MedTech News
.................... by Andrew Celentano
Moldable gel controls bleeding and supports bone repair in preclinical tests
A research team from the Faculty of Dentistry at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), working in collaboration with Su Ryon Shin’s group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, has advanced and preclinically validated a shape-adaptive hydrogel designed for challenging clinical trauma scenarios involving severe bleeding, irregular bone defects and comminuted fractures.
Skin has a sex: Females and males do not renew their skin in the same way
By filming skin stem cells in living mice over five months, researchers at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, have discovered that in females these cells renew the skin in a more coordinated way than in males. This difference, controlled by sex hormones, goes hand in hand with faster wound healing in female mice. This research could eventually pave the way for personalized treatments taking into account patients’ sex.
Light-activated opioid painkiller may work without dangerous side effects
Opioid painkillers are some of the strongest analgesic medicines, but they are also the riskiest owing to a range of side effects, including addiction. An experimental opioid painkiller designed to be reversibly switched on and off with different light frequencies, keeping its action local and out of the brain, may eliminate the dangerous side effects of current opioids, according to a study led by Weill Cornell Medicine and University of Pennsylvania investigators. The findings herald a broad new approach for targeting medicines more precisely and effectively.
Reprogrammed NK immune cells target cancer and autoimmune disorders
A new approach can program these cells inside the body and shows promise against diseases caused by dysfunctional T cells, including lymphoma and autoimmune hepatitis.
How RNA molecules influence the development of aggressive leukemia
Researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, in collaboration with the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine and St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research, have developed a new analytical method that reveals which RNA molecules are involved in cancer-promoting cellular structures.
Mixed beam measurement method could help make ion cancer therapy more precise
In ion beam therapy, atomic nuclei are accelerated to high energies in a particle accelerator, for example, a synchrotron, and precisely directed at a tumor. There, they damage cancer cells and destroy tumor tissue. This technique is now used at several specialized medical facilities around the world, including MedAustron in Wiener Neustadt, Austria.
Overlooked DNA regions surrounding ‘microexons’ may hold missing pieces of autism’s genetic puzzle
New research from scientists at the University of Toronto, the Sloan Kettering Institute, King’s College London (KCL) and the Francis Crick Institute is helping piece together the missing genetics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Trapping cancer-driving DNA rings outside cell nucleus silences their genes, researchers find
Cells from rapidly growing, highly metastatic tumors often contain numerous rings of extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA). This circular DNA frequently carries oncogenes—genes that promote cancer. Researchers have long sought vulnerabilities in these DNA rings in an effort to stop their harmful activity.