Stuffilike.net

Nanoparticulate Treatment of Autoimmunities November 18, 2012

Scientists at Northwestern Medical have successfully reversed a mouse model of MS using 500nm particle of “antigen-decorated” polystyrene and poly[ed; some polymer of](lactide-co-glycolide) to induce toleration of the antigen, thus modulating the T-cell response to apoptosis.  Big news, and even potentially bigger, since this antigen decoration business can be modified to include antigens indicated in other conditions such as diabetes or asthma.

This treatment does not suppress the entire immune system as do current therapies for MS, making patients more susceptible to everyday infections and higher rates of cancer. Instead, when the “antigen-decorated” polystyrene particles are attached to myelin antigens and injected into the mice, the immune system is reset to normal. The immune system stops recognizing myelin as an alien invader and halts its attack on it. This happened when the particles entered the spleen, which filters the blood and helps the body dispose of aging and dying blood cells. There, the particles were engulfed by macrophages, a type of immune cell, which then displayed the antigens on their cell surface. The immune system viewed the particles as ordinary dying blood cells and nothing to be concerned about. This created immune tolerance to the antigen by directly inhibiting the activity of myelin responsive T cells and by increasing the numbers of regulatory T cells which further calmed the autoimmune response.
–

Microparticles bearing encephalitogenic peptides induce T-cell tolerance and ameliorate experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, Nature Biotechnology (2012) doi:10.1038/nbt.2434

Hepatitis C Cure in the Works July 19, 2012

Researchers at the University of Florida have created  a(n admittedly small, two-step) nanomachine which can find and cleave the RNA from Hepatitis C.  It is non-toxic to the mice it was tried in and to human cultured cells as well.  This is a delightful bit of building: make “an artificial nanoparticle complex [that] can effectively mimic the function of the cellular RISC machinery for inducing target RNA cleavage” and tie it to a gold nanoparticle, the other end of which seems to be tied to the cleaving enzyme.

Obviously, this approach is expandable to other viruses than just Hep C;  many of the sequences of virulent diseases are already well-characterized enough for this process.  I won’t say Star Trek thought of it first, just because I saw most of that stuff fifty years ago and my memory isn’t that good…but I’m sure it happened.

Second Sight is 576 Pixels July 19, 2012

For people with macular degenerations, there are a pair of neural transplant technologies making themselves visible (heh) lately. The first of these implants, Argus II developed by Second Sight, is already available in Europe.  It’s a chip with sixty tiny electrodes wired to the optic nerve, giving the  user a sixty-pixel image of whatever is in front of the camera sending the signal (mounted to glasses the user wears.  it’s enough to give the user motion detection and to let the read large letters slowly. A second type of chip, the Bio-Retina by Nano Retina, is planted inside the eye itself on the retina and is powered by a near-infrared laser in the glasses the user wears.  The chip does the imaging, but this one produces a 576-pixel image stimulation to the into the optic
nerve. An embedded image processor converts the data from each of the pixels into electrical pulses that are coded in such a way that the brain can perceive different levels of grayscale. This one is not yet through clinical trials yet.
Once again, this seems a little familiar.

Imaging Technology Advancements July 8, 2012

“The future is here; it’s just not evenly distributed yet.”

There seems to be advancement of medical instrumentation and imaging on several fronts recently. Medical monitor developer LifeWatch has launched LifeWatch V, which is the world’s first medical smartphone, for Android-powered devices (that’s right, your phone; extra high-end processing not required). The Android smartphone has inbuilt sensors to help diagnose common disorders and illnesses. It allows users to monitor ECG, blood glucose, blood oxygen, body temperature, galvanic skin response, heart rate and stress level on their own. The company hopes to obtain EU CE Mark certification by the end of this year and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval the following year.

The tech from LifeWatch is largely image processing from a more-or-less stock phone camera, with contrasting pumped up to watch for venous coloration changes and such, and keeps records on your health and monitors changes.  It can report to your doctor as well.  Sound familiar?

Yeah, Star Trek imagined it first.  But wait, there’s more! A patient bed is under development by doctors at the University of Leicester that might seem even more useful:

The bed has a set of instruments which analyze a patient’s breath and skin, monitoring blood flow and oxygenation in real time.

They think the bed can be used to diagnose dozens of diseases, like some infections such as c. difficile and certain cancers. These are all standard techniques, but it’s the first time all these technologies have been brought together in an integrated way – and developing it involved scientists working in space research, emergency medicine, engineering and IT. "We are replacing doctors’ eyes with state-of-the-art imaging systems, replacing the nose with breath analysis, and the ‘feel of the pulse’ with monitoring of blood flow using ultra sound technology and measurement of blood oxygen levels," says professor Mark Sims, a University of Leicester space scientist.  Assuming they can properly design the computer interface they could have the correct product:

Now, I admit I got the images from Google, but the really shameful part is I got the article and idea from the Daily Mail.