Takeda Initiates Phase 3 Trial For Lung Cancer Drug

Takeda Bio Development Center Limited, will evaluate motesanib in combination with chemotherapy in patients with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Motesanib (development code: AMG 706) is an investigational, orally administered small molecule antagonist of vascular endothelial growth factor receptors 1, 2, and 3, platelet-derived growth factor receptors, and stem cell factor receptor.

Source: http://www.asianscientist.com/tech-pharma/takeda-initiates-phase-3-trial-motesanib-nsclc-2012/

Ground-breaking windpipe-transplant child 'doing well'

The first child to have pioneering surgery to rebuild his windpipe with his own stem cells is doing well and is back in school.

Instead of growing a new windpipe, they took a donor windpipe and stripped it of all the donor's cells. What was left was a three-dimensional web of collagen fibres which was transplanted into Ciaran. Meanwhile, stem cells, which can become any other type of cell, from nerve to skin cells, were taken from Ciaran's bone marrow. These were then sprayed onto the newly transplanted windpipe. The surgery had been tried once before in Spain, in 2008, on a 30-year-old woman, but Ciaran was the first child.

Surgeon, Prof Martin Birchall, speaking in 2010: "It could replace transplantation"
He has been monitored for the past two years and the details have been published in the Lancet.

Bron: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18980915

New drug candidate shows promise against cancer

Lippard is senior author of a paper describing the new drug candidate, known as phenanthriplatin, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Lead author is postdoc Ga Young Park; other authors are graduate student Justin Wilson and postdoc Ying Song.

One reason for the efficacy of phenanthriplatin is that it can get into cancer cells more easily than cisplatin, Lippard says. Previous studies have shown that platinum compounds containing carbon can pass through specific channels, found in abundance on cancer cells, that allow positively charged organic compounds to enter. Another reason is the ability of phenanthriplatin to inhibit transcription, the process by which cells convert DNA to RNA in the first step of gene expression.

Another advantage of phenanthriplatin is that it seems to be able to evade some of cancer cells’ defenses against cisplatin. Sulfur-containing compounds found in cells, such as glutathione, can attack platinum and destroy it before it can reach and bind to DNA. However, phenanthriplatin contains a bulky three-ring attachment that appears to prevent sulfur from inactivating the platinum compounds as effectively.

Luigi Marzilli, a professor of chemistry at Louisiana State University, says the new compound appears to be very promising. “It expands the utility of platinum drugs and avoids some of the problems that existing drugs have,” says Marzilli, who was not part of the research team.

The researchers are now conducting animal tests to determine how the drug is distributed throughout the body, and how well it kills tumors. Depending on the results, they may be able to modify the compound to improve those properties, Lippard says.


Source: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/platinum-cancer-drug-candidate-0711.html

Man and robot linked by brain scanner - Avatar

Robot avatars have got a step closer to being the real world doubles of those who are paralysed or have locked-in-syndrome. Scientists have made a robot move on a human's behalf by monitoring thoughts about movement, reports New Scientist.

Mirror test
The research project connected a robot to a man having his brain scanned using fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging). This monitors blood flowing through the brain and can spot when areas associated with certain actions, such as movement, are in use.

The next step for the research is to refine it to use a different type of scanning that can work using a skull cap rather than an fMRI machine that a person has to lie in. The robot used to represent a human is to be upgraded to a version that has a similar stature and gait to a real person.

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Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18721658
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528725.900-robot-avatar-body-controlled-by-thought-alone.html

Related stories:
A Real-Time fMRI-Based Spelling Device Immediately Enabling Robust Motor-Independent Communication
Research from the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands.

Summary: fMRI-based spelling device for potential communication with locked-in patients ► Each letter of the alphabet can be hemodynamically encoded by a single mental process ► Evoked single-trial fMRI responses can be decoded in real time with high accuracy ► Requires almost zero pretraining; methods can be readily used at standard MRI sites.

3D-printed sugar network to help grow artificial liver

Researchers have moved a step closer to creating a synthetic liver, after a US team created a template for blood vessels to grow into, using sugar.
Dr Jordan Miller from the lab of the lead scientist, Dr Christopher Chen, at the University of Pennsylvania, told BBC News: "The big challenge in understanding how to grow large artificial tissue is how to keep all the cells alive in these engineered tissues, because when you put a lot of cells together, they end up taking nutrients and oxygen from neighbouring cells and end up suffocating and dying

So a group of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) decided to build a synthetic vascular system that would serve the same purpose

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627

Remote crowdworking

As connectivity and technology mean the barriers to outsourcing are beginning to almost disappear entirely, outsourcing is graduating into another trend that is changing how we treat repetitive human work. Crowdworking is growing, fast. Ville Miettinen, chief executive of "human powered document processing" service Microtask, says business at his crowdworking company is increasing at around 400% year-on-year - and his experience is typical of the wider industry.

Heaphy Project
Willow Garage is a robotics company based in California. It pioneers the use of human-in-the-loop systems - that is, actions which robots can't quite manage on their own, but with a simple piece of human intervention can finish the job. By using Mechanical Turk, Amazon's crowdworking platform which allows workers all over the world to remotely carry out small tasks for small cash rewards. Its Heaphy Project is a system which allows a person to control a robot remotely using just a web browser.

Microtask's Mr Miettinen offers a massive workforce available at a company's beck and call without the hassle. "The individual tasks are really small," Mr Miettinen explains. "It can be just a single word out of a document. They're not seeing the entire page, they don't know what the rest of the page contains, and they also don't know who else is working on it." It means several people, in several continents, can all collaborate to process one individual form.

Paralysed rats 'learn to walk'

An injury to the spinal cord stops the brain controlling the body. The study, in the journal Science, showed injured rats could even learn to sprint with spinal stimulation.

Experts said it was an "exceptional study" and that restoring function after paralysis "can no longer be dismissed as a pipedream".

In 2011, a man from Oregon in the US was able to stand up again while his spinal cord was stimulated with electricity. Rob Summers had been paralysed from the chest down after being hit by a car.

Now researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) say they have restored far more movement in rats which became able to run and climb stairs. The spinal cord of the rats was cut in two places. It meant messages could not travel from the brain to the legs, but the spinal cord was still in one piece.

