Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Live Cell Imaging on Nano Scale with Multicolor 3D-SIM Technique
Filed under: in the news...
A team of American and German researchers have developed an imaging technique, called 3-D structured-illumination microscopy, that allows for analysis of "subcellular structures beyond the diffraction limit of the emitted light."
Summary of the technique from MIT Technology Review:
Biologists have sequenced the genome, but it's still something of a mystery how DNA, RNA, proteins, and other molecules interact in live cells. These parts are visible using electron microscopy, but this process can only be employed on dead cells. Images of live cells taken with conventional light microscopes reveal only a blur. Understanding the inner workings of cells could shed light on disease."We threw the conventional microscope out the window and began again," says John Sedat, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. Instead of focusing a small spot of light onto cells, the new microscope, which has a resolution of about 100 nanometers, illuminates cells with stripes of light called an interference pattern. When a fine cellular structure, such as a single cluster of proteins embedded in a cell nucleus, reflects this light, it changes the pattern slightly. The microscope collects this light; software is used to interpret changes in its pattern and create an image.
And the capabilities, as described in the article abstract:
By simultaneously imaging chromatin, nuclear lamina, and the nuclear pore complex (NPC), we observed several features that escape detection by conventional microscopy. We could resolve single NPCs that colocalized with channels in the lamin network and peripheral heterochromatin. We could differentially localize distinct NPC components and detect double-layered invaginations of the nuclear envelope in prophase as previously seen only by electron microscopy.
More from MIT Tech Review...
Image caption: Two adjoining cells prepare for division by condensing their DNA into chromosomes (red). The membranes around the cell nuclei are stained blue. The green filaments are protein structures called microtubules, which divide the cell's genome into two equal parts and pull each part into the resulting daughter cells.
Abstract: Subdiffraction Multicolor Imaging of the Nuclear Periphery with 3D Structured Illumination Microscopy Science 6 June 2008: Vol. 320. no. 5881, pp. 1332 - 1336
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Your Brain's Forecast: Stormy
Filed under: Neurology
From the MIT Technology Review comes word of a new approach to refractory epilepsy -- using implantable probes to monitor, then shape, the electrical activity of the brain:
The same type of modeling used by meteorologists to forecast the weather could help scientists design better electrical-stimulation therapies for the brain. These therapies, which involve sending small jolts of electricity to specific neural targets, are currently in use for both Parkinson's and epilepsy, two neurological diseases in which drugs have had limited success......The idea is that if scientists can accurately model the activity leading up to and during a seizure, they can use that model to test in real time the type of stimulation parameters that are most effective at preventing abnormal activity before it evolves into a full-blown seizure.
So far, Schiff's team has been able to build models that replicate oscillating neural activity recorded from the cortex of rodents. And in a paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Neural Engineering, the researchers showed that they could control these virtual wave patterns, outlining a potential approach to controlling electrical activity via neural implants. The scientists are now trying to repeat the feat using dynamics of actual seizures recorded in the lab.
More from MIT Tech Review...
Abstract: Kalman filter control of a model of spatiotemporal cortical dynamics
More from Professor Schiff...
Medgadget's vast epilepsy archives...
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DuoFertility Decodes Messages Between Armpit, Ovaries
Filed under: Ob/Gyn
A UK company called Cambridge Temperature Concepts is offering a refinement to traditional temperature measurements. Their new device, the DuoFertility, reads data from a patch that lives in a woman's armpit, to explain ovulation patterns.
Currently the device is in a trial period, although the employees of Cambridge Temperature Concepts say it's been working great on them (though that disclosure raises many more questions than it answers).
And, just as with any prototype, there are gaffes to make even the novice marketer blush, such as this one comparing their device to traditional thermometers:
There is no need to wake up at 6am each morning to take your temperature. You are free to spend the first 5 minutes of your day as you wish!
Five minutes of free time per day? What a great machine!
And, if you're curious, those strange button symbols along the edges are supposed to help classify the temperature data. The buttons on the left, for instance, signify (from top to bottom) "period starting", "made love", "feeling ill" and "sleep disruption" ... if you press the buttons in the right sequence you can not only predict fertility, but pretty much describe all your college relationships.
Via Engadget (which took a break from iPhone coverage to bring you this, but only because it has an iPod-style clickwheel)
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Hello Health: Franchised Healthcare in Web 2.0
Filed under: in the news...
Jay Parkinson sees, much like most of America, healthcare as inconvenient. He sought to drastically change the dynamic by opening up an online practice that combined telemedicine with home-visits. But that didn't have quite enough of an impact for Jay, so he's thinking bigger.
A recent interview in the Wall-Street Journal Blog reveals Jay's plans for the role of the internet in medicine. His goal is to have a service that, provided a monthly fee, will offer unlimited online interaction and set-price doctor-patient visits. Patients with insurance will have to pay cash up front for their visits, but the franchise-approved doctors will file claims and reimburse as much as they can. The portal for this service will have a facebook-like functionality.
