Last week, we announced our My Medical Museum Contest inviting you to investigate the curious lives of medical gadgets, historical clinicians and much more at your local medical museum.
So come play medical detective with us!
Where, you say? Elementary, my Dear Watson. It could be an overlooked building in the center of your city, or a hospital library. Inside, you’ll find bizarre specimens, VIDs (very important documents), and even mysterious medical gadgets. It’s your perfect excuse to spook little Matthew out (and it’s not even Halloween yet!), throw down bets with cousin Vinny (ahah!) and walk Gramps down medical memory lane (oh the things he never knew!).
So Watson — go sleuthing and enlighten us of your medical museum’s treasures, local medical history and how clinicians and scientists in your area contributed to medicine. Make a presentation and tell us a fascinating story by Sunday, June 27, 2010.
The Grand Prize is a spanking-new Wi-Fi 32GB Apple iPad.
Our only request is that you be creative, learn a lot and have fun!
LINK: My Medical Museum Competition…
Archives: 5/2010
Open Source Drug Discovery May Find Compounds for Malaria, Other Poor Man’s Diseases
by on May 28, 2010 • 12:22 pm
GlaxoSmithKline has begun an experiment with open-source development of malaria drugs by releasing the structural and activity data for 13,500 compounds that may be good candidates for further study. The Wall Street Journal profiles Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD), a Silicon Valley company, that’s hosting much of the data about these compounds. Essentially CDD provides free access to a social network style interface and access to a large database, harnessing the power of groups to find needles in a haystack.
From WSJ:
CDD’s Web service combines elements of a Facebook-like social network with an Oracle-style database. Any researcher who registers on the CDD site will be able to see graphical depictions of Glaxo’s compounds and relevant chemical and biological data. The database will allow them to upload their own data to be viewed by other researchers.
The service is free of charge. If a researcher wants to combine the data with proprietary information, CDD alsooffers a fee-based, secure version of its site that allows researchers to lock up information they want to keep secret.
Researchers including James McKerrow, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, have used CDD since 2007 to share data about diseases including malaria and schistosomiasis, a parasite that can cause liver and kidney damage. The group shared data on tens of thousands of compounds to speed up the process of picking a handful of compounds (for diseases such as malaria) that are the best options to try on animals, Dr. McKerrow said.
Demo of CDD’s software:
Read on at WSJ: Glaxo Tries a Linux Approach
More from CDD: GSK and Online Communities Create Unique Alliance to Stimulate Open Source Drug Discovery for Malaria
Link: CDD Public Access Data
Lumenis Surgical out of Yokneam, Israel will be introducing the VersaPulse P20 holmium laser at the American Urological Association annual meeting that’s starting tomorrow in San Francisco. The system is best suited for treating kidney stones, but can be used for other applications where up to 20 watts of energy is sufficient.
From the press release:
Its compact desktop size features the same gold-standard 20 watt treatments, but now allows it to sit on a desktop or fit within existing video towers for increased mobility.
Lumenis’ VersaPulse P20 boasts the highest power in its class, flexible treatment settings and enhanced visibility.
The PolyScope is an evolutionary step in the advancement in flexible scope technology. The scope features a disposable catheter with a reusable 10,000 pixel fiber optic. This unique concept solves many of the current drawbacks encountered with the use of standard flexible scopes; including the high occurrence of breakage and cost of repair as well as recent contamination issues associated with scope sterilization.
Press release: Lumenis to introduce the VersaPulse® P207trade; holmium laser at the AUA 2010 Annual Meeting…
Product page: VersaPulse P20…
The FDA and NIH have unveiled a new website that will one day be the central place for reporting on safety issues with foods, drugs, devices, and many other products. Currently to properly report on a product requires submitting forms to different agencies and the new website will try to streamline and centralize the process.
From FDA’s press release:
The new Web portal includes different features for different types of reporting:
Reportable Food Registry: Industry will have a more user-friendly electronic portal for submitting reportable food reports that are required by law. This electronic portal collects reports from the food industry and public health officials regarding problems with articles of food, including animal feed, that present a reasonable probability of causing serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. Pets: Pet owners and veterinarians will be able to use the portal to report product problems with pet foods and pet treats. Animal drugs: Animal drug manufacturers can report adverse drug events associated with animal drugs. Clinical Trials: Biomedical researchers involved in human gene transfer clinical trials can report an adverse event, indicating whether it might be an unanticipated consequence of the product being tested. Trial sponsors can use the portal to prepare a report, print it and send it to the agency to satisfy reporting requirements for investigational new drugs. In the future, the system will encompass other types of clinical trials and, eventually, safety problems arising from products regulated by a broad array of federal agencies. This is a first step toward a common electronic reporting system that will offer one-stop shopping, allowing an individual to file a single report to multiple agencies that may have an interest in the event.
Link: Safety Reporting Portal…
Press release: FDA and NIH Launch Electronic Safety Reporting Portal…
Imagine having a metal detector handy when you, as an emergency physician, have an unconscious patient come in and you need to know whether he has an implant. Well, you can sort of do it now with the Metal Detector app for Android phones that have magnetometers (ex: HTC T-Mobile G1). It won’t do quite yet, as the magnetometer that’s typically used as a compass isn’t strong enough to detect keys more than an a couple inches away. But as a preview, we can imagine having one of these apps handy on a future, more magnetically endowed, smart phone.
