Tomorrow is the last day to submit your story for the Medgadget Sci-Fi Contest. The winner entry will be announced and published on Tuesday, Dec 5th. The winner will be awarded the ds32a Digital Electronic Stethoscope from Thinklabs Medical ($250 value). So let your fantasy fly: you’ve got about 24 hours left.
Archives: 11/2006
UCSF has announced initiation of a trial of “the first U.S. study of the safety of a new a [sic] vaginal gel designed to prevent herpes and HIV infection.” VivaGel™, the product being tested is by Starpharma, a firm based in Melbourne, Australia. It is fundamentally a nanotechnology drug.
Company explains:
The active ingredient of VivaGel™ is a dendrimer. Dendrimers are carefully-assembled tiny particles with many potential applications in medicine and industry. The surface of the active dendrimer in VivaGel™ is covered with regions that are thought to bind to the HIV or HSV-2 viruses. Scientists believe that the microbicidal activity already proven in animals arises because the viruses cannot enter cells when the dendrimer is attached, and so cannot cause infection…
VivaGel™ would be used with a single-use, pre-filled vaginal applicator. The economics of the product — active ingredient, formulation and applicator — are seen to be well matched to a mass market application.
VivaGel™ has also been shown to be a contraceptive in rabbits, and compatible with condoms in laboratory tests.
In the picture above, one can see how SPL7013, the active dendrimer ingredient of Starpharma’s VivaGel™, binds to surface proteins on HIV, preventing the virus from infecting human T-cells.
Starpharma company page…
More about dendrimers from the Chemical & Engineering News…
There’s more fallout from last year’s blockbuster South Korean stem cell paper that was later shown to contain fabricated data. A panel including the editor-in-chief of Science is developing new guidelines to evaluate the most newsworthy manuscript submissions — because the classic system of peer review is obviously not catching the frauds. USAToday has more:
“The environment for science has changed,” says Science editor-in-chief Don Kennedy. The report noted the rewards of publishing in Science, or its rival journal Nature, such as “enhanced reputation, visibility, position or cash rewards is sufficiently high that some may not adhere to the usual scientific standards.” Kennedy said Science will follow the panel’s recommendations, including:
* Higher scrutiny of studies with surprising, newsworthy or political impacts.
* Reporting the roles of all authors and co-authors.
* Establishing common review standards with other journals.
“Science says that it is committed to change, so one should take them at their word and see what follows,” says science misconduct expert Nicholas Steneck of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
E…“current peer review procedures are based on trust,” says Brian Martinson of HealthPartners Research Foundation in Minneapolis. “The report makes clear that is an increasingly risky position to take.”
The panel estimated that about 10 papers a year will require this extra scrutiny, which suggests to us that the panel itself is still a little deluded about the situation.
More from the Washington Post…
Emily Singer, a journalist who is a Medgadget favorite for her cutting-edge stories at MIT’s Technology Review, gets personal this week when she writes about the promise of pharacogenomics — individualized pharmacology based on one’s genetic makeup (she and her family frequently suffer debilitating side effects from commonly prescribed meds).
The first product that may help doctors dispense drugs wiser is the AmpliChip assay:
…a new product, marketed by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in January 2005, now has the potential to begin making pharmacogenomics broadly accessible. Called the AmpliChip CYP450 assay, it uses genetic analyses to ascertain how quickly people metabolize certain drugs, thus predicting who is most likely to experience unpleasant or even toxic side effects.
When two people take the same dose of a drug, their bodies may metabolize it so differently that the amount of it that can act on its target varies tremendously. Some people may have an especially efficient form of an enzyme that breaks down a drug; others may have a less functional version. The AmpliChip test works by detecting specific variations in genes that code for two important drug-metabolizing enzymes, CYP2D6 and CYP2C19. These enzymes help break down 25 percent of all drugs, including the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States, such as antidepressants, blood pressure medicines, cough medicines, and painkillers.
People with genetic variations that give them less efficient versions of the enzymes, known as poor metabolizers, could have high levels of a drug in their body for a longer period, increasing the potential for side effects.
Singer goes on to describe her expensive, confusing odyssey into getting the test done (doctors didn’t know about it, techs had never performed it). You’ll have to read the article to find out her ultimate test results, but I can tell you that most doctors would not be surprised by the results…
More from Roche…
Flashback: AmpliChip approved by FDA…
You’ve heard it all before: another rite of passage is being exploited for commercial gain. It’s like “Back to School” sales, or baby albums where you can place a newborn lock of hair. Parents just soak this stuff up. That seems to be the market that UK woman Liz Paul is seeking, with her new My Meningitis Kit:
Liz Paul says parents can use her hand-held device to see if their children have the life-threatening illness, meningitis.
…Liz, herself a mum of three, says the way parents react in the first few minutes of discovering the disease is crucial to a child’s survival.
She said parents are currently advised to place a glass on the skin area over the rash and wait to see if it disappears – if it doesn’t then the child may have the illness.
She added: “Many parents, quite understandably, panic and get confused. This device takes the uncertainty away and has a microchip which delivers recorded verbal instructions telling them what to do.”
Mrs. Paul gives the interviewer her phone number (“ask for Liz” !), so that angel investors can readily call her. But we think My Meningitis Kit may lack the cache of her previous inventions — a libido stimulator, and chocolate-scented anti-craving patch.
