A universal flu vaccine may be possible in five years

Nobody enjoys getting the flu.

Almost everyone has had to deal with the flu sometime in their lives. Flu viruses are almost impossible to avoid, since the shape-shifting little bugger is always changing its form and creating new strains each year. Yet researchers at the Imperial College London say they have made a “blueprint” for a universally effective flu vaccination that will be effective in treating any new strains that come along.

 

 

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New drug cures mice of Down Syndrome in a single dose

With one dose, the brains of the mice grew normally and those mice showed learning abilities like that of their un-affected peers.

There has been good news in medicine recently. Not only is there a vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS in the works, but scientists at John Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health have also recently used a new drug to cure Down Syndrome in baby mice with just one dose. And although the drug has not yet been tested on humans, it still qualifies as an amazing achievement.

 

 

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3D printing body parts will revolutionize medicine

Printing kidneys.

3-D printing has grown over the past two decades from a niche manufacturing process to a $2.7-billion industry, responsible for the fabrication of all sorts of things: toys, wristwatches, airplane parts, food. Now scientists are working to apply similar 3-D–printing technology to the field of medicine, accelerating an equally dramatic change. But it’s much different, and much easier, to print with plastic, metal, or chocolate than to print with living cells.

 

 

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How 3D printing can build new bone using stem cells

Using 3D printing, researchers can create scaffolds to repair/replace bone tissue.

A new technique that involves 3D printing a tissue using living stem cells could repair damaged bones. For example, if a child had a jawbone defect, you could take an image of the defect, feed it into a computer and print a replacement to precisely fill the defect using the patient’s own cells, said Kevin Shakeshaff, a pharmacist at the University of Nottingham in England.

 

 

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Scientists invent injectable oxygen that will let you live without breathing

You may soon breathe underwater by injecting oxygen into your bloodstream.

Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have designed microparticles that can be injected into your bloodstream to quickly oxygenate your body. Even if you can’t/aren’t breathing. And it can keep people alive for 15 to 30 minutes. It’s one of the best medical breakthroughs in recent years, and one that could save millions of lives every year.

 

 

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Doctor’s save baby’s life with a 3D printed trachea splint

3D printed trachea splint

The life of a baby in Michigan was saved by the insertion of a 3-D printed trachea at two months old. The baby was diagnosed with tracheobronchomalacia, a condition in which the airways collapse, not allowing oxygen to enter the lungs.

 

 

 

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Researchers clone human embryonic stem cells

Creating stem cells from skin.

Researchers have converted human skin cells into embryonic stem cells using the same process involved in cloning, which have the capability to turn into any type of cell in the body. Stem cell researchers have reached a long-sought milestone in “regenerative” medicine that seeks to provide rejection-free replacement transplant tissues to patients.

 

 

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40% of chronic back pain patients could be cured with antibiotics

Scientists in Denmark found that 20% to 40% of chronic lower back pain was caused by bacterial infections.

A course of antibiotics instead of surgery could cure up to 40% of patients with chronic back pain, in a medical breakthrough that one spinal surgeon says is worthy of a Nobel prize.

 

 

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Stanford engineers create biological computer

We’re going to be able to put computers inside any living cell you want,” said lead researcher Drew Endy.

A team of engineers at Stanford University have made a simple computer inside a living cell, where it could detect disease, warn of toxic threats and, where danger lurked, even self-destruct cells gone rogue.

 

 

 

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