The lead researcher, Prof Gregoire Courtine, said: "Over time the animal regains the capacity to perform one, two steps, then a long run and eventually we gain the capacity to sprint over ground, climb stairs and even pass obstacles."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18257077

Robotic arm controlled by a paralyzed woman’s mind

Cathy Hutchinson suffered from a stroke many years ago that left her debilitated and unable to move and talk. But a group of researchers led by neurologist and engineer Leigh Hochberg of Brown University is about to change all of that. “When the woman with the brain stem stroke reached out for that thermos of coffee and put it in her mouth and then she put it back down, the smile on her face was remarkable,” Hochberg said. Hochberg directs the BrainGate2 clinical trial, an ongoing test of the BrainGate system funded in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.


Researchers connected the 58-year-old woman’s brain to a computer that runs a robotic arm. With a 4-millimeter wide brain-implanted chip, the system conducts signals from motion-controlling neurons to a computer that decodes the signals and turns them into software commands. For the researchers to map a person’s neural activity to the robotic arm’s movement, they moved the arm while asking the participants to imagine themselves controlling it.

Once the scientists had taught the computer which patterns would normally make a participant’s arm reach out for a bottle of drink, they hardwired them as the command for the robot arm to do the same thing, but with the signal coming directly from the participant’s brain as they imagined holding the bottle and bringing it near to their mouth for drinking. The researchers are hoping to make the system smaller, stable and wireless in the future so that people with brain injuries and physical disorders can use it.

Robotic limbs or extensions can help us in many ways. This woman who completed the London Marathon using a ReWalk Exoskeleton is a great example.

Source: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/05/robotic-arm-controlled-by-a-paralyzed-womans-mind/

Teleportation record heralds secure global network

The distance record for quantum teleportation has been smashed. Juan Yin and colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui, teleported a quantum state 97 kilometres, 81 km further than the previous record.

Yin's team entangle photons – which links their properties even when the photons are separated. Then they beam one photon from each entangled pair to a point A and the other to B.

When a photon is changed at A, the particle at B also changes. No information passes from A to B, but the photon change can be used to partially encode quantum bits, called qubits. Rather like a letter that can't be opened, these can only be reconstructed at B using additional data communicated conventionally from point A, so information is not being sent faster than light.

Teleportation is ultra-secure as there are no photons travelling through space to intercept. The next step would be to teleport with a satellite, for global teleportation, says team member Yuao Chen. That might even lead to a quantum internet.

"This is a very nice piece of work," says Michael Biercuk of the Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems at the University of Sydney, who was not involved in the work.

Source: New Scientist arxiv.org/abs/1205.2024

Light-powered bionic eye invented to help restore sight

A retinal implant - or bionic eye - which is powered by light has been invented by scientists at Stanford University in California. Implants currently used in patients need to be powered by a battery.

The new device, described in the journal Nature Photonics, uses a special pair of glasses to beam near infrared light into the eye.

Retinal implants stimulate the nerves in the back of the eye, which has helped some patients to see. Early results of a trial in the UK mean two men have gone from being totally blind to being able to perceive light and even some shapes.

However, as well as a fitting a chip behind the retina, a battery needs to be fitted behind the ear and a cable needs to join the two together.

Prof Robert MacLaren from Oxford Eye Hospital explains how a bionic eye implant works
The Stanford researchers say their method could be a step forward by "eliminating the need for complex electronics and wiring".

A pair of glasses fitted with a video camera records what is happening before a patient's eyes and fires beams of near infrared light on to the retinal chip. This creates an electrical signal which is passed on to nerves. Natural light is 1,000 times too weak to power the implant.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18061174

BBC News - Stem cell shield 'could protect cancer patients'

It may be possible to use "stem cell shielding" to protect the body from the damaging effects of chemotherapy, early results from a US trial suggest.

Chemotherapy drugs try to kill rapidly dividing cancer cells, but they can also affect other healthy tissues such as bone marrow. A study, in Science Translational Medicine, used genetically modified stem cells to protect the bone marrow.

Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle, said these effects were "a major barrier" to using chemotherapy and often meant the treatment had to be stopped, delayed or reduced.

'Protective shields'
They have tried to protect the bone marrow in three patients with a type of brain cancer, glioblastoma.

One of the researchers, Dr Jennifer Adair, said: "This therapy is analogous to firing at both tumour cells and bone marrow cells, but giving the bone marrow cells protective shields while the tumour cells are unshielded."

The researchers said the three patients had all lived longer than the average survival time of 12 months for the cancer. They said one patient was still alive 34 months after treatment.

Cancer Research UK scientist Prof Susan Short said: "This is a very interesting study and a completely new approach to protecting normal cells during cancer treatment.

"It needs to be tested in more patients but it may mean that we can use temozolomide [a chemotherapy drug] for more brain tumour patients than we previously thought. "This approach could also be a model for other situations where the bone marrow is affected by cancer treatment."

Source: BBC News - Stem cell shield 'could protect cancer patients'

BBC News - MirageTable: Microsoft presents augmented reality device

Microsoft has shown off an augmented reality system that allows users at different locations to work together on tabletop activities, sharing objects which they can both handle.

The MirageTable was demonstrated at a conference in Austin, Texas and is outlined on the firm's research site.


Source: BBC News - MirageTable: Microsoft presents augmented reality device

BBC News - Magnetic bacteria may help build future bio-computers

Magnet-making bacteria may be building biological computers of the future, researchers have said.

A team from the UK's University of Leeds and Japan's Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used microbes that eat iron. As they ingest the iron, the microbes create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those in PC hard drives.

"We are quickly reaching the limits of traditional electronic manufacturing as computer components get smaller," said lead researcher Dr Sarah Staniland of the University of Leeds. "The machines we've traditionally used to build them are clumsy at such small scales. "Nature has provided us with the perfect tool to [deal with] this problem."


Biological wires

Besides using microorganisms to produce magnets, the researchers also managed to create tiny electrical wires from living organisms.  Tubes could in future be used as microscopic bio-engineered wires, capable of transferring information - just like cells do in our bodies - inside a computer, Dr Masayoshi Tanaka from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.

Source: BBC News - Magnetic bacteria may help build future bio-computers

BBC News - Range of brain diseases could be treated by single drug

The tantalising prospect of treating a range of brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, all with the same drug, has been raised by UK researchers. In a study, published in Nature, they prevented brain cells dying in mice with prion disease.


