Medgadget

Study Claims First In-Vivo Gene Delivery

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:37:23 -0800

While gene therapy has seemed always just on the verge of being right around the corner, the limitation has always been delivery of the gene. How do you get the new gene to the right cells and activated? An in-vivo mice study in PNAS may take us closer to a usable delivery system. Rui Maeda-Mamiya of the University of Tokyo and others were able to get diabetic mice to increase their insulin levels after delivery of a insulin 2 gene by a water-soluble fullerene.

From the study abstract:

Water-soluble fullerenes are molecules with great potential for biological use because they can endow unique characteristics of amphipathic property and form a self-assembled structure by chemical modification. Effective gene delivery in vitro with tetra(piperazino)fullerene epoxide (TPFE) and its superiority to Lipofectin have been described in a previous report. For this study, we evaluated the efficacy of in vivo gene delivery by TPFE. Delivery of enhanced green fluorescent protein gene (EGFP) by TPFE on pregnant female ICR mice showed distinct organ selectivity compared with Lipofectin; moreover, higher gene expression by TPFE was found in liver and spleen, but not in the lung. No acute toxicity of TPFE was found for the liver and kidney, although Lipofectin significantly increased liver enzymes and blood urea nitrogen. In fetal tissues, neither TPFE nor Lipofectin induced EGFP gene expression. Delivery of insulin 2 gene to female C57/BL6 mice increased plasma insulin levels and reduced blood glucose concentrations, indicating the potential of TPFE-based gene delivery for clinical application. In conclusion, this study demonstrated effective gene delivery in vivo for the first time using a water-soluble fullerene.

PNAS Article Abstract: In vivo gene delivery by cationic tetraamino fullerene

Image from PDF of article.

Information Superhighway Through Your Arm

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:46:24 -0800

Scientists at Korea University in Seoul have demonstrated a prototype of a new biomonitoring system that transmits data through the body, replacing wires and minimizing the need for batteries.

The device is 300 micrometres thick and in a test, using a metal electrode coated with a flexible silicon-rich polymer, the researchers transmitted data at a rate of 10 megabits per second through a person's arm. The device was tested for skin safety after continuous wearing and the data was transmitted via low-frequency electromagnetic waves through the skin.

The technology may have implications for diagnostics, as it can be used to detect electric fluctuations as is currently done by ECG and EEG machines.

Read on at New Scientist: Human arm transmits broadband...

Abstract in Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering: Wearable polyimide-PDMS electrodes for intrabody communication

Energized Condoms Coming Soon? A New Method for Transdermal Delivery of Nitric Oxide

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:35:28 -0800

The New York Times profiles research by Harvey A. Liu and Kenneth J. Balkus Jr. of the University of Texas at Dallas to create a therapeutic nitric oxide releasing bandage. Nitric oxide can play a significant role in peripheral vasodilation, relaxation of pulmonary vasculature, and other physiological processes, such as penile erection. Therefore, an effective method of delivering this free radical should allow the development of new types of vascular stockings, bandages, and other therapeutic (or recreational) devices.

A snippet from NYT:

As they describe in a paper in Chemistry of Materials, the researchers use a zeolite, an aluminosilicate mineral that has a three-dimensional cage structure. Zeolites have been shown to be able to store and release nitric oxide and other chemicals. They embed the mineral in fibers of a biocompatible polymer, polylactic acid, as they are spun and form a tissue-like mat. The fibers are then infused with nitric oxide; by controlling the porosity of the fibers, the researchers could control the release of the gas.

The researchers say the resulting material could be incorporated into socks for diabetics that would deliver nitric oxide through the skin. It might also prove useful before transplants as a wrapping for organs to help preserve them outside the body for longer.

Robot Scientist Automates Scientific Discovery

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:28:00 -0800

The Singularity Hub is reporting on a genetic discovery brought to you entirely by Adam, a robot at Aberystwyth University in Wales that can conduct its own experiments. Not just that, Adam actually invents its own experiments and defines how to perform each study. After carrying out the task Adam analyzes the data, providing scientists (we'll still call them that) with easily verifiable results.

Some details of Adam's first discovery from Singularity Hub:

His developers introduced him to a yeast genetics mystery that had eluded discovery for quite some time. As with all living organisms, yeast have proteins called enzymes that catalyze many of the chemical reactions necessary for life to occur. Each of these enzymes is encoded in the yeast's genome, but a few of these enzymes were difficult to link to particular genes. For decades, geneticists had toiled to figure out which genes encode a few of these "orphan" enzymes.
Dr. King and colleagues gave Adam a database containing information on the enzymes, the chemicals and reagents to do the experiments, and access to the yeast cultures. After that, a human technician only came around to refill the necessary reagents and remove the waste products generated from the experiments (evidently, Adam is unable to perform those lowly tasks!). So what did Adam find? After multiple rounds of experimentation and analysis, Adam found exactly which yeast genes encode which "orphan" enzymes! The human scientists then went to work to verify his findings by doing the experiments manually. Eureka! Adam had indeed solved the problem!

