Knight Cancer Institute nabs San Diego tech star – Portland Business Journal

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Knight Cancer Institute nabs San Diego tech star
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Oregon Health & Science University's Knight Cancer Institute is adding a technology expert to its growing team. Mike Heller, a specialist in bioengineering coming from the University of California, San Diego, will head technology efforts for the ...
Technology expert joins the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute's center for cancer early detectionPR Newswire (press release)

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Bioengineers create more durable, versatile wearable for diabetes … – Phys.Org

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June 23, 2017 Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas have developed a wearable diagnostic biosensor that can detect three interconnected, diabetes-related compounds -- cortisol, glucose and interleukin-6 -- in perspired sweat for up to a week without loss of signal integrity. The team envisions that their wearable devices will contain a small transceiver to send data to an application installed on a cellphone. Credit: University of Texas at Dallas

Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas are getting more out of the sweat they've put into their work on a wearable diagnostic tool that measures three diabetes-related compounds in microscopic amounts of perspiration.

"Type 2 diabetes affects so many people. If you have to manage and regulate this chronic problem, these markers are the levers that will help you do that," said Dr. Shalini Prasad, professor of bioengineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. "We believe we've created the first diagnostic wearable that can monitor these compounds for up to a week, which goes beyond the type of single use monitors that are on the market today."

In a study published recently in Scientific Reports, Prasad and lead author Dr. Rujute Munje, a recent bioengineering PhD graduate, describe their wearable diagnostic biosensor that can detect three interconnected compounds - cortisol, glucose and interleukin-6 - in perspired sweat for up to a week without loss of signal integrity.

"If a person has chronic stress, their cortisol levels increase, and their resulting insulin resistance will gradually drive their glucose levels out of the normal range," said Prasad, Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science. "At that point, one could become pre-diabetic, which can progress to type 2 diabetes, and so on. If that happens, your body is under a state of inflammation, and this inflammatory marker, interleukin-6, will indicate that your organs are starting to be affected."

Last October, Prasad and her research team confirmed they could measure glucose and cortisol in sweat. Several significant advances since then have allowed them to create a more practical, versatile tool.

"We wanted to make a product more useful than something disposable after a single use," Prasad said. "It also has to require only your ambient sweat, not a huge amount. And it's not enough to detect just one thing. Measuring multiple molecules in a combinatorial manner and tracking them over time allows us to tell a story about your health."

One factor that facilitated their device's progress was the use of room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL), a gel that serves to stabilize the microenvironment at the skin-cell surface so that a week's worth of hourly readings can be taken without the performance degrading over time.

"This greatly influences the cost model for the deviceyou're buying four monitors per month instead of 30; you're looking at a year's supply of only about 50," Prasad said. "The RTIL also allows the detector to interface well with different skin typesthe texture and quality of pediatric skin versus geriatric skin have created difficulties in prior models. The RTIL's ionic characteristics make it somewhat like applying moisturizer to skin."

Prasad's team also determined that their biomarker measurements are reliable with a tiny amount of sweatjust 1 to 3 microliters, much less than the 25 to 50 previously believed necessary.

"We actually spent three years producing that evidence," Prasad said. "At those low volumes, the biomolecules expressed are meaningful. We can do these three measurements in a continuous manner with that little sweat."

Prasad envisions that her wearable devices will contain a small transceiver to send data to an application installed on a cellphone.

"With the app we're creating, you'll simply push a button to request information from the device," Prasad said. "If you measure levels every hour on the hour for a full week, that provides 168 hours' worth of data on your health as it changes."

That frequency of measurement could produce an unprecedented picture of how the body responds to dietary decisions, lifestyle activities and treatment.

"People can take more control and improve their own self-care," Prasad said. "A user could learn which unhealthy decisions are more forgiven by their body than others."

Prasad has emphasized "frugal innovation" throughout the development process, making sure the end product is accessible for as many people as possible.

"We've designed this product so that it can be manufactured using standard coating techniques. We made sure we used processes that will allow for mass production without adding cost," Prasad said. "Our cost of manufacturing will be comparable to what it currently takes to make single-use glucose test stripsas little as 10 to 15 cents. It needs to reach people beyond America and Europeand even within first-world nations, we see the link between diabetes and wealth. It can't simply be a small percentage of people who can afford this."

Prasad was motivated to address this specific problem in part by her own story.

"South Asians, like myself, are typically prone to diabetes and to cardiovascular disease," Prasad said. "If I can monitor on a day-to-day basis how my body is responding to intake, and as I age, if I can adjust my lifestyle to keep those readings where they need to be, then I can delay getting a disease, if not prevent it entirely."

For Prasad, the latest work is a fulfilling leap forward in what has already been a five-year process.

"We've been solving this problem since 2012, in three phases," Prasad said. "The initial concept for a system level integration of these sensors was done in collaboration with EnLiSense LLC, a startup focused on enabling lifestyle based sensors and devices. In the market, there's nothing that is a slap-on wearable that uses perspired sweat for diagnostics. And I think we are the closest. If we find the right partner, then within a 12-month window, we hope to license our technology and have our first products in the market."

Explore further: Bioengineers create sweat-based sensor to monitor glucose

More information: Rujuta D. Munje et al, A new paradigm in sweat based wearable diagnostics biosensors using Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (RTILs), Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-02133-0

Like driving a car despite a glowing check-engine light, large buildings often chug along without maintenance being performed on the building controls designed to keep them running smoothly.