Many neuro-degenerative diseases result in the build-up of proteins which are not put together correctly - known as misfolded proteins. This happens in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's as well as in prion diseases, such as the human form of mad cow disease. Researchers at the University of Leicester uncovered how the build-up of proteins in mice with prion disease resulted in brain cells dying. They showed that as misfolded protein levels rise in the brain, cells respond by trying to shut down the production of all new proteins.

It is the same trick cells use when infected with a virus. Stopping production of proteins stops the virus spreading. However, shutting down the factory for a long period of time ends up killing the brain cells as they do not produce the proteins they actually need to function. The team at the Medical Research Council laboratory in Leicester then tried to manipulate the switch which turned the protein factory off. When they prevented cells from shutting down, they prevented the brain dying. The mice then lived significantly longer.


Prof Giovanna Mallucci told the BBC: "The novelty here is we're just targeting the protein shut-down, we're ignoring the prion protein and that's what makes it potentially relevant across the board."



Source: BBC News - Range of brain diseases could be treated by single drug

BBC News - Curry's ability to fight cancer put to the test

A chemical found in curry is to be tested for its ability to kill bowel cancer tumours in patients. Curcumin, which is found in the spice turmeric, has been linked to a range of health benefits.

Studies have already shown that it can beat cancer cells grown in a laboratory and benefits have been suggested in stroke and dementia patients as well.

Forty patients at Leicester Royal Infirmary and Leicester General Hospital will take part in the trial, which will compare the effects of giving curcumin pills seven days before starting standard chemotherapy treatment. Prof William Steward, who is leading the study, said animal tests combining the two were "100 times better" than either on their own and that had been the "major justification for cracking on" with the trial.

Souce: BBC News - Curry's ability to fight cancer put to the test

BBC News - Two blind British men have electronic retinas fitted

Two British men who have been totally blind for many years have had part of their vision restored after surgery to fit pioneering eye implants.

They are able to perceive light and even some shapes from the devices which were fitted behind the retina.

The men are part of a clinical trial carried out at the Oxford Eye Hospital and King's College Hospital in London. Professor Robert MacLaren and Mr Tim Jackson are leading the trial.


Prof MacLaren said the results might not seem extraordinary to the sighted, but for a totally blind person to be able to orientate themselves in a room, and perhaps know where the doors and windows are, would be "extremely useful" and of practical help.

In 2010 a Finnish man who received the experimental chip was able to identify letters, but his implant worked only in a laboratory setting, whereas the British men's devices are portable. The implant was developed by a German company, Retina Implant AG.

Source: BBC News - Two blind British men have electronic retinas fitted

Michael Jordan - Why I succeed

"Our willingness to fail gives us the ability and opportunity to succeed where others may fear to tread."


“I've missed more than 
9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."


—Michael Jordan

BBC News - Way to spot breast cancer years in advance

A genetic test could help predict breast cancer many years before the disease is diagnosed, experts hope. Ultimately the findings, in the journal Cancer Research, could lead to a simple blood test to screen women, they say. The test looks for how genes are altered by environmental factors like alcohol and hormones - a process known as epigenetics.

One in five women is thought to have such a genetic "switch" that doubles breast cancer risk.
And they found a strong link between breast cancer risk and molecular modification of a single gene called ATM, which is found on white blood cells.

Baroness Delyth Morgan of the Breast Cancer Campaign, which funded the work, said: "By piecing together how this happens, we can look at ways of preventing the disease and detecting it earlier to give people the best possible chance of survival."

Laura Bell of Cancer Research UK said: "This study gives us a fascinating glimpse of the future and the promise that the emerging field of epigenetics holds. But it's too early to say exactly how these particular changes might affect our ability to detect who is likely to develop certain types of cancer.

"With further studies, scientists will increase our knowledge of how genetic switches like this interplay together to affect breast cancer risk, with the hope that one day this could lead to a blood test that could help predict a woman's chance of getting the disease."

Source: BBC News - Way to spot breast cancer years in advance

BBC News - 'Brake gene' turned off in pancreatic cancer

Aggressive pancreatic tumours may be treatable with a new class of drugs, according to Cancer Research UK.

A study, published in the journal Nature, showed that a gene was being switched off in the cancerous cells. Studies in mice showed that a gene called USP9x, which normally stops a cell from dividing uncontrollably, is switched off in some pancreatic cancer cells. The gene is not mutated, but other proteins and chemicals become stuck to it and turn the gene off.

Studies then showed that UPS9x was being turned off in human pancreatic cancer. Prof David Tuveson, from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, said: "We suspected that the fault wasn't in the genetic code at all, but in the chemical tags on the surface of the DNA that switch genes on and off, and by running more lab tests we were able to confirm this. "Drugs which strip away these tags are already showing promise in lung cancer and this study suggests they could also be effective."

Dr David Adams, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said: "This study strengthens our emerging understanding that we must also look into the biology of cells to identify all the genes that play a role in cancer."

Source: BBC News - 'Brake gene' turned off in pancreatic cancer

Self-cleaning coating gets tough

Chemists have devised a better method of coating fabrics with a water-repellent, "self-cleaning" coating.

Super-hydrophobic surfaces have fascinated scientists for years; they are behind the lotus plant's self-cleaning leaves and the gecko's super-dry and thus super-sticky feet.

These surfaces are practically impossible to wet - water beads on them and dirt and particulates do not stick to them, leading to the self-cleaning description. Chemists looking for the next best thing in clothing coatings have tried several tricks in recent years to create a coating with similar properties in the laboratory. Uncoated fibres (top) and fibres coated with multiple layers of silica nanoparticles - the same stuff as sand

The new work hinges on what is known as layer-by-layer self-assembly - basically dipping a fabric into a solution over and over again to deposit multiple layers on it.


The team from the Australian Future Fibres Research and Innovation Centre at Deakin University made their solution with tiny particles of silica.

Source: BBC News - Stain-shedding coating gets tough

BBC News - 3D images of tissue may help spot and treat cancer

Three-dimensional images of tissue samples could help spot cancer early, say researchers.

Scientists from the University of Leeds have created a technique to generate hi-resolution, colour 3D images of a piece of tissue. Cancer Research UK said the technology could help researchers understand how cancer grew and spread, and learn how to treat it more effectively.


The scanner then creates 2D impressions of each cross-section, and this is where the new technology comes into play. The software developed by the Leeds University team generates a three-dimensional shape from these virtual slides, creating a realistic image that a researcher can manipulate and spin around.



