Plugging Holes in Blood Vessels Caused by Nanoparticle Therapy
While targeting nanoparticles to attack cancer cells can be effective at reducing primary tumors, they tend to create tiny holes within blood vessel walls that let some cancer cells escape and metastasize elsewhere. This is a serious side effect that may limit the usefulness of many nanoparticle-based cancer therapies in the long run, so researchers at National University of Singapore have been studying this matter and how to address it.
The team identified that nanomaterial-induced endothelial leakiness is caused by a variety of nanoparticles, including those made from silica, gold, and titanium dioxide. Moreover, anim...
Source: Medgadget - August 29, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Nanomedicine Oncology Source Type: blogs
Self-Rolling Sensor Measures Electrical Activity of Heart Organoids
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a new microfabricated sensor array that performs 3D electrophysiology of cellular organoids. Their work demonstrates that the device can be designed to wrap around small organoids and measure voltage changes across the surface of the organoids without leading to significant loss of viability of the cells. This is an exciting development that can permit more advanced scientific discovery using organoids, permit organ-on-chip bioelectronic measurements, and help quickly test new drugs for toxicity.
Various methods ...
Source: Medgadget - August 27, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Siavash Parkhideh Tags: Cardiology Medicine Source Type: blogs
Low Power Network for Wireless Body Sensors
As wearable devices multiply and gather ever more data about our bodies, the batteries and wireless networks they rely on can become strained. To give wearables a longer battery life and to allow gigabytes of data to be transmitted at the same time, researchers at the National University of Singapore have developed a new type of textile with embedded sensor networks that use very little electricity.
These days wearables typically use Bluetooth wireless connectivity to connect with users’ smartphones. This is very inefficient if you have small devices that are supposed to work for a long time. The new “me...
Source: Medgadget - July 19, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Cardiology Diagnostics Materials Medicine Military Medicine Sports Medicine Source Type: blogs
Super Sensitive Electronic Skin for Prosthetic Devices
Artificial skin with the ability to feel is a major research goal for engineers working on improving prosthetic technology. Researchers in the past have created materials with sensors spread over a few square inches, but these have typically had a number of limitations.
One thing that causes many such electronic skins to be impractical is the complex wiring that is required to make hundreds, if not thousands, of independent sensors work together. The other issue is that by scaling up to make ever larger pieces of e-skin, vastly more signals have to be processed in real time.
Now, researchers at the National Universit...
Source: Medgadget - July 18, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Materials Neurology Rehab Source Type: blogs
av-Guardian Makes AV Fistula Access Easy for Dialysis
To perform hemodialysis, vascular access needs to be available on a regular basis. Veins are naturally too fragile for this, but arteries are too deep seated to be tapped frequently. Arteriovenous (AV) fistulas, which link an artery and a nearby vein, are typically created to overcome this since after only a few weeks the vein becomes much more resilient.
Probably the most nerve wrecking, painful, and critical step during a dialysis session is placing the needle into the AV fistula. Complications are frequent and patients generally hate this step, whether it goes well or not.
Advent Access, a company based in Singapo...
Source: Medgadget - July 9, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs
One Especially Myopic Criticism of Trump ’s North Korea Policy
The video of President Trump shaking hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and becoming the first sitting U.S. president to cross the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into North Korea should have been a welcome sight in both East Asia and the United States. It was a powerful symbol of warming relations between Washington and Pyongyang —a process that had stumbled in February when a summit meeting abruptly ended in an impasse.Trump ’s domestic critics, though, seem unwilling to accord him any credit for his diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea and the easing of dangerous tensions that have plagued the Korean Peninsula ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 2, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs
One Year After Singapore: The North Korea Problem is Bigger than Nukes
After two summits between the United States and North Korea, and little to show in the way of deliverables on dismantlement, hopes that a third summit may yield a denuclearization deal seem a bit unrealistic. Essentially, there has been no indication of intent on Kim ' s part to denuclearize. But the North Korea problem is much greater than nukes. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - June 16, 2019 Category: Health Management Authors: Soo W. Kim Source Type: blogs
AI Platform for Cognitive Performance Training
This study, published in journal Advanced Therapeutics, describes the use of CURATE.AI for improving trainee performance on a US Air Force flight simulator program, a task that is very cognitively challenging.
In the past, the same research team used the CURATE.AI software to develop a personalized immunosuppressant dosing schedule after organ transplant, optimize drug discovery libraries, and study in vitro and in vivo models of disease, including multiple myeloma and tuberculosis.
In the study, participants underwent training with the flight simulator in low, medium, and high intensity levels. CURATE.AI characterized the...
