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The Engineer is reporting that the Wellcome Trust has infused £1.6 m to continue the development of the Spidrex regenerative meniscal system. A product of Orthox, an Oxford University spinoff, the strength of the material and its other properties are due to it being produced by extracting long protein chains from silk fibers.
From The Engineer:
Based on 10 years of research by Oxford University, Orthox’s absorbable implant takes over the function of the damaged tissue, removing the need for permanent plastic or metal prosthesis.
The company’s prototype targets the meniscus, a crescent-shaped cartilage pad located where the major bones of the leg connect. It works mainly as a stabilising tissue and is one of the most commonly injured parts of the knee, as well as the most difficult to repair.
A multicenter prospective feasibility study of the Impella 2.5 temporary cardiac assist device (The PROTECT I Trial), published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, has found that the device is “easy to implant, and provides excellent hemodynamic support during high-risk PCI.” That is good news for Abiomed, the manufacturer of the device which is designed to pump blood out of the left ventricle and augment cardiac output by up to 2.5 liters per minute, to provide assistance to patients with severely compromised, depressed hearts. The big trick is now for the company to convince cardiologists that its device is better, and maybe even safer, than commonly used Intra Aortic Baloon Pumps (IABPs). We, of course, have been following the Impella system for many years now, ever since it was a German invention.
From the current study abstract:
The PROTECT I trial enrolled 20 patients undergoing high-risk PCI at seven centers between July 2006 and April 2007. Eligible patients had left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) of less than 35% and were required to undergo PCI on either an unprotected left main coronary artery or the last patent coronary conduit
Methods: In a prospective, multicenter study, 20 patients underwent high-risk PCI with minimally invasive circulatory support employing the Impella 2.5 system. All patients had poor left ventricular function (ejection fraction ≤35%) and underwent PCI on an unprotected left main coronary artery or last patent coronary conduit. Patients with recent ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction or cardiogenic shock were excluded. The primary safety end point was the incidence of major adverse cardiac events at 30 days. The primary efficacy end point was freedom from hemodynamic compromise during PCI (defined as a decrease in mean arterial pressure below 60 mm Hg for >10 min).
Results: The Impella 2.5 device was implanted successfully in all patients. The mean duration of circulatory support was 1.7 ± 0.6 h (range: 0.4 to 2.5 h). Mean pump flow during PCI was 2.2 ± 0.3 l/min. At 30 days, the incidence of major adverse cardiac events was 20% (2 patients had a periprocedural myocardial infarction; 2 patients died at days 12 and 14). There was no evidence of aortic valve injury, cardiac perforation, or limb ischemia. Two patients (10%) developed mild, transient hemolysis without clinical sequelae. None of the patients developed hemodynamic compromise during PCI.
Conclusions: The Impella 2.5 system is safe, easy to implant, and provides excellent hemodynamic support during high-risk PCI. (The PROTECT I Trial; NCT00534859)
Google Health users can now with a simple click make their personal health record available to anyone with an email address. Not surprisingly, the new feature has some privacy advocates up in arms.
More from the official Google blog:
For doctors and family members who are not yet online, we’ve also made it easier to share a hard copy of your information via our new printing feature. The wallet format prints a wallet-sized card that includes a user’s medications, and allergies; the PDF format prints a letter-sized copy of a user’s profile, including medications, allergies, conditions, and treatments.
Finally, we’ve launched a new graphing feature that helps patients visualize their medical test information. This is great for, say, someone who has high cholesterol. They can use Google Health to enter their lab results on a monthly basis and see the trend over time.
Pouyan Mokhtarani, an Iranian jack of all trades designer, generated this interesting look for a rocking chair. Remember, the iPod generation will one day want to rock in something with compatible fashion lines.
This is an anatomic rocking chair. The main idea is taken from a magnificent super human body. This chair is designed in a way that when ever an individual sits on it, he or she will experience the sense of power. This feeling is synonymous to that of a super metaphysic human who can control every surrounding matter. There are 8 liquid pillows in the back which resemble the formation of 8 abdominal muscle packs in human anatomy and two larger liquid pillows in the bottom that resemble the hunkers muscles in the human body.
Caltech neuroscientists analyzed MRI and CT scans of brains of 241 patients from the University of Iowa’s registry of brain lesions. By correlating different types of cognitive ability with injuries in the organ, they were able to build a 3D intelligence map of the brain.
All of the patients had some degree of cognitive impairment from events such as strokes, tumor resection, and traumatic brain injury, as assessed by testing using the WAIS. The WAIS test is composed of four indices of intelligence, each consisting of several subtests, which together produce a full-scale IQ score. The four indices are the verbal comprehension index, which represents the ability to understand and to produce speech and use language; the perceptual organization index, which involves visual and spatial processing, such as the ability to perceive complex figures; the working memory index, which represents the ability to hold information temporarily in mind (similar to short-term memory); and the processing speed index.
The researchers first transferred the brain scans of all 241 patients to a common reference frame, an approach pioneered by neuroscientist Hanna Damasio of the University of Southern California, a coauthor of the study. Using a technique called voxel-based symptom-lesion mapping (a voxel is the three-dimensional analog of a pixel, and represents a volume of about 1 cubic millimeter), Adolphs and his colleagues then correlated the location of brain injuries with scores on each of the four WAIS indices.
“The first question we asked was if there are any parts of the brain that are critically important for these indices or if they are very distributed, with intelligence processed globally in a way that can’t be mapped,” Adolphs [Caltech neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs] says. With the exception of processing speed, which appears scattered throughout the brain, the lesion mapping showed that the other three cognitive indices really do depend on specific brain regions.
