe PWS has the potential to be used as a prescreening method, identifying patients at highest risk who are likely to benefit from more comprehensive testing such as bronchoscopy or low-dose CT scans.
The paper is titled “Optical Detection of Buccal Epithelial Nanoarchitectural Alterations in Patients Harboring Lung Cancer: Implications for Screening.” In addition to Roy, Backman and Subramanian, other authors of the paper are Dhwanil Damania, Thomas A. Hensing, William N. Rom, Harvey I. Pass, Daniel Ray, Jeremy D. Rogers, Andrej Bogojevic, Maitri Shah, Tomasz Kuzniar and Prabhakar Pradhan.
Editor’s Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha
June 1, 2008 — Infectious disease experts designed a machine called the hemopurifier. It works much like a dialysis machine, using thin fibers to capture and remove viruses from the blood it filters. The machine requires the drawing of blood through an artery, which is sent through a tube into the machine, then back into the body. It can treat a number of illnesses.
Every day, 14,000 people are infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDs. There’s no cure, but now a breakthrough — a machine that could clean blood, keeping more and more people alive longer.
“I remember lying in bed thinking, ‘I am going to die. I’m going to die. I feel so sick.’ And I remember thinking laying in that bed, ‘And I know exactly what it is,’” HIV patient John Paul Womble, told Ivanhoe. HIV could kill Womble. He watched his father die from the virus and now he is living the rest of his life with it. “I’ve got to live as healthy as I can, but this virus is not going to control me,” he says. Now, a machine could help clean Womble’s infected blood and keep him healthier, longer.
“It’s designed to mimic the natural immune response of clearing viruses and toxins before cells and organs can be infected,” Jim Joyce chairman and CEO of Aethlon Medical in San Diego, told Ivanhoe. Developed by infectious disease and biodefense experts, the hemopurifier works like a dialysis machine. Antibodies on these spaghetti-like fibers capture and remove viruses as blood filters through it.
“Your entire circulation flows through the cartridge about once every eight minutes,” Joyce explains. The entire process takes less than a few hours. It could help patients infected with HIV, hepatitis C, as well as people with the measles, mumps and the flu. “The cartridge is able to selectively capture viruses.”
A larger version of the machine would be used in a hospital, but a smaller one could be taken to emergencies. It could be a life-safer against the avian flu or bio-weapons like Ebola and small pox, giving people a chance to survive a deadly attack, whether it’s from a terrorist or a virus.
“I don’t have to be afraid,” Womble says. “I have a virus. I’ve got to do something about that virus. I’ve got to treat that virus. I’ve got to live as healthy as I can.” The hemopurifier is also a leading treatment candidate to protect United States civilian and military populations from bioterror threats and emerging pandemic threats like the bird flu and dengue fever that are untreatable with drugs and vaccines.
REMOVING VIRUSES FROM BLOOD: The hemopurifier uses antibodies to remove viruses as blood filters through it. It is designed to filter out viruses and toxins before they attack organs. The method is very similar to dialysis, and can be used to help patients with HIV, Hepatitis C, the measles, mumps, the flu, and more. It can also begin working before doctors identify the cause of the illness.
WHAT IS DIALYSIS? Hemodialysis is often used as a treatment for end stage renal disease (ESRD), or kidney failure, in which blood is removed from the body, filtered through an artificial kidney and then the cleaned blood is returned to the body. In the US, hemodialysis is the most common treatment for people who have kidney failure. However, dialysis is also a painful, expensive procedure, and while it cleans the blood well enough to maintain existence, it does little to improve a patient’s overall quality of life. Also, data shows that if patients get a transplant before they get to the point of dialysis, they do better in the longer term.
Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha
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