Source: BBC News - 3D images of tissue may help spot and treat cancer

BBC News - Self-sculpting sand robots are under development at MIT

Tiny robots that can join together to form functional tools and then split apart again after use might be ready for market in little more than a decade, according to researchers.

A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says it has developed about 30 prototype "smart pebbles" and the software to run them. Each processor can currently store 32 kilobytes of code and has only two kilobytes of working memory - so the algorithm powering the process had to be kept simple. "The idea is that they sense the border of the original shape - if a module detects it doesn't have a neighbour, it assumes it may be on the border of the shape," Mr Gilpin explained.


"But in 10 years you might see a product on the market that starts to rival traditional manufacturing approaches. I think we might all be surprised at how quickly this advances once people really start looking at the technology."

More details of the project will be presented to the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in St Paul, Minnesota next month.


Source: BBC News - Self-sculpting sand robots are under development at MIT

BBC News - Breast cancer rules rewritten in 'landmark' study

What we currently call breast cancer should be thought of as 10 completely separate diseases, according to an international study which has been described as a "landmark".

The categories could improve treatment by tailoring drugs for a patient's exact type of breast cancer and help predict survival more accurately.

"Breast cancer is not one disease, but 10 different diseases," said lead researcher Prof Carlos Caldas.

The study was funded by Cancer Research UK. Its chief executive, Dr Harpal Kumar, said: "This is the largest ever study looking in detail at the genetics of breast tumors.


Source BBC News - Breast cancer rules rewritten in 'landmark' study

AngelMed Guardian alerts you before a heart attack strikes | Ubergizmo

Heart attacks are scary – you can never know when one might hit you squarely in the chest. The AngelMed Guardian intends to circumvent this potentially fatal situation by warning you beforehand thanks to a self-monitoring alert mode. The downside to it? You will need to be carved open first, as this is an implantable medical device.



Source: AngelMed Guardian alerts you before a heart attack strikes | Ubergizmo

New prostate cancer treatment may reduce side-effects

A new technique to treat early prostate cancer may have far fewer side-effects than existing therapies, say experts.

A 41-patient study in the journal Lancet Oncology suggests targeted ultrasound treatment could reduce the risk of impotence and incontinence. The Medical Research Council (MRC), which funded the study, welcomed the results, which it said were promising. Hashim Ahmed, a urological surgeon at the trust who led the study, says the results, 12 months after treatment, are very encouraging.



Source: BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17726979

Stem Cells from Pelvic Bone May Preserve Heart Function

Stem cells from the pelvic bone may help hearts beat stronger. Doctors and other clinicians at the Orlando Health Heart Institute are researching the use of stem cells from pelvic bone marrow to restore tissue and improve heart function after muscle damage from heart attacks.

"The thought is the body may use itself to heal itself," said Vijaykumar S. Kasi, MD, PhD, an interventional cardiologist, director, Cardiovascular Research, and principal investigator for the clinical trial at ORMC.

The PreSERVE-AMI Study, sponsored by Amorcyte, LLC, a NeoStem, Inc. company (NYSE Amex: NBS), is for patients who have received a stent to open the blocked artery after a specific heart attack history (in part a ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction, or STEMI, a critical type of heart attack caused by a prolonged period of blocked blood supply, affecting a large area of the heart muscle and causing changes in the blood levels of key chemical markers). The study evaluates the effectiveness and safety of infusing stem cells collected from a patient's bone marrow into the artery in the heart that may have caused the heart attack. About 160 patients will participate in this national study at approximately 34 sites.

Source: ScienceDaily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411102434.htm

Huntington's disease 'lowers' cancer risk

People with Huntington's disease, a debilitating brain condition, appear have a "protection" from cancer, according to a study in Sweden.

People with Huntington's disease, a debilitating brain condition, appear have a "protection" from cancer, according to a study in Sweden. Academics at Lund University analysed Swedish hospital data from 1969 to 2008. They found 1,510 patients with Huntington's disease. During the study period, 91 of those patients subsequently developed cancer. The authors said that was 53% lower than the levels expected for the general population. Huntington's is one of a group of illnesses called "polyglutamine diseases". Data from other polyglutamine diseases also showed lower levels of cancer.

The authors said: "We found that the incidence of cancer was significantly lower among patients with polyglutamine diseases than in the general population.

Source: BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17678587

'Grotere overlevingskans longkanker' - Lung cancer

Patiënten met longkanker hebben een grotere overlevingskans door geïndividualiseerde therapie. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van Joline Lind van het VUmc.

Recent onderzoek heeft geleid tot het ontwikkelen van nieuwe doelgerichte therapieën. De belangrijkste voor longkanker zijn de epidermale groeifactorreceptor (EGFR) remmers en de angiogeneseremmers.

De therapieën bleken effectief, maar niet bij alle patiënten. Lind zocht daarom ook naar patiënt- of tumoreigenschappen die voorspellen welke patiënten geholpen kunnen worden met welke middelen.

Source: http://www.nu.nl/gezondheid/2769641/grotere-overlevingskans-longkanker.html

Can you build a human body?

Will we ever grow replacement hands?

It might seem unbelievable, but researchers can grow organs in the laboratory. There are patients walking around with body parts which have been designed and built by doctors out of a patient's own cells. Dr Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina, US, has made breakthroughs in building bladders and urethras.





He breaks tissue-building into four levels of complexity.

1. Flat structures, such as the skin, are the simplest to engineer as they are generally made up of just the one type of cell.
2. Tubes, such as blood vessels and urethras, which have two types of cells and act as a conduit.
3. Hollow non-tubular organs like the bladder and the stomach, which have more complex structures and functions.
4. Solid organs, such as the kidney, heart and liver, are the most complex to engineer. They are exponentially more complex, have many different cell types, and more challenges in the blood supply.

"We've been able to implant the first three in humans. We don't have any examples yet of solid organs in humans because its much more complex," Dr Atala told the BBC.

Of course growing a hand is even more challenging than anything being tried in laboratories so far. Will it ever be possible? "You never say never, but certainly it's something I will most likely not see in my lifetime," Dr Atala concluded.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16679010


Date: 13-03-2012
Is the Six-Million-Dollar Man possible?

Science fiction is littered with the theme of upgrading the human body with machinery like in the 1970s classic TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.

Meanwhile, as we have been discovering in the Bionic Bodies series, bionics are having a transformative role in the real world. Artificial hearts implanted into the chest can keep patients alive until a transplant becomes available. Cochlear implants have restored hearing to people who were once deaf. Bionic eyes are giving sight to the blind and a range of hands, arms and legs are restoring lost movement.

