Science Snippet: Zooming In on Nanoparticles
Nanoparticles come in many different shapes and configurations. Credit: Adapted from Stevens, et. al., under Creative Commons License 4.0.
Nanoparticles may sound like gadgets from a science fiction movie, but they exist in real life. They’re particles of any material that are less than 100 nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) in all dimensions. Nanoparticles appear in nature, and humans have, mostly unknowingly, used them since ancient times. For example, hair dyeing in ancient Egypt involved lead sulfite nanoparticles, and artisans in the Middle Ages added gold and silver nanoparticles to stained-glass windows. Over...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - December 13, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Tools and Techniques Cool Tools/Techniques Cool Videos Medicines Science Snippet Source Type: blogs
What Is Antibiotic Resistance?
Antibiotic resistance is a risk for patients undergoing joint replacement surgery, for example, when the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus group together (blue) and attach to the surface of the implant (green). Credit: Tripti Thapa Gupta, Khushi Patel, and Paul Stoodley, The Ohio State University; Alex Horswill, University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Bacteria can cause many common illnesses, including strep throat and ear infections. If you’ve ever gone to the doctor for one of these infections, they likely prescribed an antibiotic—a medicine designed to fight bacteria. Because bacteria can also cause life-threateni...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - November 22, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Injury and Illness Bacteria Common questions Drug Resistance Infectious Diseases Medicines Source Type: blogs
Up Your Game With NIH Kahoot! Quizzes
NIH is now a premium partner with Kahoot! Credit: NIGMS.
We’re excited to announce our new partnership with Kahoot! Although we aren’t new Kahoot! gamers, we’ve recently partnered with them to provide you quizzes from across the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in a single place. “Reaching young people to teach them about biomedical science and inspire them to pursue careers in science is critically important to ensuring a diverse and vibrant biomedical research enterprise,” says NIGMS Director Jon Lorsch, Ph.D. “Our partnership with Kahoot! expands NIH’s STEM offerings, providing educators with free, in...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - August 23, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: STEM Education Source Type: blogs
Bacteriophages to Diagnose and Treat Bladder Infections
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a bacteriophage system to identify and treat bacterial bladder infections. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria, but these microorganisms have fallen out of favor as a treatment method for infection since antibiotics came along. Well, antibiotics are looking increasingly shaky as bacteria evolve to resist them, so researchers are returning to bacteriophages as a way to treat antibiotic-resistant infections. However, these Swiss-based researchers have turbo-charged bacteriophages by genetically modifying them so that they are more effective at killing bacteria, and also so...
Source: Medgadget - August 8, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Medicine Public Health Urology bacteriophages ETH ETH_en Source Type: blogs
The Future Is Now: Innovative Ways Virtual Reality Is Revolutionizing Healthcare Marketing
The following is a guest article by Ali Williams, Freelance Writer
With there now totaling 171 million users of virtual reality (VR) around the globe, this innovative technology is revolutionizing almost every industry – and healthcare marketing is no exception. Since the healthcare sector is constantly evolving, marketers need to work to stay on top of new trends to create successful marketing campaigns. VR tech is a useful tool that can help you better engage with your target market, provide educational experiences, and open up new opportunities for growth.
Automatic Data Collection
Effective market research is the ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - July 31, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Ali Williams Body Language Data Collection Educational Experiences GlaxoSmithKline Healthcare Marketing Immersive Tours Innovative Technology Perth Childre Source Type: blogs
Advances in Early Diagnosis
This article shows how some surprising technologies are improving the early detection of several conditions. Nutromics continuously monitors the delivery of an antibiotic used to treat sepsis. Eye-tracking from Tobii is used by several of its clients to detect certain kinds of autism as early as twelve months of age. And Cordio Medical is detecting oncoming congestive heart failure (CHF) three weeks in advance of an incident.
Minimally Invasive Monitoring Provides Real-Time Measurements
Although doctors learn what people have in their bodies most often through blood tests, technologies developed over the past few decades c...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - May 18, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: AI/Machine Learning Clinical Health IT Company Healthcare IT Telemedicine and Remote Monitoring ADOS Agim Beshiri AI Diagnosis Autism CHF Cordio Medical Eye Tracking Eye Tracking Sensors Healthcare Sensors HearO Karen Pierce Source Type: blogs
Implant Coating Fights Infection and Monitors Strain
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a bioinspired implant coating that is designed to be implanted along with devices such as spinal implants. The technology has been inspired by dragonfly and cicada wings that contain tiny pillars that can skewer bacteria, providing mechanical anti-microbial action. Unlike current approaches that use antibiotics that are gradually released by the implant, the mechanical approach will not become depleted over time or cause side-effects in nearby tissues. It also avoids the manifestation of antimicrobial drug resistance and can also easily kill drug-...
Source: Medgadget - May 17, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Materials Orthopedic Surgery Source Type: blogs
Netflix for Drugs?