Here is a snippet from the interview:
WSJ Health Blog: What sort of stuff is in the works? jayparkinsonmd: Think Facebook, very effective data visualizations to view your patient’s medical information, iGoogle-like or Apple Dashboard-like browser “widgets” to customize your interface based on function, interface, and workflow. ... WSJ Health Blog: So to be clear, Hello Health is Jay Parkinson 2.0? A medical practice that’s technologically enabled but that also has some of the more customary trappings, like an office? jayparkinsonmd: Hello Health is a neighborhood-based, Internet-enabled practice that sees you in person and communicates with you over the Internet. Patients become members for a Netflix-priced monthly fee and then pay fee for service. In-person visits, whether house call or in-office, will range from $75 to $150 cash. We will submit your claim to your insurance for you so you can be reimbursed but you pay cash up front. It’s interesting to note that half of my 300 patients have insurance. Only two have filed for reimbursement — it’s the rebate concept. How many people send in those $50 rebates? It’s quite low because it’s just so painful to deal with the rebates just as it’s painful to deal with insurance companies. I offer low-cost, convenient, valuable visits and people simply pay cash.WSJ Health Blog: Will Hello Health be a franchise arrangement then?
jayparkinsonmd: Yes, it will. Very much like Chik-fil-A. When Chik-fil-A opens a new restaurant, they announce their intentions and receive hundreds of applications for manager/operator.They have a strict process to choose the very best one. They get so many applications because they guarantee something like a base salary of $30,000. However, they profit-share with them 50/50 and the manager can then make up to $300,000 a year. We’ll do the same with our doctors.
First, we’ll interview those doctors we think will embody the brand (and keep in mind, it’s going to be Dr. Smith, powered by Hello Health). Docs don’t have to become a brand. They retain their identity of course. Second, we’ll profit-share with them in both the monthly subscription fees and the episodic fees. Essentially docs have to only come up with a few thousand dollars as a “down payment” to become Hello Health doctors, but after this, they get VW and Virgin Airlines level marketing and the advertising to announce their services. In the end, they end up making over double the traditional PCP salary. It’s a win/win for docs, patients, and us.
Could this be the Starbucks of primary care? We will keep you posted on further exciting developments.
Read the interview here...
Read more on Hello Health at Jay Parkinson's blog
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Monday, June 9, 2008
Youngest Editor Admitted to The Board
Filed under: Medgadget Exclusive
We'd like to apologize for the somewhat patchy posting schedule lately, as Medgadget has begun training its latest Junior Editor in the art of blogging. With the latest crop of editors coming in, our philosophy has been to start early and to blog often. Valerie is seen here learning the finer points of blogging etiquette, and it looks like she's taking it very seriously. Soon it'll be no sweat at all.
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Nanoparticles Get Their Stripes
Filed under: Nanomedicine
In a huge breakthrough for nanoparticle research, MIT scientists have discovered a way to facilitate the entry of gold nanoparticles into cells without disrupting the cell membrane. The solution? Stripes!
More information on the breakthrough from the MIT press release:
The team found that gold nanoparticles coated with alternating bands of two different kinds of molecules can quickly pass into cells without harming them, while those randomly coated with the same materials cannot. The research was reported in a recent advance online publication of Nature Materials."We've created the first fully synthetic material that can pass through a cell membrane without rupturing it, and we've found that order on the nanometer scale is necessary to provide this property," said Francesco Stellacci, an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and co-leader of the work with Darrell Irvine, the Eugene Bell Career Development Associate Professor of Tissue Engineering.
Nanoparticles hold a lot of promise, especially for their cancer-targeting abilities.
Read the full story here...
Flashbacks: Gold Nanorods Brighten Future for Medical Imaging, Using Gold Nanoparticles to Develop Antisense Cancer Drugs, Nanoparticle Sniffing Nose to Fight Cancer
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Rapid Sequencing May Lead to "Personalized" Vitamins
Filed under: in the news...
New research out of UC Berkeley (go bears!) may bring some legitimacy to the "once-a-day" vitamin market. With affordable rapid genome sequencing to be available to the general public within the next 5-10 years, scientists are looking at what useful information we can actually extract from all of that DNA.
UC Berkeley scientists are looking at specific vitamin-dependent enzymes in the human genome. Many dysfunctional variants can be corrected with specific vitamins such as Folate for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR). Here is some more info from the press release:
Using DNA samples from 564 individuals of many races and ethnicities, colleagues at Applied Biosystems of Foster City, Calif., sequenced for each person the two alleles that code for the MTHFR enzyme. Consistent with earlier studies, they found three common variants of the enzyme, but also 11 uncommon variants, each of the latter accounting for less than one percent of the sample.They then synthesized the gene for each variant of the enzyme, and Marini, Rine and their UC Berkeley colleagues inserted these genes into separate yeast cells in order to judge the activity of each variant. Yeast use many of the same enzymes and cofactor vitamins and minerals as humans and are an excellent model for human metabolism, Rine said.
