In a new study of CAR T-cell therapy for cancer, 93% of patients responded to the treatment.
Two physicians had major roles in a cutting-edge clinical trial using the body’s own immune cells to fight late-stage cancer, one as a researcher and one as a patient.
Senior author Patrick Reagan, an assistant professor of hematology/oncology at University of Rochester Medicine’s Wilmot Cancer Institute, helped run the national clinical investigation of CAR T-cell therapy.
The COVID Voice Detector app uses your smartphone or computer’s microphone to analyse your voice and determine for signs of COVID-19 infection
At a time when every other tech giant or healthcare company is coming up with apps that could diagnose or help you detect whether or not you have coronavirus infection by asking you a bunch of questions on your smartphone, researchers at the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University claim to have created a smartphone app that could determine whether you might have COVID-19 using just your voice.
The team of researchers at CMU Pittsburgh claim that the ‘COVID Voice Detector’ app that they have developed can analyze your voice for any signs of COVID-19 infection, which is a easier and less intrusive way of detection than what the other apps do, asking you to reveal information such as your travel history and stuff.
While governments, international bodies and the public health community scramble to arrest the COVID-19 virus, now a pandemic, and with states of emergency declared nationwide and in Massachusetts, medical experts are still trying to come up with vaccines that can do a better job against various strains of influenza that have sickened and killed people for many decades.
The experts say the effectiveness rate of flu shots should be at least 90% successful.
But data collected for nearly two decades by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention show effectiveness rates often hovers between 40 and 50%.
Data from the 2018-2019 flu season, the most recent set of complete information, first published in June, indicated that a flu shot to prevent influenza A, the H3N2 strain, was only 9% effective in preventing onset of the flu, among all age groups.
Epidemiologists are studying wastewater to gauge rates of COVID-19 infection.
Preliminary findings released this week from a new effort to track the spread of the coronavirus through sewage data suggests that one metro region in Massachusetts that’s reported fewer than 500 positive tests actually may actually have exponentially more.
Last month, Massachusetts lab Biobot Analytics launched a partnership with Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brigham and Women’s Hospital to use its technology pro bono to map and analyze the spread of the virus through wastewater.
A new universal cancer blood test can spot over 50 types of tumors and identify where they are in the body
Cancer is one of humanity’s leading killers, and the main reason for that is it’s often hard to detect until it’s too late. But that might be about to change. Researchers have developed a new type of AI-powered blood test that can accurately detect over 50 different types of cancer and even identify where it is in the body.
There are just so many types of cancer that it’s virtually impossible to keep an eye out for all of them through routine tests. Instead, the disease usually isn’t detected until doctors begin specifically looking for it, after a patient experiences symptoms. And in many cases, by then it can be too late.
Ideally, there would be a routine test patients can undergo that would flag any type of cancer that may be budding in the body, giving treatment the best shot of being successful. And that’s just what the new study is working towards.
Biologists work in a laboratory at Pluristem Therapeutics Inc. in Haifa
Not only have all the patients survived, according to Pluristem, but four of them showed improvement in respiratory parameters.
Six critically ill coronavirus patients in Israel who are considered high-risk for mortality have been treated with Pluristem’s placenta-based cell-therapy product and survived, according to preliminary data provided by the Haifa-based company.
The patients were treated at three different Israeli medical centers for one week under the country’s compassionate use program and were suffering from acute respiratory failure and inflammatory complications associated with COVID-19. Four of the patients also demonstrated failure of other organ systems, including cardiovascular and kidney failure.
Not only have all the patients survived, according to Pluristem, but four of them showed improvement in respiratory parameters and three of them are in the advanced stages of weaning from ventilators. Moreover, two of the patients with preexisting medical conditions are showing clinical recovery in addition to the respiratory improvement.
India becomes the first country to produce high definition images of the coronavirus. A team of scientists from the ICMR-NIV in Pune has come up with this remarkable discovery as the coronavirus pandemic continues claiming lives.
The images have been captured using a transmission electron microscope and have been published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.
