Thursday, February 27, 2014

Hacking the Immune System to Prevent further damage after a heart attack


Using tiny biodegradable particles to disrupt the body’s normal immune response after a heart attack could help save patients from tissue damage and certain long-term health problems that often follow. Researchers haveshown that injecting such particles into mice within 24 hours of a heart attack not only significantly reduces tissue damage, but also results in those mice having stronger cardiac function 30 days later. The inventors of the new technology now plan to pursue human trials.

Much of the tissue damage that results from a heart attack is the result of inflammation, the body’s natural response to harmful stimuli such as damaged muscle. But in the case of a heart attack, these immune cells do more harm than good, explains Daniel Getts, inventor of the new therapy and chief scientific officer of Cour Pharmaceutical Development. The system’s weaponry is “fairly generic,” he says. While the toxic compounds that the immune cells secrete can be beneficial in defending the body against an infection, they also cause tissue damage. This phenomenon occurs not only after heart attacks, but also in a range of other diseases, including West Nile Virus, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis.

The 500-nanometer particles must be negatively charged, and can be made of several different materials, including the one used for biodegradable sutures. Thenew research suggests that once the particles are in the bloodstream, the negative charge attracts a specific receptor on the surface of inflammatory monocytes. The particles bind to that receptor and divert the immune cells away from the heart and toward the spleen, where they die.

Preventing these cells from reaching the heart allows the damaged muscle to regenerate “along more regulated processes,” says Getts. Should the therapy translate to humans, he says, it has the potential to substantially reduce the long-term health drawbacks that some heart attack patients experience, including shortness of breath and limited ability to exercise.

The goal is to begin human tests by early next year. The company hopes the relatively simple mechanism of the therapy, and the fact that the material the particles are made of, polyglycolic acid, is already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will speed the development process.

But “there is still some homework to do,” in particular the teasing out of any potential side effects the microparticles might produce, saysMatthias Nahrendorf, a professor of systems biology at Harvard. For example, the particles may activate the immune system in some yet-unknown way, he says. In addition, it will be important to determine how to administer the therapy so that it doesn’t compromise these cells’ ability to help in healing, and to defend the body against infection and other foreign invaders, says Nahrendorf.

Cancer Gene Testing by the Drop



A cost-effective new testing method could make it easier for scientists to identify the assortment of cancer-causing genetic mutations in tumor cells. Developed byRainDance Technologies, a maker of genomic tools in Billerica, Massachusetts, the technology could enable researchers to analyze tiny samples collected by needles, a less invasive option than the surgical biopsies required for many molecular diagnostic tests.

Medical researchers and physicians are increasingly testing tumor DNA to follow the progression of a cancer, identify molecular targets for new drugs, and determine which existing treatments will work best for specific patients. But many tumor samples aren’t suitable for sequencing, the most comprehensive way to identify genetic mutations, because they don’t contain enough DNA or because the DNA they do contain is damaged by standard processing methods. Although RainDance’s technology is currently offered only to researchers, it may one day enable doctors to perform a variety of molecular tests on small numbers of cells harvested from solid tumors or even found floating in blood samples.

RainDance’s test uses microscopic droplets of liquid in place of the small plastic tubes where DNA-manipulating reactions normally occur. Each droplet is around eight picoliters in volume—about one millionth of teaspoon. When the droplets are generated on a RainDance machine, they contain the components needed to amplify a known cancer gene. Researchers can then add a patient’s DNA to the droplets, and reactions that duplicate the DNA occur inside them.

Because the droplets are so tiny, only very small amounts of reagent are required, which helps make the process much cheaper than other methods. After amplifying the DNA in a sample, researchers can either sequence the genes using standard equipment or look for the presence of cancer genes using a machine made by RainDance itself.

The company was founded in 2004 to commercialize a system that chief technology officer Darren Link developed as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. He originally developed the technology as a way to study the physics of materials, but he says that as word of the tiny reaction chambers spread, biologists became interested in them for studying single biomolecules.