We at Medgadget say: take your child to the doctor (or ER) if you note strong new headache, stiff neck, fever — by the time there’s a rash for My Meningitis to scan, it may already be too late.
The pride of WPI and New Hampshire, inventor Dean Kamen (of Segway fame), recently spoke to the Boston Herald about some new projects he’s tackling:
Kamen is currently at work on a water treatment system that was successfully tested just a couple months ago in a village in Honduras, he said.
The portable device turns contaminated water into clean water by distilling it, using a fraction of the energy required by traditional distillation systems. Kamen predicts such systems could help solve health problems caused by waterborne pathogens all over the world.
Another of his inventions was recently used to supply electricity to two small villages in Bangladesh, he said. These generators used methane gas from cow dung to provide power to homes that had never had electricity before.
He got expansive with his interviewer:
Someday patients will go into their doctors’ offices and provide a saliva swab or pinprick of blood that can be entered into a computer, which will design a drug treatment that’s unique to each person’s biochemistry, he predicts.
“That’s literally going to personalize medicine,” he said. “You’re going to see medicine accomplish things you never could imagine.”
Alzheimer’s disease may soon join the scourge of polio, now prevented by a simple $2 vaccine, he said.
The high cost of medicine just presages these changes. “We are just in the learning phase, the expensive development phase,” he said.
The Seqway, we must note, is also still in its expensive phase, and Kamen greatly overestimated its initial impact. Still, we’re happy to see someone with his talent working on medical devices. That is, after all, how the Segway got its start…
Flashback: Segway EMT…
More from Deka Research…
Parafricta Fabric is a product of UK company APA Parafricta Ltd. The manufacturer touts that its product is improving lives of patients with skin problems, such as diabetics, by essentially eliminating friction between a patient’s skin and the exterior.
Here’s more about the fabric:
Parafricta Fabric has already been hailed as a technological break-through, with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children using the fabric for those suffering with Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), a crippling skin disease highlighted in Channel 4′s programme The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off.
Parafricta Fabric is also displayed in the Science Museum’s ‘Challenge of Materials’ gallery and is a ‘fabric of the future’.
George Sampson, APA Parafricta chief executive officer, said: “Parafricta Fabric is unique in that its friction coefficient is like ice. The fabric does not jerk or snatch when one surface, such as skin, begins to move against another (a process called ‘stiction’), which is often the cause of problems for those suffering with serious skin conditions and the cause of bedsores suffered by the long-term bed-ridden.”
APA Parafricta has begun to develop a range of garments that can be used by sufferers that include pillowcases, fitted bed-sheets, booties and under-garments…
The Parafricta Fabric can also easily be washed at high temperatures without altering its characteristics in any way.
Thoracic anesthesiologists that like to use endobronchial blockers, instead of clunky double-lumen endotracheal tubes, to isolate the lung, should be happy to find out that Cook has just introduced 9 French Arndt Endobronchial Blocker with a replaceable snare “to improve ease-of-use and accuracy of device placement.”
Press release…
From research presented at the ongoing annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA):
Researchers are using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to show that sitting in an upright position places unnecessary strain on your back, leading to potentially chronic pain problems if you spend long hours sitting. The study, conducted at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland, was presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
“A 135-degree body-thigh sitting posture was demonstrated to be the best biomechanical sitting position, as opposed to a 90-degree posture, which most people consider normal,” said Waseem Amir Bashir, M.B.Ch.B., F.R.C.R., author and clinical fellow in the Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging at the University of Alberta Hospital, Canada. “Sitting in a sound anatomic position is essential, since the strain put on the spine and its associated ligaments over time can lead to pain, deformity and chronic illness.”
Back pain is the most common cause of work-related disability in the United States, and a leading contributor to job-related absenteeism, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. By identifying bad seating postures and allowing people to take preventative measures to protect the spine, Dr. Bashir and colleagues hope to reduce back strain and subsequent missed work days.
“We were not created to sit down for long hours, but somehow modern life requires the vast majority of the global population to work in a seated position,” Dr. Bashir said. “This made our search for the optimal sitting position all the more important.”
The researchers studied 22 healthy volunteers with no history of back pain or surgery. A “positional” MRI machine was used, which allows patients freedom of motion-such as sitting or standing-during imaging. Traditional scanners have required patients to lie flat, which may mask causes of pain that stem from different movements or postures.
The patients assumed three different sitting positions: a slouching position, in which the body is hunched forward (e.g., hunched over a desk or slouched over in front of a video game console); an upright 90-degree sitting position; and a “relaxed” position where the patient reclines backward 135 degrees while the feet remain on the floor. Measurements were taken of spinal angles and spinal disk height and movement across the different positions.
Spinal disk movement occurs when weight-bearing strain is placed on the spine, causing the internal disk material to misalign. Disk movement was most pronounced with a 90-degree upright sitting posture. It was least pronounced with the 135-degree posture, indicating that less strain is placed on the spinal disks and associated muscles and tendons in a more relaxed sitting position.
The “slouch” position revealed a reduction in spinal disk height, signifying a high rate of wear and tear on the lowest two spinal levels. Across all measurements, the researchers concluded that the 135-degree position fared the best.
As a result, Dr. Bashir and colleagues advise patients to stave off future back problems by correcting their sitting posture and finding a chair that allows them to sit in an optimal position of 135 degrees.
Link…
