Implanted Ultrasound Lets Chemo Access Brain
Researchers at Northwestern University have trailed an implanted ultrasound device in patients, which is used in combination with microbubbles to transiently open pores in the blood brain barrier, allowing chemo drugs to enter. We have reported on this technique before as a lab-based concept (see flashbacks below), but this is the first time that it has actually been trialed in human patients, in this case patients with glioblastoma, a difficult to treat brain cancer. The approach successfully led to a four- to six-fold increase in chemo concentrations in the brain, using drugs that are not otherwise able to cross the bloo...
Source: Medgadget - May 12, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Medicine Neurology Neurosurgery Oncology Radiology glioblastoma northwestern Source Type: blogs

Finally A Good Wearable Blood Pressure Monitor: Aktiia Bracelet Review
The digital health revolution has been lagging behind in at least one major field: blood pressure monitoring. For a very long time, there were no better solutions in the market than traditional cuffs. Even the first smartwatches (like the one I tested from Omron), were big and uncomfortable to wear. So it was time for companies to realise the future of BP monitoring lies in Photoplethysmography (PPG). PPG is a non-invasive optical technique used to measure blood volume changes in the microvascular bed of tissue. It works by shining a light onto the skin and then measuring the variations in light intensity that result fr...
Source: The Medical Futurist - May 2, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andrea Koncz Tags: Health Sensors & Trackers Aktiia review blood pressure wearable blood pressure monitor non-invasive blood pressure monitor blood pressure bracelet digital health sensors Source Type: blogs

Info On What It Costs To Make Insulin API's Offshore (Courtesy of China's Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals Ltd.)
When pharma companies refer to API ' s, they are referring to " Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients " (which is different from what an internet company means when they say API; to internet companies, the acronym API means " Application Programming Interface " ). Regardless, pharma API ' s are commonly made offshore in places like India, Malaysia, China and elsewhere because its cheaper for them and therefore helps their own bottom lines. Its unclear to me exactly how they manage issues including transporting the products across the world for some items which must be temperature-controlled, but if it fattens pharma ' s bottom...
Source: Scott's Web Log - May 1, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Biosimilar biosimilars BLA China COGS FDA Gan & Lee insulin Sandoz Source Type: blogs

South Korea-Based Undbio Co., Ltd. + Proprietary Insulin; Maybe Biosimilars (someday)
On April 13, 2023, a South Korean biopharmaceutical company known as Undbio Co., Ltd.http://undbio.com/eng/ signed a lease with West Virginia University to build what it refers to as an insulin " manufacturing facility " in the city of Morgantown, WV (seehttps://www.wvgazettemail.com/business/undbio-planning-insulin-facility-in-morgantown/article_6b986775-6a2e-5ce5-b312-c423d79cbda2.html for more information). In all likelihood, that will be for what pharma refers to as a " fill& finish " facility, rather than one where temperature-controlled bioreactors are located.Meanwhile, a nonprofit drug company known as Civica, ...
Source: Scott's Web Log - April 24, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 morgantown west virginia wv mylan biosimilar insulin undbio Source Type: blogs

poem
 Pantheon IArt, the guttural human yelp, an attemptTo warble the lyrical language of the godsBut ignorant of words, without access To any syntax of the celestial tongue Without knowing if they differentiateBetween nouns, adjectives or verbs If they recognize any grammatical constraints If, as gods, they even know themselves as “gods”Nevertheless!We have at it with ourNovels and poems, paintings and sculpturesGnawing at deeper divine scriptures Adorable little toddlers babbling nonsenseAbout our very specialdrawingsOur rictal scribblings, our measly tracingsCrying when mommy doesn ' t payit...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - April 22, 2023 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs

Ode to a Smoked Trout Lyonnaise
Moving to Philly and being retired means I get to visit Valley Green as often as I want. So, last week I met Susan for lunch at Brunos and a post-prandial walk along Forbidden Drive. There, we encountered a battalion of rubber-booted fisherman standing in the stream and parade of pickups and cars following a small tanker truck along the path. Yes folks, it was trout-stocking day on the Wissahickon. Which got me remembering the time Lou caught some gorgeous trout in the Loyalsock River, which we brined and smoked on the Weber in the back yard at our cottage. Gotta’ get Lou back up to the mountains this ...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - April 21, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Fish Salads bacon lyonnaise salade Smoked trout Valley Green Wissahickon Source Type: blogs

Continue Work on Stablecoin Legislation or Risk Forfeiting the Financial Future
Jack SoloweyThe United States has long led global finance. Its institutions shaped critical financial infrastructure and saw the dollar become the world ’s reserve currency—thanks torule of law, property rights, and an innovative market economy at home. As the economic landscape evolves,maintaining this position is a matter of adapting to new technologies that couldcomplement the U.S. dollar and enhance global financial plumbing. Yet, in a fit of myopia, U.S. regulators seem bent on stifling the very developments thatcould help extend America ’s historic strengths, looking askance at recent attempts to inte...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 20, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jack Solowey Source Type: blogs