What makes RainDance’s test unique is that only a tiny amount of tumor DNA is needed. That could make it possible to sequence the DNA from many more tumor samples. Besides requiring less DNA, the technology makes it possible to sequence samples that have been treated with chemical fixatives for preservation—a standard practice, says Roopom Banerjee, RainDance’s CEO and a former clinical scientist at the Dana Farber Cancer institute in Boston. The challenge has been that the fixative breaks down DNA, so most DNA-sequencing methods can’t be used on these samples. RainDance’s technology, however, can make use of even a single intact copy of a gene, so now the more than 100 million preserved cancer samples currently stored in biobanks around the world could be used in cancer research, says Banerjee.

For now, RainDance does not sell the test to doctors for use on patients, but Banerjee says it’s possible that the company’s research customers could use it to develop in-house tests.

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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Obamacare Explained Advertisement


BAM! Nurses explain Obamacare in 90 seconds (via @Upworthy) @SEIU @1199SEIU http://www.upworthy.com/bam-nurses-explain-obamacare-in-90-seconds-2?g=2&c=tkp1

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Painless Root canal with Stem cells



Weird Medical Emergency: rare


Baby Dies In car Seat:
SARATOGA SPRINGS — A tragedy in Utah tonight as a one-year old baby girl dies while sleeping in a car seat. The baby died this evening, after efforts to revive her failed. The baby's death ironically comes on the same day of a new international study, which says leaving infants in a car seat can be dangerous.

We've probably all done it — you come home from a trip and the baby is still sleeping, so rather than risk waking the baby up, you leave her in a car seat like this while she sleeps in the house. Sadly tonight, a Utah baby may have died from exactly that.

Fifteen-month old Devon Justine Greer was being cared for by a neighbor this afternoon and was left sleeping in her car seat.

Sgt. Spencer Cannon, Utah County Sheriff's Office: "She had apparently fallen asleep in the car seat in the car, but was taken into the home."

The baby girl was sleeping in a bedroom, but when the caregiver went to check on her she was not breathing.

Sgt. Spencer Cannon, Utah County Sheriff's Office: "When family here at the home went into that room a short time later, they found her unresponsive and not breathing, and that's when they called 911."

Paramedics attempted CPR for more than an hour, but it was not successful.

Sgt. Spencer Cannon, Utah County Sheriff's Office: "We have detectives who are continuing to investigate to rule out any foul play, but at this point it appears to be an accident."

This baby's death could be related to what New Zealand researchers today warned is a danger for infants. The study reviewed nine infants who suffered "life threatening breathing problems" while strapped into a car seat where they were left asleep outside the car.

The babies had their heads bent forward while they slept and that restricted their airways.

Janet Brooks with Primary Children's Hospital says the warning about letting babies sleep for long periods of time in car seats is not new, but an important reminder.

Janet Brooks, Child Advocacy Manager, Primary Children's Hospital: "Leaving kids in a car seat too long. If you take them out of the car, take them into the house. They sleep in it, they nap in it. These are all issues, not only for airways but for curvature of the spine, flatness on the back of the head; these are all issues we look at."

While it's not safe to let babies sleep for a long time in the car seat out of the car, we want to make it clear: while in a car, it's a different story. There is no question that infant car seats save lives and researchers say may reduce car accident injuries by as much as 90%.

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This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

Originally posted Dec. 08, 2006


Read more at http://m.ksl.com/index/story/sid/711452?mobile_direct=y#H9hS9MpWiwRqwKFW.99

Monday, February 10, 2014

Cancer Genome Atlas: gene sequencing of all the top 20 cancers

http://cancergenome.nih.gov/

Good Article on the Cancer Genome Project:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/science/a-catalog-of-cancer-genes-thats-done-or-just-a-start.html?ref=science

Morbid Anatomy Museum -NYC

Funny Stuff: off the beaten path medical stuff
   http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/nyregion/death-in-the-afternoon-then-drinks.html?ref=science


Sunday, February 9, 2014

Street Medicine Crusader- Pittsburgh, PA

http://www.upworthy.com/a-doctor-has-spent-decades-dressing-up-like-a-homeless-man-the-reason-is-fantastic

Operation Safety Net:
   http://www.pmhs.org/operation-safety-net/what-we-need.aspx

Street Medicine Organization:
   http://streetmedicine.org/wordpress/


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Seal a bullet wound in 15 seconds: New Invention

http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/how-simple-new-invention-seals-gunshot-wound-15-seconds