Students at Harvard Medical School have just launched Third Space, a quarterly literary magazine for the university community that highlights medically related creative work from students and faculty alike. The first edition is spectacular and full of intelligent humor and quality writing. The magazine also features an Art section.
A sample from their comedy advice column, Chief Complaints:
Do you think if I ask more questions in lecture everyone will know how smart I am? I’m worried that people don’t know I read ahead last night!
SmartEPants
Dear SmartEPants,
You have good reason to be worried. For all you know, your fellow students think you’re an idiot, someone accepted to medical school because of political gaming or a computer glitch in the admissions office. Prove them wrong. When you use big words in section, don’t just say them; spell them. If someone offers you a hat, politely accept it, then make a dramatic showing of struggling to fit it on your massive, knowledge-filled head.
I’m not saying you should write your MCAT score on your forehead. That would be absurd, as no one will be able to see it there when you’re busy at the front of the class. Instead, tattoo it to your neck, or have it screen-printed on the back of all the science competition t-shirts you should be wearing.
In lecture, raise your hand, but not to ask questions — those are a sign of knowledge weakness. Instead, correct the professor, or provide semi-related or even unrelated scientific facts that you Googled the night before. No one will expect your comments to be relevant, because you should be sleeping in lecture, a sign that you have nothing to learn from class and need rest from the hours of studying you did the night before. Also, if you rub sand in your eyes they turn red so everyone knows you were working too hard for sleep.
You’ll thank us later.
Third Space
Link: Third Space…
Just when we thought auscultation couldn’t get any more sophisticated than with the Littmann 3200 bluetooth stethoscope and the heart sounds analyzed by the Cardioscan software, Zargis Medical proves us wrong. They have just launched the ZargisTelemed platform, which streams the heart and lung sounds to anywhere in the world. The sounds are transmitted in real-time either over the internet or a private network allowing for remote diagnosis and expert opinions. It can be installed on a private server or accessed from Zargis’ servers. The software is integrated with the Cardioscan heart sounds analysis software and the Zargis StethAssist heart and lung sounds visualization software.
Press release: Zargis Launches Telemedicine System with Real-Time Transmission of Stethoscope Sounds…
Product page: ZargisTelemed…
Games for Health 2010: 2 Years of Competitively Folding Proteins with ‘foldit’
by on May 27, 2010 • 12:23 pm
2 years ago we reported on a protein folding game called foldit. In brief, the program is a game that allows you to manipulate a protein, and gives you more points the more “correct” your protein 3D structure is. The game then shares your results with other players so they can try and improve your protein structure and earn points themselves.
At Games for Health 2010, one of the foldit concept designers presented a retrospective on how the game has fared over the past couple of years. When looking at the demographics of the user base, a large percentage of players had either no biochemistry training or just a class in high school. Surprisingly, many users are in the business and financial sectors.
But the ultimate question lies in if all this gaming and protein folding is even worth it. That question was answered resoundingly in last year’s CASP8 competition. In this competition protein sequences are handed out to various groups who then have to try and determine their 3D structure. The structures of these proteins are already known, so it is a great way to determine which protein folding methods are the best. At the end of the day foldit users beat automated protein-folding computer programs most of the time. Despite the non-scientific backgrounds of most users, foldit has led to correct protein folding solutions even when computers failed.
Looking ahead, the designers want to expand the functionality of the program while streamlining its usage. To hasten the folding process, strategies that are used frequently by human users will be boiled down into “recipes” to automate certain parts of the folding process. In terms of widening the scope, the designers are toying with the idea of DNA binding, and the synthesis of enzymes, drugs, and vaccines.
Download foldit and give it a try!
Games For Health 2010: “Disney-esque” Laparoscopy Game to Train Our Surgeons of Tomorrow… Today!
by on May 27, 2010 • 11:33 am
Serious game development company Grendel Games presented a very unique product today at Games for Health: A laparoscopy training game that has almost nothing to do with laparoscopy. To paint a clearer picture, last time we checked there weren’t any mad scientists, robots, or goop that turn into monsters in laparoscopic procedures. However, this is exactly the point. The speaker, Tim Laning, boldly proclaimed “This is not a simulator, this is a seriously entertaining game.”
He went on to say while ultra-realistic laparoscopy simulators are effective and impressive pieces of technology, they are expensive and more importantly, they aren’t fun. Residents don’t seem to train as much on simulators as they should be. His solution is to create a game that gives the user the psychomotor training he needs to be an effective minimally invasive surgeon, while also being fun and interesting.
The game is in an early prototype phase, and while it will be available for the Wii and the PS3 Move, only the Wii version was demonstrated. As shown in the picture, the hardware utilizes the Wii controllers to translate the motion of the laparoscopy tools to the game on-screen.
In order to prove its effectiveness Grendel Games is piloting a study to compare people using their software, people using 3D simulators, and people with no training at all.
While Grendel Games wants surgeons to train using their software, they are also targeting the retail market. They figure that young budding surgeons-to-be can get a head start and would be willing to shell out a little bit of extra dough for the unique hardware set-up.
This idea is definitely an astonishingly unique take in the highly active field of minimally invasive surgery training. While the prototype is still too early to make any judgments, we worry that it might be a bit too out there for established surgeons and residents, and might be a little too complex for the average retail customer. We hope for the best for Grendel and will continue to follow this brilliant and innovative technology.
Unfortunately, the demo wasn’t working quite right. See a video of the simulator in action (somewhat) below:
Link: Grendel Games