For example, lesions in the left frontal cortex were associated with lower scores on the verbal comprehension index; lesions in the left frontal and parietal cortex (located behind the frontal lobe) were associated with lower scores on the working memory index; and lesions in the right parietal cortex were associated with lower scores on the perceptual organization index.
Somewhat surprisingly, the study revealed a large amount of overlap in the brain regions responsible for verbal comprehension and working memory, which suggests that these two now-separate measures of cognitive ability may actually represent the same type of intelligence, at least as assessed using the WAIS.
Researchers from Caltech and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have identified fruit fly neurons that are related to the animal’s sensing of wind conditions. Because unique neurons were identified within a section of the fly’s brain that was thought to have been used for hearing, it is believed that sensory mechanisms are activated depending on which neurons fire rather than the pattern of neuron activations.
HHMI investigator David Anderson became curious about how flies sense wind during a mini-sabbatical from his California Institute of Technology lab in 2003, when he was learning how to use a tube-like device to deliver alcohol vapors to excite Drosophila melanogaster flies. He noticed that the stream of air coming from the tube was enough to stop the flies from walking. The flies resumed walking when he stopped the stream of air.
The behavior was remarkably consistent, but no one in the lab had noticed it before because alcohol excites flies and this had masked their response to the wind. Puzzled by the observation, Anderson searched for relevant articles in the scientific literature to see if anyone else had described this phenomenon. His search turned up only a few papers published decades ago that described this type of behavior in wild Drosophila flies in Hawaii.
In a new study published March 11, 2009, in the journal Nature, Anderson and colleagues have come one step closer to determining how WISL works. Using new genetic tools, they determined that wind-sensing neurons reside in the Johnston’s organ—a hearing organ in the fly’s antenna. What’s more, the Johnston’s organ contains specific cells designated to detect wind and different cells to detect sound.
“Behavioral responses to wind are thought to have a critical role in controlling the dispersal and population genetics of wild Drosophila species, as well as their navigation in flight,” Anderson says. “But the underlying neurobiological basis of these behaviors is unknown.”
The study is the first to demonstrate that Johnston’s organ is directly involved in wind sensing. During earlier experiments, Anderson began to suspect that the organ was involved because when his graduate student Suzuko Yorozu glued the flies’ antennae to their heads or removed segments of the antennae, they stopped responding to wind.
Those observations suggested to Anderson and Yorozu that the flies were either detecting wind using the sensory hairs on their antennae, or using a specific structure in the antennae that senses movement. Yorozu next used genetic techniques to interfere with the function of cells in Johnston’s organ, which is the only known structure in the fly’s antennae. Those genetically manipulated flies could not respond to wind, suggesting that the organ itself is important for wind detection.
Since Johnston’s organ senses both sound and wind, the researchers next asked whether it could tell the two signals apart. With the help of scientists from the University of Tokyo, Yorozu developed flies with genetic alterations that allowed her to visualize the activation of specific groups of neurons using fluorescent proteins. To watch these neurons in a living fly, she cut away a tiny piece of the cuticle that encases the brain.
Looking through this “window” underneath a microscope, Yorozu was able to see which neurons lit up when she exposed a female fly to a stream of air or played the fly a love song – a chirpy mating sound. A bright glow from the neurons indicated that they were receiving a strong activation signal.
Not only did distinct groups of neurons light up for sound and wind, but separate groups of neurons lit up when the air stream came from different directions — either straight-on or at the side of the fly’s head.
Check out this amusing video of wind activated fruit flies:
Angel Medical Systems out of Shrewsbury, New Jersey has begun a Phase II clinical trial of the company’s coronary monitoring system, the AngelMed Guardian. The package includes an implantable monitor, with a lead stretching into the heart, that watches for ST changes in the ECG electrical signal. This unit communicates via Bluetooth with a pager-like device worn by the patient that signals for when it predicts a possible MI onset.
IMD (Implantable Medical Device):
An implanted device which is designed to detect, analyze and store the patient’s electrogram waveforms and other crucial heart-signal data. The IMD vibrates to warn the patient of alarms and alerts.
EXD (External Device):
A hand-held telemetry device that is engineered to warn the patient of alarms and alerts via beeps and flashing LEDs. The EXD is also used for communication between the Programmer and the IMD; transmitting vital cardiac information from the IMD to the Programmer.
Programmer:
A workstation used by the physician to configure the IMD and, when desired, retrieve data from the IMD. It uses the EXD plug-in and long range telemetry technology to communicate with the patient’s IMD.
The Engineer is reporting that the Wellcome Trust has infused £1.6 m to continue the development of the Spidrex regenerative meniscal system. A product of Orthox, an Oxford University spinoff, the strength of the material and its other properties are due to it being produced by extracting long protein chains from silk fibers.
Researchers from Caltech and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have identified fruit fly neurons that are related to the animal’s sensing of wind conditions. Because unique neurons were identified within a section of the fly’s brain that was thought to have been used for hearing, it is believed that sensory mechanisms are activated depending on which neurons fire rather than the pattern of neuron activations.
Angel Medical Systems out of Shrewsbury, New Jersey has begun a Phase II clinical trial of the company’s coronary monitoring system, the AngelMed Guardian. The package includes an implantable monitor, with a lead stretching into the heart, that watches for ST changes in the ECG electrical signal. This unit communicates via Bluetooth with a pager-like device worn by the patient that signals for when it predicts a possible MI onset.