By KIM BELLARD
A relative — obviously overestimating my healthcare expertise — asked my thoughts on The New York Times article Can a Federally Funded ‘Netflix Model’ Fix the Broken Market for Antibiotics? I had previously skimmed the article and was vaguely aware of the Pasteur Act that it discusses, but, honestly, my immediate reaction to the article was, gosh, that may not be a great analogy: do people realize what a tough year Netflix has had?
I have to admit that I tend to stay away from writing about Big Pharma and prescription drugs, mainly because, in a US healthcare system that seems to pride i...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 21, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: The Business of Health Care Congress Kim Bellard Netflix Pharma Pharmaceutical industry Source Type: blogs
Clean Your Stuff
Alan starts each shift with a ritual of cleaning. I should be clear that I don’t use the word ritual as ainside the ambulance by xiaozhuli flickr literary device. Alan’s morning ambulance cleaning is as systematic and well thought out as any religious ceremony. Over the course of a few months of working together I learned the routine well.
Checking through my medical kit I’d observe him start at the back doors of the rig, spraying and wiping the outside door handles and then opening the doors and wiping the insides. Then he would climb inside wiping handles, pram rails and anything people might habitually grab for...
Source: The EMT Spot - November 7, 2022 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Steve Whitehead Tags: EMT Source Type: blogs
Impedance Cytometry for Rapid Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing
Scientists at Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan have come up with a method to rapidly determine the antibiotic susceptibility of a bacterial sample, such as a patient sample from a non-healing infected wound. The technique is based on impedance cytometry, which involves a high-throughput single cell analysis of the bacterial cells. The impedance system measures the dielectric properties of the cells as they flow through the device, and it can assess up to 1000 cells per minute.
Using machine learning to determine the differences in the dielectric properties between samples that have been treated with an...
Source: Medgadget - October 31, 2022 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Critical Care Medicine NAIST_MAIN_EN Source Type: blogs
Quiz: Antibiotic Resistance and Researchers Studying It
Antibiotics are a class of drugs that treat bacterial infections. They may seem common now, but they were discovered less than a century ago. In 1928, Alexander Fleming, a scientist studying bacteria, found that mold from his bread kept bacteria from growing. He determined that “mold juice” was able to kill different types of harmful bacteria, and he and his assistants worked to figure out what natural product in the mold was actually causing the killing. It turned out to be penicillin!
Thanks to Fleming’s discovery, doctors have been successfully treating bacterial infections with penicillin and other newer anti...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - October 26, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Injury and Illness Bacteria Infectious Diseases Quiz Viruses Source Type: blogs
National Chemistry Week: Recent Interviews With NIGMS-Funded Chemists
Credit: ACS Website.
It’s almost National Chemistry Week (NCW)! Each year, the American Chemical Society (ACS) unites scientists, undergraduate students, high school chemistry clubs, and other groups through this community-based program to reach the public—especially elementary and middle school students—with positive chemistry messages.
Local groups plan and coordinate NCW events, so while they vary across the country, they often present chemistry education through hands-on science activities to local schools, museums, scouting groups, or Saturday Science events. Lily Raines, Ph.D., manager at the ACS Office of ...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - October 12, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Profiles Research Roundup Source Type: blogs
Surface Coating Rapidly Kills Pathogens, Lasts Months
A team at the University of Michigan has developed a coating for frequently touched surfaces that can rapidly kill a wide array of pathogens, including MRSA and SARS-CoV-2. The technology incorporates polyurethane that contains crosslinked compounds from essential oils with wide-spectrum anti-microbial action. The researchers fine-tuned the crosslinking process so that the oils were available to kill microbes but not sufficiently free to evaporate rapidly. Unlike anti-microbial surface coatings that are based on metals, such as copper or zinc, the new coating can kill microbes quite fast, in as little as two minutes. Howev...
Source: Medgadget - September 6, 2022 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Materials Medicine Public Health umich Source Type: blogs
Combating antimicrobial resistance during COVID [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “While the world has spent the last two years laser-focused on the COVID pandemic, another public health threat is still lurking in the shadows: the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been recognized since the early 1900s, yet rigorous research over the
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Combating antimicrobial resistance during COVID [PODCAST] originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 30, 2022 Category: General Medicine Authors: The Podcast by KevinMD Tags: Podcast COVID Source Type: blogs
The Macro View – Health, Economics, and Politics and the Big Picture. What I Am Watching Here And Abroad.
August 04, 2022 Edition-----The war seems to grind on sadly and Pres. Biden is having a second round with COVID as unprecedented weather happens all over the US. It all feels rather like ‘the end of days’!In the UK we see an increasing chance of a third female PM being elected as the country seems to be struggling. We do need to remember however the UK remains a significant power with nuclear weapons and home-grown nuclear submarines!In OZ we have had last week working out how to progress the First Nations ‘Voice’ as we wrap up the 1st session of Parliament for the new Government. Comments welcome on how you think ...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - August 4, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
