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Category Archives: Physiology

Applied Research Associates, Inc. Wins Contract to Develop BioGears™, Army’s Human Physiology Engine

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San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 28, 2014

Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA) has been awarded a multiyear, $7 million contract by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) in Fort Detrick, MD under Contract Number: W81XWH-13-2-0068.

A biomedical research team from ARA will develop BioGears, an open-source physiology engine to allow for distributed collaboration and consistent simulation across the medical training community. The BioGears physiology engine will model human response to trauma and treatment and will include physiologically accurate models for multiple systems, including cardiovascular, respiratory, renal and endocrine.

BioGears is based on a common data model that will create standard inputs and outputs, making it easy to extend existing and add new physiology models. BioGears will provide a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for real-time retrieval of accurate physiology state. This allows for easy integration with immersive medical education software built on popular game engines such as the award-winning Unreal Engine technology and Unity game engine. BioGears will be a GCC compliant, C++ library.

Joint Program Committee 1 - Medical Training and Health Information Sciences Research Program (JPC1) and the U.S. Armys Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) will administer the program.

The main goals for BioGears are:

Our team is thrilled to have been selected by TATRC. This project is one of great importance to the medical simulation community and the advancement of immersive medical training technologies. We look forward to creating the most comprehensive, open source mathematical model of human physiology available, said Jerry Heneghan, BioGears principal investigator at ARA.

ARAs biomedical modeling and simulation research group has a proven track record of creating innovative, physiologically accurate mathematical models that drive immersive, game-based medical training technologies. Jerry Heneghan will present on BioGears at the International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) conference on Tuesday, Jan. 28, from 2 to 2:45 p.m. at the Moscone Center West in Interactive Learning Center Room #7.

About Applied Research Associates, Inc.:

Applied Research Associates, Inc. is an international research and engineering company recognized for providing technically excellent solutions to complex and challenging problems in the physical sciences. Our mission is to provide in-depth and diversified research, engineering, and technical support services. We have a broad range of technical expertise in biomedical engineering, defense technologies, civil engineering, computer software and simulation, systems analysis and environmental technologies. For additional information, please visit http://www.ara.com.

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Applied Research Associates, Inc. Wins Contract to Develop BioGears™, Army's Human Physiology Engine

High-Intensity Strength Training Shows Benefit for Parkinson’s Patients

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Newswise BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham say that high-intensity strength training produced significant improvements in quality of life, mood and motor function in older patients with Parkinsons disease. The findings were published Jan. 9 online in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Fifteen subjects with moderate Parkinsons underwent 16 weeks of high-intensity resistance training combined with interval training designed to simultaneously challenge strength, power, endurance, balance and mobility function. Before and after the 16 weeks, the subjects were compared to age-matched controls who did not have Parkinsons and did not undergo the exercise regimen.

We saw improvements in strength, muscle size and power, which we expected after rigorous weight training; but we also saw improvement in balance and muscle control, said Marcas Bamman, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology and lead author of the study. We also saw improvement in cognition, mood and sense of well-being.

Parkinsons disease is a debilitating, neurodegenerative disease that dramatically affects mobility function and quality of life. Patients often experience weakness, low muscle power and fatigue.

Bamman, who heads the UAB Center for Exercise Medicine, devised a strenuous exercise regimen for the participants. Subjects performed three sets of eight to 12 repetitions of a variety of strength training exercises, such as leg or overhead presses, with a one-minute interval between sets for high-repetition, bodyweight exercises, such as lunges or pushups.

We pushed these patients throughout the exercise period, said Neil Kelly, M.A., a graduate student trainee and first author of the study. We used a heart rate monitor to measure exercise intensity keeping the heart rate high through the entire 40-minute session.

Bamman says this was the first study of its kind to look at the biology of the muscles. Biopsies of muscle tissue were collected before and after the 16 weeks.

We found favorable changes in skeletal muscle at the cellular and subcellular levels that are associated with improvements in motor function and physical capacity, Bamman said.

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Science prodigy Jessie MacAlpine, 18, takes on malaria with mustard oil

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Bug enthusiasts who caught the January 2011 edition of the Journal of Insect Physiology may have noticed something odd on page 35, just under the lead scientists name:

Huron Park Secondary School, Woodstock, Ontario, Canada.

Jessie MacAlpine was only a Grade 9 student when she published her first research paper, The effects of CO2 and chronic cold exposure on fecundity of female Drosophila melanogaster.

Today, the 18-year-old is in her first year at the University of Toronto and has moved on to even loftier pursuits. Using a molecular compound she stumbled upon in high school, MacAlpine is developing a potential new drug for malaria, a parasitic disease that infects about 219 million people every year and is growing resistant to available drugs.

If all goes according to plan, MacAlpines drug will be cheap, effective and accessible to people in the developing world. It will also be made from mustard oil.

Globally, were always in desperate need of another anti-malarial product, said Ian Crandall, a U of T professor who has been working with MacAlpine at the Sandra A. Rotman Laboratories, where he is a principal investigator.

The interesting thing about what Jessie has been doing is (that) growing mustard oil is not something that requires a huge facility to do. If its kind of a natural product that can be used to treat malaria, then its something thats worth looking into.