Timescales

Current bionic body part replacements can imitate human function, but considerable technological developments will be necessary before entering an era of enhancement. Dr Anders Sandberg, from the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, told the BBC: "I do think it is possible to reconstruct a body quite easily and get into a six-million-dollar man situation." For the next 10 years, he thinks the field will be at the level of "pretty nice prosthetics", but would then start to be "significantly better" than the real thing. He said: "I think mid-century, I would be rather surprised if there wasn't a lot of implants and enhancements around."

The Japanese company Cyberdyne has already developed a suit called Hal. It can help people who are no longer able to walk to regain their mobility by picking up electrical signals from the nerves which used to tell limbs to move and converting them into instructions for the suit. The other option for Prof Sharkey is devices which can be controlled by thought, but which are not part of the human body.

Source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16632764
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17153052


Date: 05-Mar-2012
Can you build a human body?

Technology has always strived to match the incredible sophistication of the human body. Now electronics and hi-tech materials are replacing whole limbs and organs in a merger of machine and man.

Later this year a team of researchers will try out the first bionic eye implant in the UK hoping to help a blind patient see for the first time. It is one of the extraordinary medical breakthroughs in the field, which are extending life by years and providing near-natural movement for those who have lost limbs.

Over the coming weeks, BBC news will explore the field of bionics in a series of features. We start with a selection of the latest scientific developments.

The Bionic Bodies series on the BBC News website will be looking at how bionics can transform people's lives. We will meet a woman deciding whether to have her hand cut off for a bionic replacement and analyse the potential to take the technology even further, enhancing the body to superhuman levels. The series continues on Wednesday with a look at some of the earliest prosthetics from ancient Egypt.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17235058

Daily aspirin 'prevents and possibly treats cancer'

Taking a low dose of aspirin every day can prevent and possibly even treat cancer, fresh evidence suggests. The three new studies published by The Lancet add to mounting evidence of the drug's anti-cancer effects.

Prof Peter Rothwell, from Oxford University, and colleagues, who carried out the latest work, had already linked aspirin with a lower risk of certain cancers, particularly bowel cancer.


Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17443454

Pancreatic cancer: Trial drug MRK003 shows promise

Doctors want to improve the prognosis of this aggressive cancer. Scientists say they may have found a new weapon against pancreatic cancer after promising early trial results of an experimental drug combination.

Giving the chemotherapy agent gemcitabine with an experimental drug called MRK003 sets off a chain of events that ultimately kills cancer cells, studies in mice show.

Father-of-two Richard Griffiths, 41, from Coventry, has been on the trial since being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May 2011. "After six cycles of treatment, a scan showed the tumours had reduced and so I have continued with the treatment," he said.

Professor Duncan Jodrell, who is leading the trials at the University of Cambridge, said: "We're delighted that the results of this important research are now being evaluated in a clinical trial, to test whether this might be a new treatment approach for patients with pancreatic cancer.

BBC News - 'DNA robot' targets cancer cells

BBC News - 'DNA robot' targets cancer cells

Scientists have developed and tested a "DNA robot" that delivers payloads such as drug molecules to specific cells.


The container was made using a method called DNA origami, in which long DNA chains are folded in a prescribed way. Then, so-called aptamers - which can recognise specific cell types - were used to lock the barrel-shaped robot. In lab tests described in Science, the locks opened on contact with cancer cell proteins, releasing antibodies that halted the cells' growth.


"We've been working on figuring out how to build different shapes using DNA over the past several years, and other researchers have used antibodies as therapeutics, in order to manipulate cell signalling, and yet others have demonstrated that aptamers can be used to target cancer cell types," Dr Douglas told BBC News.

"The novel part is really integrating all those different pieces and putting them together in a single device that works."

Dr Douglas said that there was still much optimisation to be done on the robots; for now the team will create a great many of them to be tested in an animal model.

Stem-Cell Studies

01-Nov-2010

BBC News - Miniature livers 'grown in lab'

Scientists have managed to produce a small-scale version of a human liver in the laboratory using stem cells.

The success increases hope that new transplant livers could be manufactured, although experts say that this is still many years away.

The team from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center presented its findings at a conference in Boston.

Source: BBC News - Miniature livers 'grown in lab'

Update Oct-2011

Geron Starts First Human Embryonic Stem-Cell Study - BusinessWeek: "Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Geron Corp. used a therapy made from stem cells taken from human embryos to treat a patient paralyzed by a spinal-cord injury in the first U.S.-authorized test of the technology."


Update 24-Jan-2012

Once they were blind, now they see. Patients cured by stem cell 'miracle'.
Two blind people have shown signs of being able to see again – despite having incurable eye disease – following a revolutionary operation involving the transplant of stem cells derived from a human embryo.

"Despite the progressive nature of these conditions, the vision of both patients appears to have improved after transplantation of the cells, even at the lowest dosage," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology, the Massachusetts company that supplied the cells. "This is particularly important, since the ultimate goal of this therapy will be to treat patients earlier in the course of the disease where more significant results might potentially be expected," Dr Lanza said.

In a separate clinical trial being conducted in Britain by Professor Douglas Bainbridge, a 34-year-old Yorkshire man suffering from Stargardt's disease underwent an embryonic stem cell transplant in his right eye last Friday at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/once-they-were-blind-now-they-see-patients-cured-by-stem-cell-miracle-6293706.html

Update 31-Jan-2012

Skin transformed into brain cells.

Skin cells have been converted directly into cells which develop into the main components of the brain, by researchers studying mice in California. The experiment, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, skipped the middle "stem cell" stage in the process.

Stem cells, which can become any other specialist type of cell from brain to bone, are thought to have huge promise in a range of treatments. Many trials are taking place, such as in stroke patients or specific forms of blindness.

Dr Deepak Srivastava, who has researched converting cells into heart muscle, said the study: "Opens the door to consider new ways to regenerate damaged neurons using cells surrounding the area of injury."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16788809

Update 15-Feb-2012

Bone marrow stem cells give 'some' heart Hearing

Bone marrow stem cell therapy offers "moderate improvement" to heart attack patients, according to a large UK review of clinical trials.


The report by Cochrane pooled the data from all 33 bone marrow trials which had taken place up to 2011.
It concluded that bone marrow therapy "may lead to a moderate long-term improvement" in heart function which "might be clinically very important".