The gene sequencing of the samples from Kerala done at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune found that the virus was a 99.98 per cent match with the virus in Wuhan.
Security officers in China are wearing AI-powered smart glasses to find people with a fever, one of the main symptoms of the coronavirus.
The specs use a thermal imaging camera to measure someone’s temperature from up to 1 metre away.
The glasses were developed by AI startup Rokid, which claims each set can check the temperature of several hundred people in just two minutes, the South China Morning Post reports.
When the devices identify someone with a fever, they send an automatic alert to staff and make a digital record.
At present, 170 countries are affected by the pandemic, COVID-19. The rate of infection continues to rise fivefold on a daily basis across the world, and the data continues to highlight the transnational force of contagion. To date, there is no unifying or effective method to treat the disease or its spread, which would need the capacity to reach and save an estimated 5.3 billion people who are expected to contract the illness in the coming months.
The COVID- 19 pandemic we face currently is an important reminder of the power of infectious diseases.
But, in the midst of all this doom and gloom, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted some important lessons for the global health sector. It offers a critical insight into how innovation and advanced technology may better equip and support us as we tackle this global pandemic and handle public health emergencies to contain, mitigate and eradicate the spread of infectious diseases globally.
Yesterday, Swoop Aero took a leading role in global health transformation. We became the first drone logistics company globally to operate a fleet of aircraft from outside the country of operation. We have deployed this capability in order to support the Malawian national government’s health system as they commence their response to the pandemic. With the backing of the College of Medicine and the Malawian Department of Civil Aviation, our ground operations teams, staffed by local Malawians that have been trained over the last few months, made this possible. There were no members of the Australian flight operations team present, as they have all returned to Australia to comply with the government’s strict travel restrictions. The goal of this remotely piloted operation is to support the government’s COVID-19 response following reports of an acceleration of reported cases across the country. It means that our local Malawian ground operations teams are not losing their jobs at a difficult time for the economy. In addition, at a time when normality has been suspended for most, this means that we can continue routine flight operations in our network, delivering essential healthcare supplies for pre-existing communicable diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB.
A cell, in greenish brown, heavily infected with coronavirus particles, in pink.
Such a test may help scientists learn how widespread the infection is, and how long people remain immune after recovering.
A cell, in greenish brown, heavily infected with coronavirus particles, in pink.Credit…Niaid, via Reuters
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a new test for coronavirus antibodies, the first for use in the United States.
Currently available tests are designed to find fragments of viral genes indicating an ongoing infection. Doctors swab the nose and throat, and amplify any genetic material from the virus found there.
Old human cells can become more youthful by coaxing them to briefly express proteins used to make induced pluripotent cells, Stanford researchers and their colleagues have found. The finding may have implications for aging research.
Old human cells return to a more youthful and vigorous state after being induced to briefly express a panel of proteins involved in embryonic development, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The researchers also found that elderly mice regained youthful strength after their existing muscle stem cells were subjected to the rejuvenating protein treatment and transplanted back into their bodies.
The proteins, known as Yamanaka factors, are commonly used to transform adult cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Induced pluripotent stem cells can become nearly any type of cell in the body, regardless of the cell from which they originated. They’ve become important in regenerative medicine and drug discovery.
Right now the world is at war. But this is no ordinary war. It’s a fight with an organism so small we can only detect it through use of a microscope — and if we don’t stop it, it could kill millions of us in the next several decades. No, I’m not talking about COVID-19, though that organism is the one on everyone’s mind right now. I’m talking about antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
You see, more than 700,000 people died globally from bacterial infections last year — 35,000 of them in the U.S. If we do nothing, that number could grow to 10 million annually by 2050, according to a United Nations report.
The problem? Antibiotic overuse at the doctor’s office or in livestock and farming practices. We used a lot of drugs over time to kill off all the bad bacteria — but it only killed off most, not all, of the bad bacteria. And, as the famous line from Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park goes, “life finds a way.”
Enter Felix, a biotech startup in the latest Y Combinator batch that thinks it has a novel approach to keeping bacterial infections at bay – viruses.
