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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,554

Recruiting The Next Generation Of SciFri’s Educator Collaborative

When did you first get the science bug? For me, it was my professor Tom Carlson who taught a summer class about medical ethnobotany. Seeing him chase bumblebees around the University of California, Berkeley botanical garden and describe how they fit into a foxglove flower was a life-changing experience. And this personal story is not unique—many of us can probably name a science teacher, professor, parent, or educator who got us hooked on science. That’s why education is such an important part of what we do at Science Friday. We know that’s where the spark for science often ignites.

It’s also why we team up with science educators across the country in our Science Friday Educator Collaborative Program, in which educators work with SciFri staff to develop resources for science learners everywhere. Two of this year’s Educator Collaborators, Randy Otaka and Katie Brown guide us through their creative process of designing hands-on STEM activities—from modeling camouflaging cephalopod skin with cocktail umbrellas to using design thinking to better engineer shelters for disaster relief. And if you are an educator and this sounds like something you want to do, applications are now open for the 2019 program! Science Friday’s education director Ariel Zych joins Ira to tell you how to be a part of the next cohort.

Apply for the 2019 SciFri Educator Collaborative cohort! You can click on the green notepad at the top of this page or click here to go straight to the form. We will be accepting applications until Friday, January 4th, 2019 5 PM EST.

The most amazing health innovations of 2018

Countless new products and medications hit stores’ shelves and doctors’ prescription pads every year. Many are a result of small tweaks to already available treatments. A select few, though, totally change the game: A preventative migraine drug slashes monthly headaches in half, an injectable gene restores sight to those with a degenerative eye condition, and a better-designed sunscreen helps more people keep damaging rays at bay. These 10 medical advances represent how science, technology, and creative thinking can help us live longer, better lives.

Aimovig by Amgen & Novartis

Aimovig by Amgen & Novartis

The Longevity Leaders Conference

February 4th, 2019 sees the launch of the Longevity Leaders Conference in St Paul’s, London, which promises to be an interesting event on the conference calendar.

The conference aims to cover both the science of aging research and the business side of the industry, in a similar manner to our own annual conference, Ending Age-Related Diseases, which we host in New York. Mixing the worlds of science and business is a good idea as we move ever closer to the first true rejuvenation technologies arriving.

It is essential to begin forging bonds between the researchers who are making the science a reality and the investors and angels who have the knowledge and expertise to take the science to market.

The First Clinical Trial of a Male Birth Control Gel Is Under Way

An elusive medical advance might finally be within grasp, one that could make some couples’ sex lives a lot more convenient. This week, researchers officially kicked off the first wide-scale clinical trial of a male contraceptive topical gel.

The trial, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), is set to enroll 420 relatively healthy and young couples. The couples will be recruited from nine different study sites in seven countries scattered across the globe, including Chile, England, and Sweden. But the first batch of volunteers will come from sites in the U.S. in Seattle, California, and Kansas.

High-contrast imaging for cancer therapy with protons

Medical physicist Dr. Aswin Hoffmann and his team from the Institute of Radiooncology—OncoRay at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have combined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a proton beam, thus demonstrating for the first time that in principle, this commonly used imaging method can work with particle beam cancer treatments. This opens up new opportunities for targeted, healthy tissue-sparing cancer therapy. The researchers have published their results in the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology.

New research could fine-tune the gene scissors CRISPR

The introduction of the gene editing tool CRISPR in 2007 was a revolution in medical science and cell biology. But even though the potential is great, the launch of CRISPR has been followed by debate about ethical issues and the technology’s degree of accuracy and side effects.

However, in a new study published in Cell, from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research have described how Cas12a, one of the CRISPR technologies, works at the molecular level. This makes it possible to fine-tune the gene-editing process to achieve specific desired effects.

“If we compare CRISPR to a car engine, what we have done is make a complete 3D map of the engine and thus gained an understanding of how it works. This knowledge will enable us to fine-tune the CRISPR engine and make it work in various ways—as a Formula 1 racer as well as an off-road truck,” says Professor Guillermo Montoya from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research.