Lead author Dr Enca Martin-Rendon, from NHS Blood and Transplant at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, said: "This new treatment may lead to moderate improvement in heart function over standard Treatments. "Stem cell therapy may also reduce the number of patients who later die or suffer from heart failure, but currently there is a lack of statistically significant evidence based on the small number of patients treated so far."

Prof Anthony Mathur, from Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, is leading the largest ever trial of stem cells in heart attack patients.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17025593

Update: 15-Feb-2012

Stem cells used to 'heal' heart attack scars

Damage caused by a heart attack has been healed using stem cells gathered from the patient's own heart, according to doctors in the US. The amount of scar tissue was halved in the small safety trial reported in the Lancet medical journal.

Prof Anthony Mathur is co-ordinating a stem cell trial involving 3,000 heart attack patients.

Prof Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: "It's the first time these scientists' potentially exciting work has been carried out in humans, and the results are very encouraging.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17012688

BBC News - BAE provides details of 'structural battery' technology

BBC News - BAE provides details of 'structural battery' technology

Torches, drones and an electric Le Mans racing car are all test-beds for a new kind of "structural battery", BAE Systems has said. The batteries use carbon fibre and can form part of the body of a device.

"The beauty of what we've got is that, when it's fully developed, a company will be able to go out and buy what is a standard carbon-composite material, lay out the shape, put it through the curing process and have a structural battery," he said. "You take the nickel base chemistries and there are ways you can integrate that into the carbon fibre," Mr Penney explained.

BBC News - Alzheimer's brain plaques 'rapidly cleared' in mice

BBC News - Alzheimer's brain plaques 'rapidly cleared' in mice

Destructive plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients have been rapidly cleared by researchers testing a cancer drug on mice.

The US study, published in the journal Science, reported the plaques were broken down at "unprecedented" speed.

Clearing protein plaques is a major focus of Alzheimer's research and drugs are already being tested in human clinical trials.

In the body, the role of removing beta-amyloid falls to apolipoprotein E - or ApoE. However, people have different versions of the protein. Having the ApoE4 genetic variant is one of the biggest risk factors for developing the disease.

Scientists at the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio were investigating ways of boosting levels of ApoE, which in theory should reduce levels of beta-amyloid.

They tested bexarotene, which has been approved for use to treat cancers in the skin, on mice with an illness similar to Alzheimer's.

Plaques, in brown, form around brain cells, in blue, which kills parts of the brain

After one dose in young mice, the levels of beta-amyloid in the brain were "rapidly lowered" within six hours and a 25% reduction was sustained for 70 hours.

Its research manager, Dr Anne Corbett, said: "This exciting study could be the beginning of a journey towards a potential new way to treat Alzheimer's disease.

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said the findings were "promising" but any effect was still unproven in people.

David Allsop, professor of neuroscience at Lancaster University, said: "I would say that the results should be treated with cautious optimism.

Check-Cap pill looks for cancer from within

Check-Cap pill looks for cancer from within | Ubergizmo

So we have read about NASA’s cancer-detecting nanosensor which is attached to a smartphone, as well as a tiny crab-like robot that fights colon cancer from within, but here is another method to arrest one of the leading diseases of today from within – the Check-Cap.

This pill sized camera needs to be swallowed before it becomes effective, so that a doctor is able to see your innards without carving you up. Not only that, the Check-Cap pill will emit radiation outside the visible spectrum (x-rays) that are able to go through soft tissue and food, resulting in the safe generation of high resolution 3D imagery, so that doctors are better able to detect the presence of colorectal cancer.

Related articles:
Mini crab-like robot fights stomach cancer
Portable breast cancer detector
Detect cancer with an implant

BBC News - Science decodes 'internal voices'

BBC News - Science decodes 'internal voices'

Researchers have demonstrated a striking method to reconstruct words, based on the brain waves of patients thinking of those words.

By studying patterns of blood flow related to particular images, Jack Gallant's group at the University of California Berkeley showed in September that patterns can be used to guess images being thought of - recreating "movies in the mind".

Now, Brian Pasley of the University of California, Berkeley and a team of colleagues have taken that "stimulus reconstruction" work one step further.

The team monitored the STG brain waves of 15 patients who were undergoing surgery for epilepsy or tumours, while playing audio of a number of different speakers reciting words and sentences. They were even able to reconstruct some of the words, turning the brain waves they saw back into sound on the basis of what the computer model suggested those waves meant.

"The development of direct neuro-control over virtual or physical devices would revolutionise 'augmentative and alternative communication', and improve quality of life immensely for those who suffer from impaired communication skills or means."

BBC News - Genetic testing to improve cancer drugs

BBC News - Genetic testing: NHS 'must back revolution'

One of the problems with modern medicine is that some of the definitions of disease are too broad.

Prof Bell told the BBC: "Breast cancer has always been defined because it is a tumour in the breast.

"But if you look at the molecular detail of those cancers, some are much more similar to ovarian cancers than they are to other breast cancers, in molecular terms and in terms of their response to therapy."

Cancer drugs are generally effective in fewer than one in three patients who take them, the report says.

The theory is that by looking at which genes are active inside a tumour, it will be possible to pick the correct treatment.

This is already happening in some cases. Bowel cancer patients with the defective gene K-RAS do not respond to some drugs, while the breast cancer drug herceptin works only if patients have a specific mutation, HER2.

“Innovation in any setting has to deliver a much better product or lower cost, or both, and I think genetics may be one of the things that does both”

Prof Sir John Bell

Chair of Human Genomics Strategy Group

Quantum computer

How much longer before the first Quantum computer will appear. This has the potential to revolutionize the computer world.

Boffin melds quantum processor with quantum RAM • The Register

In his quantum computer, he says, computational steps take a few billionths of a second, which is about the same as you get with a classical computer. But unlike a classical computer, a quantum computer can handle a large number of these calculations simultaneously.

Matteo Mariantoni and his quantum computer

As Mariantoni explains in a video provided by the University of California at Santa Barabara, where he is a postdoctoral fellow, the two central quantum phenomena upon which quantum computing are based are superposition and entanglement.
Quantum computing may still be far from being a viable commercial process, but Mariantoni argues that it's time to get going. "We can ... create something that is very close to a classical processor, and we can use it for implementing pretty complicated quantum softwares," he argues. "My feeling is that, at this stage – and it's really true – industries will be interested in investing money and effort in developing a large-scale quantum computer."
He may be right. With the increasing complexity and cost of shrinking silicon-transistor features in classical computing manufacturing, the possibility of commercial quantum computing is compelling – even if there remains a tremendous amount of work to be done by both researchers and engineers.
Just like there was in the years between Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain's first demonstration of a transfer resistor in late 1947, and Texas Instrument's marketing of the first commercial silicon transistor in 1954.