Government Proposes To Make Bad Standards on Race and Ethnicity Worse
John F. EarlyI recently laid out the case to stop government classification of people by race and ethnicity in a CatoBlog post. Those observations were stimulated by The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) posting a notice for comment in the Federal Register with respect to a report from the Federal Interagency Technical Working Group and Race and Ethnicity Standards to revise the existing standards for collecting data by race and ethnicity. Comments are due by April 27, 2023.Ipublished a similar op ‐​ed in the Wall Street Journal, which subsequently printed a singleletter to the editor in re...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 18, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: John F. Early Source Type: blogs

Coverture – Could History Repeat?
BY MIKE MAGEE All eyes were on Wisconsin – not last week, but in 1847. That’s when Wisconsin newspaperman and editor of the Racine Argus, Marshall Mason Strong, let loose in a speech on the disturbing trend to allow women the right to buy and sell property. It seems the state had caught the bug from their neighbor, Michigan, which was considering loosening coverture laws. “Coverture”  is a word you may not know, but should. It was a series of laws derived from British Common Law that “held that no female person had a legal identity.” As legal historian Lawrence Friedman explained, “Essentially ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 17, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Coverture Lawrence Friedman Marshall Mason Strong Source Type: blogs

Forkhead box O3 protein (FOXO3) genes and longevity
Approximately 25 –32% of the overall variation in adult lifespan is accounted for by genetic differences that become particularly important for survivalafter the age of 60.Forkhead box O3 protein (FOXO3) is a transcription factor involved in the regulation of genes involved in many cellular processes, including DNA repair, tumor suppression, immune function, and resistance to oxidative stress. Some variants of FOXO3 are associated with longevity in humans.FOXO3 is onchromosome 6. FOXO3A encodes a keyregulator of the insulin –IGF1 signaling pathway that is known to influence metabolism and lifespan. A study of...
Source: Clinical Cases and Images - Blog - April 15, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Tags: Genetics Source Type: blogs

What ’ s in a name when it comes to moths?
TL:DR – It was learning some of the common names for the macro moths that helped piqued my interest in being an amateur lepidopterist and citizen science moth-er. There are around 1800 moth species seen in the UK. A large proportion of these are the so-called micro moths (which isn’t about size, but rather their position in evolutionary history) and they are usually referred to by their scientific name rather than a common name although some do have colloquial names too. But, almost all of the macro moths have an intriguing common name. Here are some of my favourites The Clifden Nonpareil (Catocala fraxini) &#...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - April 15, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Lepidoptera Source Type: blogs

Friday Feature: St. Martin ’s Academy
Colleen Hroncich“Boys thrive when they’re challenged and when they’re doing hard things. Especially when they’re doing hard things together.” This is some of the insight Daniel Kerr has developed after founding and runningSt. Martin ’s Academy, a Catholic boarding school for boys on a sustainable farm in Fort Scott, Kansas.Daniel ’s dream of founding a school was inspired byThe Restoration of Innocence: An Idea of a School, an unpublished work by John Senior. After years of dreaming and then planning, St. Martin ’s Academy opened in 2018.“The school is situated on a 5 ‑acre parc...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 14, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Colleen Hroncich Source Type: blogs

Trump As Catalyst For Legal and Cultural Reform
BY MIKE MAGEE Former President Donald Trump’s indictment this morning reinforces most Americans’ belief that “No man is above the law.” But few of us have taken the time to explore what that statement means when it comes to building a healthy nation, and why we believe it. How do you create a healthy nation?  This is at once a very simple and a very complex question. It is at the heart of successful and failed nation building.  It applies equally to a self-assessment of our approach to rebuilding Germany and Japan as part of the Marshall Plan after WW II, and to our own struggl...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 5, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Common Law Donald Trump Indictment Mike Magee Source Type: blogs

The New Deal and Recovery, Part 27: Deposit Insurance
ConclusionPart 27: Deposit Insurance_____________________[1] To this list we might add a fourth item, noted by Golembe in a subsequentinterview, to wit: that the deposit " insurance " provided for by the 1933 Banking Act wasn ' t really insurance at all. Unlike genuine insurance policies, it covers depositors for losses regardless of whether the losses were due to recklessness on their or their banks ' part. And unlike genuine insurance funds, the FDIC ' s insurance " fund " is an accounting fiction, the truth being that the " premiums " it collects from banks go into the federal government ' s general coffers. " The gover...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 28, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

Transforming Integrated Care in the Community (TICC): blueprint
This report captures the key lessons of aproject undertaken by organisations in four European countries (UK, France, the Netherlands and Belgium) to explore what is involved in taking a highly successful innovation in one national context and applying it in others. The example of Buurtzorg was chosen because of its undoubted and extraordinary success in its country of origin, the Netherlands, where it has revolutionised community-based health and care services. Its achievements - improving care, the jobs of professionals providing care, and resource use - provided the inspiration for the organisations that came together as...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - March 27, 2023 Category: UK Health Authors: The King ' s Fund Library Tags: Integrated care, collaboration and partnership Source Type: blogs