The researchers found that four different mutations affected the functioning of the human enzyme in yeast. One of these mutations is well known: Nearly 30 percent of the population has one copy, and nine percent has two copies.
The researchers were able to supplement the diet of the cultured yeast with folate, however, and restore full functionality to the most common variant, and to all but one of the less common variants.
Since this experiment, the researchers have found 30 other variants of the MTHFR enzyme and tested about 15 of them, "and more than half interfere with the function of the enzyme, producing a hundred-fold range of enzyme activity. The majority of these can be either partially or completely restored to normal activity by adding more folate. And that is a surprise," Rine said.
Most scientists think that harmful mutations are disfavored by evolution, but Rine pointed out that this applies only to mutations that affect reproductive fitness. Mutations that affect our health in later years are not efficiently removed by evolution and may remain in our genome forever.
Read the full story here...
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SurgyTec: Surgical Skills, Tips and Tricks
Filed under: Informatics
SurgyTec, at heart a YouTube for surgeons, is a privately held company based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. It aims to become a global community and video-sharing site for surgeons to show off their newly minted skills. It makes it easy for medical professionals to upload videos or slideshows and share those with the community. We can search for videos by specialty, organ/region, tissue, etiology, operation type, or technique. According to their mission statement:
Many surgeons perform original and high-quality techniques in their operating room and equally many surgeons would like to learn from these new and inspiring techniques. Up till now it was very difficult, time consuming and expensive to take a look in each others operating room and share practical knowledge, tips and tricks.This seems like the space where Medgadget's only original surgical video, showing off the novel closure method known as the "Chopstick Technique", would have been featured.
More at SurgyTec...
This is a cross-post with Scienceroll.
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Sedation Web Site... For Endoscopy
Filed under: GI
An internet baby has been born out of one of the biggest Gastroenterology conferences of the year, the Digestive Disorders Workshop (DDW).
www.sedationfacts.org is an online resource on endoscopic sedation meant for gastroenterologists and GI nurses. Here's more about the website from the press release:
The collaborative effort provides an easy-to-access online body of knowledge about the science, pharmacology, practice management and regulatory environment of endoscopic sedation. This Web site aims to improve the understanding of endoscopic sedation among GI medical professionals and trainees, giving them the information they need to improve their knowledge and to ensure patient safety.
Always be sure to keep up with the latest sedation news.
Read the press release here...
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Scoreflex Balloon Catheter Gets CE Mark Approval
Filed under: Cardiology
The Scoreflex balloon catheter from OrbusNeich, a Hong Kong based interventional cardiology device company, has received the EU CE Mark of approval today. The Scoreflex catheter differentiates itself from other balloon catheters out there by utilizing what it calls focused force angioplasty. This allows interventional cardiologists to focus the force of the balloon in specific areas of the plaque for cracking into resistant areas, as well as minimizing trauma to the blood vessel wall.
CE Mark approval is given to a product that has been demonstrated to meet European minimum standards and safety specifications. This product is not currently available in the United States, and will probably be competing against Guidant's popular FX miniRAIL focused force angioplasty balloon.
Read the press release here...
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Feel That Rhythm!
Filed under: Neurology
"Recotana" (aka Osamu Funada)is an individual with a penchant for building body-to-MIDI interfaces. In this case, we've got the "Electric Click," which stimulates the "listener" (there's no sound) in sync with the beat of the music being played...
There are more pictures and video in the Flickr set for the device. Be sure to check out another such creation: the heartbeat MIDI controller.
Via Make
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Friday, June 6, 2008
Mercury Drama: FDA Settles Dental Filling Lawsuit
Filed under: in the news...
The FDA settled a lawsuit yesterday and agreed to complete a regulatory review on the dangers of Mercury amalgam dental fillings. The FDA also updated some of the safety concerns on its website to say:
Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses. When amalgam fillings are placed in teeth or removed from teeth, they release mercury vapor. Mercury vapor is also released during chewing. FDA's rulemaking (described in question 7) will examine evidence concerning whether release of mercury vapor can cause health problems, including neurological disorders, in children and fetuses.
The American Dental Associated is not too happy about the decision. They have reviewed 34 studies and found no evidence that the fillings release mercury vapor when chewing. In addition, they say that the fillings pose no more risk than the mercury found in fish and other food. The FDA wants more short-term data exposure from certain patient groups before it makes a final decision.
Dentists favor these types of fillings for their durability and cost-effectiveness.
Read more here...
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