Update 20-Jan-2011

Quantum computing could head to 'the cloud', study says.

Quantum computing will use the inherent uncertainties in quantum physics to carry out fast, complex computations. A report in Science shows the trick can extend to "cloud" services such as Google Docs without loss of security. This "blind quantum computing" can be carried out without a cloud computer ever knowing what the data is.

Source BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16636580

U.N. Backs $100 Laptop For World's Kids - OLPC

Update 18 Jan 2012

OLPC announced the XO 3.0 tablet yesterday, and today we had a chance to sit down with the company's CTO, Ed McNierney and Marvell's Chief Marketing Officer Tom Hayes, who gave us a tour of the new tablet. The XO 3.0 is powered by Marvell Armada PXA618 silicon, which lowers the power requirements of the tablet to a scant 2 watts. That chip, along with the custom charging circuitry developed by OLPC and Marvell means that the tablet can be charged by a hand crank at a 10:1 ratio (10 minutes of usage time for every minute spent cranking), or by the optional four watt solar panel cover at a 2:1 ratio on sunny days. Like other OLPC devices, the XO 3.0 is customizable to customer needs -- so you can get the CPU clocked at 800Mhz or 1GHz, a 1500 - 1800 mAh battery, and your choice of a Pixel Qi or standard LCD display. The slate comes with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of NAND storage, USB and USB On-The-Go ports, plus the standard OLPC power and sensor input ports as well.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/08/olpcs-xo-3-0-tablet-hands-on/


Update 21 May 2008

Second generation OLPC

Smaller with a touch screen and a price of 75 dollars.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization focused on providing educational tools to help children in developing countries "learn learning," announced today that work is already underway on a second- generation version of its revolutionary XO laptop computer. Leveraging new advances in technology, the primary goal of the "XO-2" will be to advance new concepts of learning as well as to further drive down the cost of the laptop so that it is affordable for volume purchase by developing nations.

One Laptop Per Child Frames Next Generation of Revolutionary XO Laptop

Update 10 January 2008According to Negroponte OLPC and Microsoft are working on a dualboot facility this will enable the OLPC to run a slimmed down version of XP or Fedora Linux.
Negroponte also mention the possibility of a cooperation between Olpc and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Source: Tweakers.net

Updated 27 November 2007
Politics stifling $100 laptop
A lack of "big thinking" by politicians has stifled a scheme to distribute laptops to children in the developing world, a spokesman has said.

Updated 24 September 2007
Give 1 Get 1 scheme will start 12 November for just 2 week. Is finally happing? So far the $100 mark has not been met.



Updated 23 July 2007
'$100 laptop' production beginsFive years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production. The XO will be produced in Taiwan by Quanta, the world's largest laptop manufacturer.



Updated 10-Jan-2007
Public can purchase 100$ laptop
But customers will have to buy two laptops at once - with the second going to the developing world.
Updated 02-Jan-2007
The 100$ laptop program launches in 2007 read more at BBC
More info:
MIT
100$ laptop homepage (laptop.org/)

Why not sell these Laptops (developed by MIT) in the West for double the price so for each laptop sold in the "developed world" a free laptop can be given to the "World's Kids".
U.N. Backs $100 Laptop For World's Kids

Updated 08 June 2007
ASUS has announced a $199,- laptop at Computex 2007
Asus' Eee PC 701. The $199 price tag seemed to be for real, but that's probably just the starting point. A version for "English speaking countries" could hit the streets "as early as August this year".

See: engadget

Will this mean competition for the $100,- laptop program?

BBC News - Real-life Jedi: Pushing the limits of mind control

BBC News - Real-life Jedi: Pushing the limits of mind control

The headset, which was developed by Australian company Emotiv for the games industry, has been around for some time. But it is only now that companies such as IBM are beginning to harness the wealth of data that it can provide.

Using software developed in-house, researchers have linked the Emotiv to devices such as a model car, a light switch and a television.

"We linked the headset to the IBM middleware, and when he pushed the cube on the screen, that behaved like a click of the mouse - so he was able to use the computer," explained IBM's Kevin Brown.

Many commercial mind control technologies are designed to restore physical ability to those who have lost it.

At Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), researchers have applied brain-computer interface technology to create thought-controlled wheelchairs and telepresence robots.

For those who prefer pedal power, Toyota is working with Saatchi & Saatchi, Parlee Cycles and DeepLocal to develop a bicycle which can shift gear based on its rider's thoughts.

High school senior kills cancer with nanotech, still can't legally drink -- Engadget

High school senior kills cancer with nanotech, still can't legally drink -- Engadget

17-year old medical prodigy Angela Zhang from Cupertino was just awarded the Siemens Foundation grand prize -- a $100,000 payday -- for her work "Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells." It's certainly a mouthful, but this nanotech is what one fellow researcher's calling the "Swiss Army knife of cancer treatment," as her gold and iron-oxide nanoparticle does double duty delivering the drug salinomycin to a tumor site, in addition to aiding MRI and photoacoustic imaging.

BBC News - China and Bill Gates discuss nuclear reactor plan

BBC News - China and Bill Gates discuss nuclear reactor plan

China is set to start work on a novel design for a nuclear reactor with the help of a firm founded by Bill Gates.

Terrapower is working on a design for what is known as a travelling wave reactor. This uses depleted uranium as its power source and is believed to produce less nuclear waste than other designs.

Terrapower is working on a design for what is known as a travelling wave reactor. This uses depleted uranium as its power source and is believed to produce less nuclear waste than other designs.

BBC News - Nanoparticle hollowing method promises medical advances

BBC News - Nanoparticle hollowing method promises medical advances

A process to "carve" highly complicated shapes into nanoparticles has been unveiled by a team of researchers. The researchers added that the technique could also aid drug delivery. "It's a wonderful molecular suitcase," said Prof Puntes.

The research was carried out by the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology in Bellaterra, Spain and is published in an issue of Science.

However, the professor acknowledged that at this early stage he could only guess at the eventual uses such nanomaterials would have.

