12.23.2010
12.22.2010
Stem cell therapy to heal a broken heart
Over the last decade, scientists have experimented with using stem cells to heal or replace the scarred tissue that mars the heart after a heart attack. While the cells do spur some level of repair in animals, human tests have resulted in modest or transient benefits at best. Now researchers have developed a new kind of biological sutures, made from polymer strands infused with stem cells, that might help surmount two major obstacles to using stem cells to heal the heart: getting the cells to the right spot and keeping them there long enough to trigger healing.
Flu... there's a shot for that. Broken bone...there's a shot for that too
Today, a broken hip usually means surgery and extensive rehab. But what if all you needed was an injection and a shorter recovery period? That's the vision that inspires Thomas Webster, an associate professor of engineering at Brown University.
Webster has developed a nanomaterial that quickly solidifies at body temperature into a bone-like substance. This week, Brown announced a deal with medical device maker Audax Medical of Littleton, Massachusetts, to further develop the material and launch trials in animals.
Skip the biopsy...ask for laser beams instead
Scientists at Harvard University have developed a noninvasive imaging technique that captures images at the molecular level so quickly that they can "watch" red blood cells move through the capillaries of a live mouse. The system uses two laser beams set at different frequencies to excite specific types of molecules in the skin. A custom-designed detector picks up the excited molecular signal and translates it into an image.
With such a capability, says Ji-Xin Cheng, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue University, doctors may be able to identify other diseases that manifest on the surface of organs other than skin.
"Some cancers start in the epithelial layer, or the surface of tissues, like colon cancer," says Cheng. "Diagnosing such cancers could be a good application for a system like this."
People helping computers process information for a change
Most brain-computer interfaces are designed to help disabled people communicate or move around. A new project is using this type of interface to help computers perform tasks they can't manage on their own. In experiments, researchers used the interface to sort through satellite images for surface-to-air missiles faster than any machine or human analyst could manage alone.
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