In the halls of Capitol Hill, a rancorous battle rages over how to deliver better healthcare to the public. But in the nation’s biotechnology labs—and in a few overseas—scientists and engineers are staging a quieter revolution in basic patient care. In recent years, interdisciplinary teams of nanoscientists, engineers and surgeons have revolutionized the way we treat some of our most basic injuries—cuts, scrapes and wounds. Their work has lead to wound dressings that dramatically speed clotting, prevent scar formation or encourage healing, as well as new interventions that don’t look anything like your childhood Band-Aids. In many cases, the new bandages look deceptively low-tech. Some of them are already in use, but the incredible new technologies may not even be visible to the patients who wear them.

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s one of the signs of reaching middle-age: the need to wear reading glasses.

An estimated 23 million Britons suffer from presbyopia, or age-related longsightedness.

Now a revolutionary new treatment, involving an operation to insert a plastic implant into the eye, could allow millions to abandon their spectacles.

The procedure will be available to private patients in Britain for the first time from tomorrow. Its promoters predict up to four million Britons – one in six of those who now use reading glasses – will have the operation over the next decade.

Independent experts say that the early signs from trials are promising, although one side effect is a worsening of night vision and there is not yet evidence of what long-term effect the operation might have.

via The £4,000 eye implant to replace reading glasses – Telegraph.

Regenerating blood vessels is important for combating the aftereffects of a heart attack or peripheral arterial disease, and for ensuring that transplanted organs receive a sufficient supply of blood. Now researchers at Northwestern University have created a nanomaterial that could help the body to grow new blood vessels.

Samuel Stupp and his colleagues developed a liquid that, when injected into patients, forms a matrix of loosely tangled nanofibers. Each of these fibers is covered in microscopic protuberances that mimic vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF—a protein that occurs naturally in the body and causes chemical reactions that result in the growth of new blood vessels. By mimicking VEGF, the nanofiber has the same biological effect.

via Nanofiber Regenerates Blood Vessels – Technology Review.

China will spend billions on biotech, even as the industry struggles in the U.S. to turn research into gold…

Click here to read the entire CNN report.

Click here to learn more about biotechnology.

In what can be termed as a breakthrough research in the breast cancer treatment, scientists at the Queen’s University Belfast, in Northern Ireland, have pioneered a new gene technology that can cause breast cancer cells to self destruct.

via Scientists develop new gene technology to aid breast cancer | TheMedGuru.

First millimeter-scale computer has processor, memory, battery, solar cell and radio…

Click here for the complete MSNBC report. You may have to scroll down a bit to see it.

Click here for more information on ubiquitous computing.

Professor Zhipeng Wu at the University of Manchester has developed a novel radiofrequency scanner to be used for real-time breast tumor detection. Unlike traditional mammography, which relies on the varying X-ray attenuation properties of tissues to produce image contrast, the portable scanner uses radiofrequency waves to perform complex permittivity mapping of tissue. Benign and malignant breast tumors have (complex) permittivity characteristics that differ from surrounding tissue, and although the scanner is not able to differentiate between benign and malignant structures, it could prove to be a sensitive and inexpensive screening tool. Such a device could potentially improve breast cancer detection in women under 50 and would be very welcome in the developing world.

via Portable RF Breast Scanner Shows Tumors in Real-time.

Christian Nesheim interviewed David Pearce, George Dvorsky, Michael Anissimov, Phil Bowermaster and Aaron Saenz. The answers they gave him are…

Click here to read their answers.

Click here for more information on future technological developments.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created bio-compatible LED arrays that can bend, stretch, and even be implanted under the skin. While this might cause some people to immediately think “glowing tattoos!”, the arrays are actually intended for activating drugs, monitoring medical conditions, or performing other biomedical tasks within the body. Down the road, however, they could also be incorporated into consumer goods, robotics, or military/industrial applications.

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It revolutionized the way we watch movies, and now, it’s revolutionizing the way doctors treat illnesses. Three-dimension is the new frontier of medicine, according to physicians at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

The new technology called CAVE, which is short for ‘Cave Automatic Virtual Environment’, is essentially a three-dimensional virtual reality room. It projects images on four walls to allow researchers to voyage inside the molecular structure of cells and parts of the human body.

This way, physicians can interact with the data and actually see the cells in their true, 3-D state, which was not possible before.

New Technology Allows Doctors to Take 3-D Tour of Body – FoxNews.com.

A patient who was partially paralysed as a result of an injury to the spinal cord has become the first person to be injected with millions of stem cells derived from early human embryos created by IVF.

Geron Corporation, based in Menlo Park, California, said that it has enrolled the first of several patients in a pioneering study of embryonic stem cells. The phase one clinical trial will attempt to assess whether the novel treatment is safe, rather than effective.

Embryonic stem cells have the proven ability to develop into any of the 200 or more specialised tissues of the body, from insulin-making pancreatic cells to the nerve cells of the brain. Scientists believe they could be used to treat many incurable conditions, from spinal injury to Parkinson’s disease.

via Paralysed man is first to be treated with stem cells from embryo -
Science, News – The Independent.

Researchers at Queen’s University have discovered how molecules in glass or plastic are able to move when exposed to light from a laser. The findings could one day be used to facilitate medicinal drug distribution by allowing doctors to control the time and rate at which drugs are delivered into the body. The drugs, in a solid plastic carrier, could be released through the body when exposed to light.

via New discovery could impact how the body receives medicine.

Botox is best known for its powers to reduce wrinkles. But a new study validates the almost decade-long use of the potent neurotoxin to quell the voice disorder that gives a strained, broken or sometimes breathy tone to people who have the condition, who include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm.

Norman Hogikyan of the University of Michigan followed 42 patients for three years to gauge how long and how well the treatments worked. The study, published in the April issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology, found that patients typically needed follow-up Botox shots two or three times a year but did significantly better both socially and emotionally.

Emotionally is important, because people with the disorder can have voices that sound strangled or as if they are about to cry. Because the disorder is so rare, few physicians are familiar with it.

"It can be misconstrued as an emotional or even psychiatric disorder, but it’s absolutely not that. It’s a neurological-control disorder manifesting in the vocal cords," says Hogikyan, who directs the University of Michigan’s Vocal Health Center.

via USATODAY.com – Botox eases voice disorder.

The cocktail of amino acids – building blocks of proteins – was found to increase the lifespan of mice by 12 per cent. But, more importantly, scientists believe it may also benefit humans, especially the elderly or sick.In a major development, researchers studied mice in laboratory conditions and found the rodents that were given certain chemicals lived longer.In laboratory experiments, middle-aged male healthy mice were given drinking water laced with three specific amino acids.The animals lived significantly longer than other mice fed a normal diet. Their lifespan range had a midpoint of 869 days compared with 774 days for untreated mice – a difference of 12 per cent.

via Scientists discover the elixir of life – The Scotsman.

There is no known cure for food allergies with sufferers forced to constantly check the ingredients on food packaging and make enquiries at restaurants before digging into a meal. Even taking such precautions it is almost impossible to avoid all food allergen exposure, especially with children. With even minor exposure having the potential to cause severe or even life threatening reactions in some people, the discovery of a way to turn off the immune system’s allergic reaction to certain proteins in mice, could have implications for the millions of food allergy sufferers worldwide.

via Researchers discover way to turn off severe allergic reaction to food in mice.