Scientists used extract of Douglas fir needles to create nanoparticles that were then used to create an “antimicrobial, self-sterilizing composite material…essentially a silver/chitosan bionanocomposite” [that’s bio-nano-composite]. The material can be used to safely coat medical implants and surgical devices to prevent bacteria from growing. Bacterial infection at the site of implanted devices, prosthetics and sensors is “one of the most troubling problems in biomedicine,” according to the article in Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.
University of Washington quad in Spring (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Leave it to Seattle, the hotbed of software programming geniuses. Its local North Seattle Community College has invented a new certificate program and a new 2-year degree called AAS-T, Associate of Applied Science in Nanotechnology. They’re collaborating with the University of Washington, which has comprehensive nanotech facilities, to prepare bunches of young people to become skilled technicians and fill an expected large number of jobs in the field of nano.
I’d advise anyone thinking of taking the program to conduct due diligence on the safety of working with nanofibers. See my earlier post on the length of inhaled fibers that lead to lung diseases. And get formal written assurances from the schools.
Remember, for decades many companies did not tell their workers about the dangers of asbestos fibers until the law forced them.
Final weeks of pregnancy (Photo credit: storyvillegirl)
Yep. In a trial with more than 1000 patients hospitalized for acute heart failure, deaths from any cause were 37 percent fewer in the six months following hospitalization. The treatment also resulted in a marked reduction in worsening of heart failure during the hospitalization.
The drug is called serelaxin, and it’s a derivative form of the pregnancy hormone relaxin. “It relaxes blood vessels and eases stress on the heart and other organs.” (I’m betting it involves nitric oxide somehow.) “Patients who received 48 hours of continuously infused serelaxin experienced more than 45 percent fewer episodes of worsening heart failure symptoms than those who got a placebo.”
P.S. It also cut hospital stays by up to a full day and improved symptoms of breathlessness (dyspnea). Novartis plans to seek approval to market the drug.
When I think about the stress the body undergoes during pregnancy, it makes perfect sense that the hormones that flood the female body during that time have a protective effect on the mother’s whole system. What a brilliant idea it was to try to translate that into cardiac protectiveness in other situations.
Love that part about fewer deaths “from any cause” (emphasis is mine). This hormone may join nitric oxide as one of my favorite topics. Seems it just, as the old folks used to say, “does a body good.” I hope the FDA is able to quickly stamp its approval.
Just read that bleeding and other complications were significantly less when doctors access a person’s heart to insert a stent via the radial artery in the arm instead of through the femoral artery in the groin. Of course, this study included only people who were having ST-elevated myocardial infarctions (STEMI, as opposed to non-ST-elevated MIs). See here for the difference between STEMI and non-STEMI heart attacks.
Having experienced both types of access for other purposes, I’m happy to hear the wrist is better. It sure felt less invasive to me. And even though these results are preliminary and still need to be confirmed in a peer-reviewed journal, the shorter and less intimate path through the wrist just sounds more sensible and less uncomfortable. They said, though, that sometimes women may have smaller arteries and the wrist approach might not work.
The hope, of course, is that this approach can be adapted for other types of heart issues where our limited knowledge still has us profoundly invading the body to get answers or provide solutions. And I’m sure that—like the blossoming promises of stem cell technology and nanotechnology—we will one day soon be able to get those answers and provide those solutions in simpler, less brutal ways.
English: Main symptoms of cancer metastasis. Sources are found in main article: Wikipedia:Metastasis#Symptoms. Model: Mikael Häggström. To discuss image, please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 10#Illustrations of symptoms (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I found this study about treating symptoms of advanced cancer the other day. The study shows quality of life improvement for advanced cancer patients by using “a two-drug combination (including nutraceuticals, i.e. antioxidants) with carnitine + celecoxib for the treatment of cancer-related anorexia/cachexia syndrome” (cachexia means loss of lean muscle mass and decreasing strength). The treatment is about reducing inflammation, possibly improving muscle strength, and thus improving quality of life.
My friend took it to her doctor and her doc, who said she hadn’t heard of this, started her on a related medication. My friend now reports she sleeps better due to a significant reduction in spinal pain and other symptoms.
How good it is to learn that some research I reported on is helping someone I know.
English: Diagram to show how embryonic stem cells are differentiated (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A researcher spent ten years and finally succeeded in getting human stem cells to grow into two distinct types of cells—auditory neurons and inner-ear hair cells. And now he’s used the appropriate neuron-type cells to re-connect the inner ear to the brain. In other words, to restore nearly 50% of hearing in gerbils (whose inner-ear hairs had remained undamaged).
It’s very niche research, but it demonstrates that restoring hearing is definitely possible to some degree. Plus other research shows it’s possible to restore hearing to mice born deaf and yet other gene therapy research showing you can restore function to hair, eye and heart cells and smell in mice.
So much of historical medical research has focused on devising invasive, even barbaric methods of arresting sickness. We refer to it always as “fighting” disease, killing cells, conjuring up images of swords, bullets and bombs. As we continue to plumb the magical powers of stem cell and gene therapies, it’s encouraging to think of the balance now slowly tipping more and more toward non-invasive ways of restoring, gently giving back, quality of life to those who suffer.
I’ve been worrying about potential danger from these guys ever since I first heard about them. Now comes some research indicating strongly that nanoparticles/nanofibers could be deadly to humans who are exposed to them. This particular research shows that it may be the length of the fibers that’s critical to whether they might eventually induce disease.
