Medical

MIT neuroscientists have discovered that brain cells called glial cells play a critical role in controlling appetite and feeding behaviour. In a study of mice, the researchers found that activating these cells stimulates overeating, and that when the cells are suppressed, appetite is also suppressed. The findings could offer scientists a new target for developing drugs against obesity and other appetite-related disorders, the researchers say...

By the end of the year RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG (RKA), a private hospital group in Germany, will begin piloting a Watson-powered cognitive assistance system to help support physicians at the group’s Centre for Undiagnosed and Rare Diseases located at the University Hospital Marburg.

An online game is inviting members of the public to look under a virtual microscope and contribute directly to Alzheimer's disease research at Cornell University. Stall Catchers, a game launched this week by the Human Computation Institute (HCI), challenges users to scroll through short, black-and-white videos and search for clogged blood vessels within a highlighted area. Points are earned as more vessels are identified.

Researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School have developed a biocompatible and highly stretchable optical fibre made from hydrogel — an elastic, rubbery material composed mostly of water. The fibre, which is as bendable as a rope of licorice, may one day be implanted in the body to deliver therapeutic pulses of light or light up at the first sign of disease. The researchers say the fiber may serve as a long-lasting implant that wou...

Leukemia is a disease in which each cell can exhibit different genetic traits, and now KTH researchers have found a cheap way to examine individual leukemia cells. Reported in Nature Communications, the breakthrough could transform leukemia treatment. Cells are packed with genetic information that can be used to improve treatment of diseases such as cancer, but the RNA sequencing methods typically used today have one limitation: they don&rsq...

Bleeding disorders could one day be diagnosed by putting platelets through strength tests, researchers have proposed. Biomedical engineers from Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have devised a microfluidic testing ground where platelets can demonstrate their strength by squeezing two protein dots together. Imagine rows and rows of strength testing machines from a carnival, but very tiny. A platelet is capable of exerti...

In 2014, when University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers announced in the journal Nature Communications that they had developed transparent sensors for use in imaging the brain, researchers around the world took notice. Then the requests came flooding in. “So many research groups started asking us for these devices that we couldn’t keep up,” says Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, the Lynn H. Matthias Professor and Vilas Distinguish...

Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas are trying to develop a wearable device that can monitor an individual's glucose level via perspiration on the skin. In a study recently published online in the journal Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Dr. Shalini Prasad, professor of bioengineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, and her co-authors demonstrated the capabilities of a biosensor they designed to...

Plessey have been shortlisted in the Healthcare Technologies category for its imPulse ECG monitor at The IET (The Institution of Engineering and Technology) Awards 2016. IET’s prestigious annual awards celebrate the best innovations from both industry and academia. The IET highlights landmark work and developments that take place across a number of important areas of science, engineering and technology.

It’s a known fact that cells can move around the body, but how they do it has been unknown – until now. Researcher in Infection Medicine Pontus Nordenfelt at Lund University in Sweden has managed to describe and visualise cell migration on a molecular level. In time, this could become significant in the treatment of infectious diseases, inflammation, cancer, etc. where cell migration plays an important role.