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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 2598

Jul 12, 2016

Microfluidic Chips Made of Silk Replicate Human Tissues for Drug Testing, Implantable Applications

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, computing

At the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and Tufts University a team has developed a microfluidic chip that mimics human tissue for use in drug testing applications. The chip is based on a silk gel that overcomes the limitations of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a silicon material widely used to host living cells within microfluidic devices. As an example, PDMS has problems handling lipids, absorbing them instead of letting them move freely along with other nearby compounds and so not applicable with lipid-based compounds. Additionally, PDMS is not biodegradable and so a small device based on it can’t easily be used as an implantable. Silk, on the other hand, just needed a bit of engineering to make a candidate that overcomes many of PDMS’s limitations.

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Jul 12, 2016

Traditional Contact Lenses Reimagined to Include Biosensoring Virtual Reality

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, virtual reality

IRVINE, Calif., July 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — From measuring glaucoma to augmenting reality, advances in technology have enabled smart contact lenses to steadily gain traction in the past year. Although still in the early stages of development, the introduction of such novelties will inevitably be life-changing.

Photo — http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160711/388295

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Jul 12, 2016

Newly Discovered Features Of Collagen May Help Shed Light On Disease Processes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, nanotechnology

Interesting.


WHAT: Scientists at the National Institutes of Health are reporting new, unexpected details about the fundamental structure of collagen, the most abundant protein in the human body. In lab experiments, they demonstrated that collagen, once viewed as inert, forms structures that regulate how certain enzymes break down and remodel body tissue. The finding of this regulatory system provides a molecular view of the potential role of physical forces at work in heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and other disease-related processes, they say. The study appears in the current online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have known for years that collagen remodeling plays an important role in a wide variety of biological processes ranging from wound healing to cancer growth. In particular, researchers know that collagen is broken down by a certain class of enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), but exactly how they did this remained somewhat of a mystery, until now.

In the NIH study, the scientists isolated individual, nano-sized collagen fibrils from rat-tail tendons. They then exposed the collagen fibrils to fluorescently-labeled human MMP enzymes. Using video microscopy, the scientists tracked thousands of enzymes moving along a fibril. Unexpectedly, the scientists observed that the enzymes preferred to attach at certain sites along the fibril, and over time these attachment sites slowly moved, or disappeared and reappeared in other positions. These observations revealed collagen fibrils have defects that spontaneously form and heal. In the presence of tension, such as when tendons stretch, defects are likely eliminated, preventing enzymes from breaking down collagen that is loaded by physical force, the researchers suggest. In short, they identified a possible strain-sensitive mechanism for regulating tissue remodeling.

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Jul 12, 2016

High-tech fillings could actually repair your teeth

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, materials

These award-winning new materials for dental fillings could help repair and regenerate parts of your damaged teeth.

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Jul 12, 2016

Someday those who engage in intercourse for reproduction purposes could become stigmatized

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Imagine a couple wanting to have a baby. They see the fertility specialist at a clinic, provide genetic material such as sperm or skin cells, and return sometime later. ‘The DNA of the resulting embryos will then be sequenced and carefully analyzed before decisions are made about which embryo or embryos to transfer to a womb for possible development,’ Greely writes. ‘Prospective parents will be told as much as they wish to know about the genetic makeup of dozens of embryos, and they will pick one or two for implantation, gestation, and birth.’ Besides the advantages of eliminating certain diseases, ‘It will be safe, lawful, and free.’


Will we be building a better world or a more homogeneous one?

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Jul 12, 2016

Futurist Ray Kurzweil wants to use tiny robots in our bloodstream to fight disease and live forever

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, nanotechnology, Ray Kurzweil, robotics/AI

By the 2020s, he tells Playboy, he expects medical technology to be at a point where nanobots will help out our immune system.

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Jul 12, 2016

Ray Kurzweil’s Nootropic Dietary Supplement Stack

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience, Ray Kurzweil, singularity

Ray Kurzweil is a celebrity technologist, well known both for his work as an inventor and for his relatively accurate predictions of technological change. Among his predictions is that of an imminent biotech revolution, which may enable people to restore and maintain healthy life for much longer periods of time than those humans have enjoyed historically. In the meantime, Ray says he takes 250 dietary supplements each day, in addition to receiving half a dozen intravenous therapies each week.

“Although my program may seem extreme, it is actually conservative – and optimal (based on my current knowledge). [My doctor] and I have extensively researched each of the several hundred therapies that I use for safety and efficacy. I stay away from ideas that are unproven or appear to be risky (the use of human-growth hormone, for example).” – Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity Is Near (pages 211–212)

Some of Ray’s dietary supplements are nootropics, intended to maintain and improve brain health. He lists them in his book, Transcend (pages 15 and 22). I’ve compared the nootropics he recommends to reviews on Examine.com, an independent and unbiased encyclopedia on supplementation and nutrition that is not affiliated in any way with any supplement company. Below is a table that summarizes what I found, followed by some observations.

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Jul 12, 2016

Video: Scientists Create Artificial Stingray From Rat Cells

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Scientists have created a synthetic stingray that’s propelled by living muscle cells and controlled by light, a team reports Thursday in the journal Science.

And it should be possible to build an artificial heart using some of the same techniques, the researchers say.

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Jul 12, 2016

Blood of world’s oldest woman hints at limits of life

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

This is from 2014 but is getting posted around the past couple of days.

““It’s estimated that we’re born with around 20,000 blood stem cells, and at any one time, around 1000 are simultaneously active to replenish blood,” says Holstege. During life, the number of active stem cells shrinks, she says, and their telomeres shorten to the point at which they die –”


She lived to 115, but a study of Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper’s blood hints at factors limiting lifespan.

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Jul 11, 2016

How To Become Immortal — By The People Who Think You Can

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Amazing!! More time to learn, evolve, love, & explore the world…


A sprawling facility called Timeship in Texas will host 50,000 frozen dead people with one goal — to become the human race’s first immortals.

Activist Saul Kent — one of the minds behind it — is such a passionate believer in ‘cryogenics’ that he froze his own mother’s head in 1988 after her death.

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