Some scientists set up the experiment with five types of silver nanofibers of various lengths and exposed mice to them. The mice developed inflammation in the pleura (the lining of the lungs) when exposed to fibers of a certain length—4 µm to be precise (that’s 4 millionths of a micron). We are talking tiny.
Asbestos fibres - a single fibre is believed to cause mesothelioma (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Since the pleura is exactly the same part of the body that is attacked when asbestos is breathed or ingested, researchers concluded their research could be relevant for colleagues investigating malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), a deadly and aggressive type of lung cancer. Mesothelioma, as yet incurable, is the subject of lawsuits across the US and around the world because so many corporations either negligently or deliberately concealed from workers the dangers of inhaling or ingesting asbestos.
Asbestos was and is (in third world countries where it is still being widely used without regard for its danger to humans) a highly profitable substance. Its fire-retardant and heat-resistant properties, as well as its ability to be flexible and to strengthen other substances have made it much sought-after for hundreds of years. Profits grew even as those who worked with it were being sickened because of inadequate protections. And the long latency period before asbestos diseases manifest has helped camouflage the disregard for human safety—people may develop mesothelioma cancer as late as 10, 20, 30 or even 50 years after being exposed to asbestos. Who was going to connect a lung disease in a 60-something-year-old with what he did for a living 30 years ago?
This new research is the first solid evidence I’ve seen that nanofibers may hold the same type of danger to human health and life as asbestos. And heaven knows, nanotechnology is looking to be even more profitable than asbestos. The permutations of products made better, stronger, more flexible—almost more anything you want—with nanotechnology seem almost limitless. As may also be the greed of those who stand to make enormous financial gains from its use.
Let’s hope all the profits and material gains do not come at the price of ever more human suffering and lost lives.
Our bodies’ immune systems naturally produce nitric oxide (NO). It’s interesting to learn that NO is also known as a “potent anti-microbial agent against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.” Maybe that’s because up til recently no one’s tested how safe it is to give to humans at levels that would actually kill microbes.
But now a new study has proved NO is indeed safe to use in otherwise healthy adult human beings. According to an item in Health Canal about NO as an antibacterial agent, the study, reported in a recent edition of the Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, says that volunteers “show no adverse effects associated with therapeutic antimicrobial concentrations of nitric oxide” inhaled as directed over a period of a week. The study was conducted through University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute.
All the test has done is prove it’s safe to use NO inhaled according to that protocol. Now the real work begins. Researchers will likely choose to focus first on seeking out and developing a way to use inhaled NO to treat cystic fibrosis and tuberculosis, both resistant pulmonary infections. Another study reported in New England Journal of Medicine showed that inhaled NO positively affected certain measures in people with acute lung injury, but so far it hasn’t demonstrated that anyone will live longer. More tests are needed.
Reminds me of the biography of President James Garfield I just finished. Garfield survived two months after his assassin’s bullet entered his body. This was at a time when Lister had proven the effectiveness of practicing antisepsis, European doctors were all using it, and American doctors dismissed it as poppycock. Garfield suffered terribly after his doctors repeatedly inserted unwashed, unsterilized fingers and probes into his wound. His body eventually totally encapsulated the bullet, which hadn’t hit any vital organs. He could easily have survived his wound, but he died an agonizing long-drawn-out death from all the infections his doctors had introduced.
Who knows who will live one day when all the amazing discoveries we are making at this time are finally translated into useable therapies.
Up til now stem cells have generally been injected or otherwise inserted into living tissue to get them to grow into specific types of organs or other tissue. Now scientists in the UK in collaboration with an Israeli research team have managed to grow human bone in the lab with stem cells from fat tissue. They’ve already successfully implanted a piece of lab-grown human bone into a rat’s leg, where it joined nicely with the creature’s existing bone.
The researchers use scans of the damaged bone to construct a gel-like scaffold that shows the stem cells how to grow into the shape of the needed replacement. Then the mold of stem cells is turned into actual bone in a special machine called a bioreactor that provides the conditions needed for this miracle to take place.
The bone grown from stem cells could theoretically be used to replace damaged or missing bone—for example in repairing a cleft palate. They mention using it to fix bones that have been crushed or otherwise mangled in accidents.
I suspect that once this process is perfected, far down the road, doctors may eventually be able to use it to construct replacement bone for arthritic hips and knees. Too bad it will be long after I and my arthritic relatives will be around to have any need for it.
Blood transfusions often cause complications that cost the American healthcare system—to the tune of $17 billion dollars in total since they started being used, according to the UC San Diego Technology Transfer Office.
Researchers there have shown that expanding the viscosity of blood plasma increases pressure on blood vessel walls and leads the body to produce more nitric oxide (NO). More NO improves production and distribution of oxygen as well as allowing tissues to consume less oxygen. The whole package may obviate some of the difficulties of blood transfusions and even “lessen the need of a transfusion until blood losses lower the red blood cell concentration to one-quarter of normal, reducing hematocrit to approximately 12%.”
“Examples of NO producing plasma expanders include polyethylene glycol (PEG), PEG-albumin (human serum albumin), PEG-hemoglobulin, and long polymers such as dextran, poly-lactic acid, starch.”
These expanders all sound like well-understood products. So score one for UC San Diego for discovering a gentler, less invasive way to help victims who need acute treatment for fluid and/or blood loss due to hypovolemia, anemia, hemorrhagic shock, surgical procedures, low flow rates, and other conditions.
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