"When people first invented plastic they didn't know what to do with it, we knew electricity was around for over a thousand years before we learned how to do something useful with it," Prof Puntes said.

"This creates different materials so they will probably have lots of different properties."

Scientists use inkjet to print scaffolds for growing bones | News | The Engineer

Scientists use inkjet to print scaffolds for growing bones | News | The Engineer

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/medical-and-healthcare/news/scientists-use-inkjet-to-print-scaffolds-for-growing-bones/1011092.article#ixzz1fCEBlaiu

Washington State University (WSU) researchers have used a 3D printer to create a bone-like material.

The inkjet printer is reportedly able to generate structures that can be used in orthopaedic procedures and dental work. These same structures could also be used to deliver medicine for treating osteoporosis.

The authors report on successful in vitro tests in the journal Dental Materials and say they’re already seeing promising results with in vivo tests on rats and rabbits.

Susmita Bose, co-author and a professor at WSU’s school of mechanical and materials engineering, said that it’s possible that doctors will be able to custom order replacement bone tissue in a few years.

New state of matter seen on cheap

The state of matter is a plasma like those in conventional nuclear fusion tests, but at higher densities.

The professor behind the demonstration says it can be achieved for a mere £10.

In fact, it's just a water-hammer effect, an impact that shatters the liquid column, creating a trail of bubbles that are clearly visible in daylight. "When the bubbles collapse," Professor Sella explains, "they generate incredibly high temperatures - 10 thousand degrees. That's twice the temperature of the surface of the Sun."

Professor Putterman is emphatic: "We have not yet succeeded - no-one has yet succeeded - in generating nuclear fusion inside these bubbles. However, we're looking around for that trick that could boost our parameters by a factor of 10, to get it to the region of fusion." "I can't wait to tell my nuclear physicist friends, that for a cost of around £10, I'm up in the region that they do for the cost of hundreds of millions of pounds. It's very exciting."

Portable breast cancer detector | Ubergizmo

Portable breast cancer detector | Ubergizmo

Nihon University’s exhibit is tipped to be further refined so that it will see action by being used to perform easy cancer tests at just about anywhere, be it at home or at a public area.

Researchers over at the Nihon University used a technology known as “phase shift method”, where light-emitting and light-receiving elements which rely on LEDs were formed on the surface so that it can be applied to the breast. A light with a wavelength of 850nm is emitted, where light reflected from the breast will be detected. As a cancerous part will reflect a slightly different color, it will be easier to detect any cancer in its early stages.

BBC News - Bionic contact lens 'to project emails before eyes'

BBC News - Bionic contact lens 'to project emails before eyes'

A new generation of contact lenses that project images in front of the eyes is a step closer after successful animal trials, say scientists.

The technology could allow wearers to read floating texts and emails or augment their sight with computer-generated images, Terminator-syle.

Researchers at Washington University who are working on the device say early tests show it is safe and feasible.

A new generation of contact lenses that project images in front of the eyes is a step closer after successful animal trials, say scientists.

The technology could allow wearers to read floating texts and emails or augment their sight with computer-generated images, Terminator-syle.

Researchers at Washington University who are working on the device say early tests show it is safe and feasible.

But there are still wrinkles to iron out, like finding a good power source.

Currently, their crude prototype device can only work if it is within centimetres of the wireless battery.

And its microcircuitry is only enough for one light-emitting diode, reports the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.
Continue reading the main story
“Our next goal is to incorporate some predetermined text in the contact lens”

Lead researcher Professor Babak Praviz

But now that initial safety tests in rabbits have gone well, with no obvious adverse effects, the researchers have renewed faith about the device's possibilities.

They envisage hundreds more pixels could be embedded in the flexible lens to produce complex holographic images.

For example, drivers could wear them to see journey directions or their vehicle's speed projected onto the windscreen.

Similarly, the lenses could take the virtual world of video gaming to a new level.

They could also provide up-to-date medical information like blood sugar levels by linking to biosensors in the wearer's body.
Delicate materials

Lead researcher Professor Babak Praviz said: "Our next goal is to incorporate some predetermined text in the contact lens."

He said his team had already overcome a major hurdle to this, which is getting the human eye to focus on an image generated on its surface.

Normally, we can only see objects clearly if they are held several centimetres away from the eye.

The scientists, working with colleagues at Aalto University in Finland, have now adapted the lenses to shorten the focal distance.

Building the end product was a challenge because materials used to make conventional contact lenses are delicate.

Manufacturing electrical circuits, however, involves inorganic materials, scorching temperatures and toxic chemicals. Researchers built the circuits from layers of metal only a few nanometres thick, about one thousandth the width of a human hair, and constructed light-emitting diodes measuring one third of a millimetre across.

Dr Praviz and his team are not the only scientists working on this type of technology.

A Swiss company called Sensimed has already brought to market a smart contact lens that uses inbuilt computer technology to monitor pressure inside the eye to keep tabs on the eye condition glaucoma.

BBC News - Scientists at MIT replicate brain activity with chip

BBC News - Scientists at MIT replicate brain activity with chip

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed a computer chip that mimics how the brain's neurons adapt in response to new information.

There are about 100 billion neurons in the brain, each of which forms synapses - the connections between neurons that allow information to flow - with many other neurons.

The MIT team, led by research scientist Chi-Sang Poon, has been able to design a computer chip that can simulate the activity of a single brain synapse.

Neurobiologists seem to be impressed.

It represents "a significant advance in the efforts to incorporate what we know about the biology of neurons and synaptic plasticity onto ...chips," said Dean Buonomano, a professor of neurobiology at the University of California.

"The level of biological realism is impressive," he added.

The team plans to use their chip to build systems to model specific neural functions, such as visual processing.

Such systems could be much faster than computers which take hours or even days to simulate a brain circuit. The chip could ultimately prove to be even faster than the biological process.

Light 'promising' in cancer fight

Light is a "promising" tool in the fight against cancer, say researchers in the US.

A study, published in Nature Medicine, showed how a drug could be created which sticks to tumours, but is then only activated when hit by specific waves of light.

In this study, researchers at the National Cancer Institute, Maryland, used an antibody which targets proteins on the surface of cancerous cells. They then attached a chemical, IR700, to the antibody. IR700 is activated when it is hit by near infrared light. This wavelength of light can penetrate several centimetres into the skin.

Link: BBC News - Light 'promising' in cancer fight