Here's a video about Adam:

Read on at Singularity Hub: Adam The Robot Scientist Makes Its First Discovery...

Abstract in Science: The Automation of Science

"Mark Roth: Suspended animation is within our grasp"

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:18:53 -0800

Mark Roth, a research biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, has been studying the mechanics of suspended animation, or the ability of some animals to go into a near death state from which they can later wake up. In his last month's TED talk, Roth gave an overview of the state of suspended animation research and the potential it has for medicine.

Link @ TED: Mark Roth: Suspended animation is within our grasp...

Eric Dishman: Can The Way You Answer Your Phone Predict Disease?

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:54:03 -0800

Eric Dishman, Intel's Fellow of Digital Health Group and Director of Health Innovation and Policy, spoke at TEDMED last October on what the future holds for at-home healthcare. Dishman presents a few projects that Intel is working on in anticipation of the demographic changes that are expected to influence medical care around the world.

Link: TEDMED...

Eric Mead: The Magic of the Placebo

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:43:57 -0800

At last year's TEDMED, magician Eric Mead gave a most unexpected talk about placebos. By using a bit of trickery, Mead demonstrated how knowledge of an event's real nature is not enough to suppress belief in its perceived, but fake, action.

Link: TEDMED...

New Radioisotope Supplier to Fill Gaping Hole in Market

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:01 -0800

Due to the continued closure of Canada's Chalk River reactor, a major supplier of medical radioisotopes, and the historic limited capacity within the nuclear medicine supply industry, there has been a serious shortage of radiomarkers on the market. To to address this problem, Covidien just received the FDA go ahead to source molybdenum-99 radioisotope from Poland's Maria nuclear research reactor (pictured) to produce technetium-99m for medical applications. The short lived isotope is used in approximately 80% of nuclear diagnostic procedures, and the initial supply, which should be available next month in the US and Canada, should provide enough material for one million procedures in the first six months.

Press release: U.S. FDA and Health Canada Approve Use of Molybdenum 99 From Maria Reactor ...

Image: Maria reactor. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Visual Part of Brain Regularly Predicts What It's Supposed to See, Gets Flabbergasted When It Doesn't

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:29:47 -0800

German scientists from Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and Brain Imaging Center Frankfurt have shown that the primary visual cortex of our brains has a much easier time recognizing expected objects than ones it didn't predict to be seeing. The study involved human subjects that were shown a pattern of dots that was regularly interrupted by white boxes. A functional magnetic resonance machine was used to monitor brain activity inside the visual cortex. The surprising finding was that when white boxes appeared out of their usual pattern, the visual cortex would go into overdrive to identify the unanticipated object. The scientists involved in the study believe that this implies that the visual cortex is performing a great deal of predicting on a regular basis, and that our vision system is far from being a passive mechanism that simply describes what it is seeing.

Image: The sight of bars apparently moving from bottom left to top right (dotted line) evokes activity in the primary visual cortex (V1). Right: in the upper part of the image, the test stimulus (a white-framed bar) is presented in such a manner that it is integrated into the motion of the white bars. In contrast, the brain does not predict the appearance of the test stimulus in the lower part of the image. This test stimulus is presented with a certain time delay, so that the motion direction appears to be interrupted. Image detail bottom left: the activity in V1 is significantly higher for the unexpected test stimulus (brown graph) than for the expected test stimulus (blue graph).

Press release: The scientific brain ...

Abstract in The Journal of Neuroscience: Stimulus Predictability Reduces Responses in Primary Visual Cortex

Discovering Quantum Processes in Living Organisms

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:26:56 -0800

Researchers from Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany and the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, Spain are looking for the presence of quantum mechanical processes within viruses and maybe other biological systems. Toward that end, they have proposed an experimental setup that would attempt to create and detect quantum superposition states within viruses billions of atoms large.

In order to test for superposition states, the experiment involves finely tuning lasers to capture larger objects such as viruses in an ‘optical cavity’ (a very tiny space), another laser to slow the object down (and put it into what quantum mechanics call a ‘ground state’) and then adding a photon (the basic element of light) in a specific quantum state to the laser to provoke it into a superposition.
The researchers say, "We hope that this system, apart from providing new quantum technology, will allow us to test quantum mechanics at larger scales, by preparing macroscopic superpositions of objects at the nano and micro scale. This could then enable us to use more complex microorganisms, and thus test the quantum superposition principle with living organisms by performing quantum optics experiments with them."

Press release: Can we detect quantum behaviour in viruses?

Full article in New Journal of Physics: Toward quantum superposition of living organisms