Lifeboat Foundation

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are among the most important tools in modern biomedical research, leading to new and promising possibilities in precision medicine. To create them requires transforming a cell of one type, such as skin, into something of a blank slate, so it has the potential to become virtually any other kind of cell in the body, useful for regenerative therapies for everything from heart disease to diabetes.

However, current methods to induce pluripotency are inefficient: In a batch of 100 cells slated for reprogramming, only five or so complete the transition. A new study published today in Cell Reports by a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) and School of Medicine and Public Health could improve that efficiency.

It describes combined laboratory and computational methods that lead to better completion of pluripotency, a faster process, and improved understanding of how cells become reprogrammed from one cell type to another, for instance, transforming a skin cell to a cardiac cell. And it includes some surprises, the authors say.

Continue reading “Research team finds new ways to generate stem cells more efficiently” »

Researchers from King’s College London have found that therapy that can induce heart cells to regenerate after a heart attack.

Myocardial infarction, more commonly known as a heart attack, caused by the sudden blocking of one of the cardiac coronary arteries, is the main cause of heart failure, a condition that now affects over 23 million population in the world, according to the World Health Organisation.

At present, when a patient survives a heart attack, they are left with permanent structural damage to their heart through the formation of a scar, which can lead to heart failure in the future. In contrast to fish and salamander, which can regenerate the heart throughout life.

Continue reading “Genetic therapy heals damage caused by heart attack” »

We live in a world of wireless signals flowing around us and bouncing off our bodies. MIT researchers are now leveraging those signal reflections to provide scientists and caregivers with valuable insights into people’s behavior and health.

The system, called Marko, transmits a low-power radio-frequency (RF) signal into an environment. The signal will return to the system with certain changes if it has bounced off a moving human. Novel algorithms then analyze those changed reflections and associate them with specific individuals.

The system then traces each individual’s movement around a digital floor plan. Matching these movement patterns with other data can provide insights about how people interact with each other and the environment.

Continue reading “Wireless movement-tracking system could collect health and behavioral data” »

A Mongolian couple died from the bubonic plague after eating raw marmot meat, sparking a quarantine that trapped tourists for days, officials said Monday.

According to AFP, the couple died May 1 in a remote area of the country’s Bayan-Ölgii province, which borders China and Russia.

A six-day quarantine of 118 people who had come in contact with the couple, including locals and a number of foreign tourists, had been lifted as of Tuesday, Ariuntuya Ochirpurev, a World Health Organization official, told the BBC.

Continue reading “After eating raw rodent’s kidney for ‘good health,’ couple dies of bubonic plague, sparks quarantine” »

A machine learning algorithm can detect signs of anxiety and depression in the speech patterns of young children, potentially providing a fast and easy way of diagnosing conditions that are difficult to spot and often overlooked in young people, according to new research published in the Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.

Around one in five children suffer from anxiety and depression, collectively known as “internalizing disorders.” But because children under the age of eight can’t reliably articulate their emotional suffering, adults need to be able to infer their mental state, and recognise potential mental health problems. Waiting lists for appointments with psychologists, insurance issues, and failure to recognise the symptoms by parents all contribute to children missing out on vital treatment.

“We need quick, objective tests to catch kids when they are suffering,” says Ellen McGinnis, a clinical psychologist at the University of Vermont Medical Center’s Vermont Center for Children, Youth and Families and lead author of the study. “The majority of kids under eight are undiagnosed.”

Continue reading “AI can detect depression in a child’s speech” »

Dear Colleagues.

ReWheel, Inc. was founded to save energy based on a simple truth that wasting energy is extremely not smart … as well as very damaging to our planet’s health.

Most of us are either scientists or believe in science. And that is how we know that we are losing the war against climate change. This war will not be won by any one technology but by our combined efforts. To protect our planet for our children and their children, and those who comes after, we need to act.

Continue reading “5,000 Years in The Making” »

Results of a recently completed clinical trial of a potential drug to treat Type 2 diabetes in children were announced Sunday [April 28] at the Pediatric Academic Societies 2019 meeting in Baltimore, Md. The New England Journal of Medicine also published the findings. Study coauthor Jane Lynch, M.D., FAAP, professor of pediatrics at UT Health San Antonio, said the drug, liraglutide, in combination with an existing medication, metformin, showed robust effect in treating children studied in the Ellipse trial.

Currently only two drugs, metformin and insulin, are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes in children. By comparison, more than 30 drugs are approved to treat this form of diabetes in adults.

“We’ve not been able to get drugs approved for children beyond metformin and insulin,” Dr. Lynch said. “This adult diabetes medication was very effective in our trial of youth with Type 2 diabetes and was well tolerated. We urgently need other options for medical treatment of Type 2 diabetes in our youth under age 18. If approved, this drug would be a fantastic new option to complement oral metformin therapy as an alternative to insulin for our youth and adolescents with Type 2 diabetes.”

Continue reading “Finally, another effective drug for kids and teens with type 2 diabetes” »