Source: Medgadget - June 10, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Siavash Parkhideh Tags: Education Informatics Net News Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
Can Digital Health Go Off-Grid And Still Save Lives?
What would you do without your smartphone or laptop for a week? Some cannot even imagine putting them down for a second, not thinking much of the vulnerability of our entire digital existence. What if a hurricane destroys the electric grid? What if power supplies will get cut off by unstoppable rain? What about a future dystopic scenario with our traditional energy sources depleted due to overconsumption? And what if we just look at less fortunate parts of the world where stable electricity service is a rare treasure? We collected some examples of how medicine could become more independent from the traditional electricity ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - May 25, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Future of Medicine Africa asia Caribbean development digital digital health Healthcare smartphone solar sustainability technology Source Type: blogs
RhythmAnalytics Detects Cardiac Arrhythmias Using AI, Now FDA Cleared
Biofourmis, a company with offices in Singapore and Boston, won FDA clearance for its RhythmAnalytics cloud-based software that uses artificial intelligence techniques to automate the interpretation of cardiac arrhythmias from ECG tracings. The system can detect more than fifteen different types of arrhytmias including using beat-by-beat morphology analysis to spot ventricular arrhythmias, ventricular ectopic beats, and all non-paced arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation (AFib).
The system was trained by feeding it over a million single-lead ECG recordings, harvested from a variety of wearable monitoring devices. Deep...
Source: Medgadget - May 20, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Cardiology Critical Care Emergency Medicine Informatics Source Type: blogs
It Looks Like The Sources Of Digital Health News In Australia Are Shrinking. This Is Not A Good Thing.
Up until mid-October last year the Digital Health scene and all the goings on with the myHealthRecord and the various State systems, as well as activity in the private sector was being covered by both Pulse + IT and www.healthcareit.com.au (which was an outpost for the US based HIMSS, which was founded about a year before that.)
These two sites provided detailed coverage and were augmented by the national mastheads and the various technical news sites and various medical news sites.
In mid-October the editor of the site changed – for unexplained reasons. The new editor was producing less in-depth material and was real...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - May 11, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Self-Inflating Swallowable Capsule for Weight Management
Researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a swallowable self-inflating capsule, which enlarges within the stomach under the influence of a hand-held magnet. By filling a portion of the stomach, the balloon induces a sense of fullness, helping obese patients to reduce the amount they eat. The capsule is conceived as a non-invasive alternative to current intragastric balloons used in treating obesity, which are delivered under sedation using an endoscope.
Intragastric balloons are a well-established treatment for obesity in patients who struggle to control their eating. However, the balloo...
Source: Medgadget - April 29, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: GI Medicine Source Type: blogs
New Checklist Effectively Determines if a Child Needs Anesthesia Before MRI
Researchers at the KK Women ’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore have introduced a checklist to determine if a child needs general anesthesia (GA) before undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The question set can be administered by non-medical staff and only takes a few minutes.In their studyrecently published inClinical Radiology,medical students and research assistants used the checklist questions with over 700 patients whose ages ranged from 3 to 20, and were scheduled for an MRI between September 2016 and June 2017. The average age of the patients was 11.7 years old.The checklist features five questions...
Source: radRounds - April 19, 2019 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Why Is the USA Only the 35th Healthiest Country in the World?
By ETIENNE DEFFARGES
According the 2019 Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index, the U.S. ranks 35th out of 169 countries. Even though we are the 11th wealthiest country in the world, we are behind pretty much all developed economies in terms of health. In the Americas, not just Canada (16th) but also Cuba (30th), Chile and Costa Rica (tied for 33rd) rank ahead of us in this Bloomberg study.
To answer this layered question, we need to look at the top ranked countries in the Bloomberg Index: From first to 12th, they are Spain; Italy; Iceland; Japan; Switzerland; Sweden; Australia; Singapore; Norway; Israel; Luxe...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 15, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Economics Health disparities Health Policy American healthcare Etienne Deffarges Mediterranean Diet Opioids world health Source Type: blogs
“ Failure is not necessarily bad -it makes you tough and mature scientifically ”
As part of our International Women’s Day celebrations, we sat down with Associate Faculty Member Priti Agarwal, to learn more about her career highlights, challenges and which female idols inspired her interest in genetics and developmental biology.
Priti Agarwal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS in Singapore. She works with F1000Prime Faculty Member; Ronen Zaidel-Bar in evaluating the literature relevant to their research interests.
During her PhD at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Priti developed an interest in the biomechanical signals required for continuous format...
Source: Naturally Selected - March 26, 2019 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Hannah Towfiq Tags: F1000 Faculty Reviews Institutions Source Type: blogs