The daughter of an accountant and stay-at-home mom, MacAlpine knew she wanted to be a scientist as early as Grade 2, when she signed one of her homework assignments Dr. Jessie MacAlpine. By the time she graduated high school, she had already won a top prize at an international science fair, launched a research collaboration with U of T scientists and made two interesting discoveries in her basement lab both of which she is now in the process of patenting.

One of her patents is for a bioherbicide, which MacAlpine developed using molecular compounds found in garlic mustard plants and Tim Hortons coffee grounds.

The other is a mustard-oil compound, allyl isothiocyanate the stuff that gives mustard and wasabi its pungent kick which she hopes to develop into a treatment.

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Science prodigy Jessie MacAlpine, 18, takes on malaria with mustard oil

Why we should consider obesity a disease

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Welcome to Health Advisor, where contributors share their knowledge in fields ranging from fitness to psychology, pediatrics to aging. Follow us @Globe_Health.

Is Obesity a disease?

Last year, the American Medical Association officially acknowledged obesity as a disease. Not everyone agrees. There is no doubt that excess weight can cause a wide range of health problems, including heart disease and cancer not unlike smoking. But, while we may consider smoking an addiction, we would hardly consider it a disease. So why should obesity qualify?

There are at least three reasons why obesity is different.

The first is related to the complexity of energy balance. While simplistic notions of balancing calories in and calories out work well in physics, with obesity we are dealing with physiology (which I like to describe as biology messing with physics). Our bodies do a remarkable job of sensing changes in caloric intake or expenditure and show a wide variation in how they respond to such changes.

Overfeeding studies at the Mayo Clinic showed an almost four-fold difference in the amount of weight gained by healthy volunteers who were all fed an extra 1000 calories per day for eight weeks. Similarly, numerous studies have shown that individuals following exactly the same diet or exercise program will vary widely in their weight-loss response.

No amount of binge eating will turn Jack Sprat into a sumo wrestler. Meantime, his wife may well find herself stuck with her own excess weight, no matter how hard she tries to lose it.

Which brings me to the second point: Once established, obesity becomes a chronic problem. This has to do with the fact that our bodies will always defend the highest weight that we have achieved. We refer to this as the set-point. No matter how you got to 200 pounds, once there, it becomes the weight that your physiology will defend (and it will do so most effectively).

We not only have increasingly better insight into exactly how this set-point readjusts to ever-increasing body weight (through a process of inflammation and micro-scarring in the hypothalamus, the brain centre that regulates energy balance) but we also understand many of the hormonal and metabolic changes that occur as our bodies effectively defend their increasing fat mass.

Rather than viewing fat tissue as a simple storage depot for excess calories, we now look at body fat as a complex organ that interacts closely with other organs to maximize and sustain fat stores (perhaps in preparation for the next famine, even if it never comes).

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Why we should consider obesity a disease

New Chair Appointed to Malignant Hyperthermia Advisory Council

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Newswise Robert T. Dirksen, PhD, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at University of Rochester Medical Center has been newly appointed to Chair the Professional Advisory Council (PAC) of the Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the United States (MHAUS).

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Robert Dirksen, Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at University of Rochester, has been appointed as Chair to the Professional Advisory Council (PAC) of the Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the United States (MHAUS), says MHAUS President Henry Rosenberg, MD.

Dr. Dirksen is an outstanding scientist who has focused much of his scientific efforts on understanding the underlying defects in skeletal muscle in patients with Malignant Hyperthermia, Myotonic Dystrophy and Central Core Disease among others. His particular focus has been on understanding the control Calcium movements in muscle and the relation of Calcium movements to abnormal muscle function. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Muscular Dystrophy Association among others. He has published over 80 articles in leading scientific journals in addition to many abstracts, book chapters, and invited lectures.

As Chair of the Professional Advisory Council, Bob will work closely with the President, Executive Director, and Board of MHAUS to assess strengths/opportunities for the PAC; assign specific topics or documents requested for review to the PAC; synthesize PAC comments; keep the Board of Directors updated on research which has the potential to enhance MHAUS mission; advise on parameters for PAC membership and terms of service on the PAC; and be a member of the organizing committee for future scientific conferences.

About the Professional Advisory Council of MHAUS The Professional Advisory Council (PAC) of the Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the United States (MHAUS) are healthcare professionals from throughout the world who are expert in Malignant Hyperthermia and together approve and generate all content published by MHAUS.

What is Malignant Hyperthermia Malignant Hyperthermia (MH) is inherited genetic disorder found in an estimated 1 out of 2,000 people and triggered by certain anesthetics and/or the drug succinylcholine and most often experienced in individuals undergoing routine surgery but in rare cases MH can happen without anesthesia. The disorder is due to abnormally increased levels of cell calcium in the skeletal muscle. Symptoms include body temperature of up to 107 degrees, muscle rigidity, system-wide organ failure, and possible death.

There is mounting evidence that some patients will also develop MH with exercise and/or on exposure to hot environments. Without proper and prompt treatment with dantrolene sodium, mortality is extremely high.

About the Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the United States (MHAUS) MHAUS was founded families who lost their children to MH or could not find information about MH. In 1981 they found each other - and a doctor performing MH testing and agreed to make current information about MH available to all who need it!

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New Chair Appointed to Malignant Hyperthermia Advisory Council


  1. Physiology