Google said Friday it would stop scanning the contents of Gmail users' inboxes for ad targeting, moving to end a practice that has fueled privacy concerns since the free email service was launched.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas are getting more out of the sweat they've put into their work on a wearable diagnostic tool that measures three diabetes-related compounds in microscopic amounts of perspiration.

Microphones, from those in smartphones to hearing aids, are built specifically to hear the human voicehumans can't hear at levels higher than 20 kHz, and microphones max out at around 24 kHz, meaning that microphones only ...

Researchers at the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a novel design approach for exoskeletons and prosthetic limbs that incorporates direct feedback from the human body. The findings were ...

In a proof-of-concept study, North Carolina State University engineers have designed a flexible thermoelectric energy harvester that has the potential to rival the effectiveness of existing power wearable electronic devices ...

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Virtual competitors vie for a different kind of athletic title | Stanford … – Stanford University News

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Modeling the walk

Kidziski works in the lab of Scott Delp, a professor of bioengineering and of mechanical engineering who has spent decades studying the mechanics of the human body. As part of that work, Delp and his collaborators have collected data on the movements and muscle activity of hundreds of individuals as they walk and run.

With data like that, Delp, Kidziski and their team can build accurate models of how individual muscles and limbs move in response to signals from the brain.

But what they could not do was predict how people relearn to walk after surgery because, as it turns out, no one is quite sure how the brain controls complex processes like walking, let alone walking through the obstacle course of daily life or relearning how to walk after surgery.

Whereas weve gotten quite good at building computational models of muscles and joints and bones and how the whole system is connected how the human machine is built an open challenge is how your brain orchestrates and controls this complex dynamic system, Delp said.

Machine learning, a variety of artificial intelligence, has reached a point where it could be a useful tool for modeling of the brains movement control systems, Delp said, but for the most part its practitioners have been interested in self-driving cars, playing complex games like chess or serving up more effective online ads.

The time was right for a challenge like this, Delp said, in part because some in the machine learning community are looking for more meaningful problems to work on, and because bioengineers stand to gain from understanding more about machine learning. His labs most successful efforts to model human movement have come from efforts to represent neural control of movement, Delp said, and machine learning is likely a realistic way to think about learning to walk.

So far, 63 teams have submitted a total of 145 ideas to Kidziskis competition, which is one of five similar contests created for the 2017 Neural Information Processing Systems conference. Kidziski supplies each team with computer models of the human body and the world that body must navigate, including stairs, slippery surfaces and more. In addition to external challenges, teams also face internal ones, such as weak or unreliable muscles. Each team is judged based on how far its simulated human makes it through those obstacles in a fixed amount of time.

Kidziski and Delp hope that more teams will join their competition, and with about two months remaining, they hope that at least a few teams will overcome all the various virtual obstacles thrown in their way. (No one has done so yet the top teams have for the most part conquered walking, but none has attempted the more athletic maneuvers.) The challenge, Kidziski said, is very computationally expensive.

In the long run, Kidziski said he hopes the work may benefit more than just kids with cerebral palsy. For example, it may help others design better-calibrated devices to assist with walking or carrying loads, and similar ideas could be used to find better baseball pitches or sprinting techniques.

But, Kidziski said, he and his collaborators have already created something important: a new way of solving problems in biomechanics that looks to virtual crowds for solutions.

Delp is the James H. Clark Professor in the School of Engineering and a member of Stanford Bio-X and the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. Graduate student Carmichael Ong, postdoctoral fellow Jason Fries, Mobilize Center Director of Data Science Jennifer Hicks and Mohanty Sharada coordinated the project. Sergey Levine, Marcel Salath and Delp serve as advisors

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DST supporting technology for capturing and inactivation of coronavirus – Devdiscourse

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Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a statutory body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), is supporting technology by the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering (DBB), IIT Bombay for capturing and inactivation of a novel coronavirus, the causative agent of COVID-19.

The funding will help the team from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay develop a gel that can be applied to the nasal passage, which is a major entry point of the coronavirus. This solution is not only expected to protect the safety of health workers but can also lead to a reduction in community transmission of COVID-19, thereby helping disease management.

Given the contagious nature of COVID-19, health providers including doctors and nurses are at maximum risk while taking care of COVID-19 patients, particularly asymptomatic ones who cannot be detected and pose a greater risk in spreading the disease.

The team is planning a 2-pronged approach to limit transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of COVID-19. Primarily, since viruses replicate within host cells of the lungs, the first component of the strategy will be to inhibit the binding of viruses to host cells. While this is expected to reduce host cell infection, viruses will still remain active, therefore, raising the need to inactivate them.

Secondly, biological molecules would be incorporated, which would inactivate the trapped viruses in a manner similar to that of detergents. Upon completion, this approach will lead to the development of gels that can be locally applied in the nasal cavity.

Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST said, "Our health care workers and others working in the front-line of fight against the virus deserve a fool-proof, 200% protection. The nasal gel being developed in conjunction with other protective measures will provide a strong extra layer of defense",

Prof. Kiran Kondabagil, Prof. Rinti Banerjee, Prof. Ashutosh Kumar and Prof. Shamik Sen from the Dept. of Biosciences & Bioengineering at IIT Bombay will be part of this project. The team has expertise in the areas encompassing virology, structural biology, biophysics, biomaterials, and drug delivery and it is expected that the technology would be ready in about 9 months.

(With Inputs from PIB)

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DRDO at the forefront of fighting Covid-19 – – Defence Aviation Post

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In a bid to fight against the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation), using its scientific endeavour, has developed a host of protective equipment, ventilators and sanitisation equipment for helping the frontline workers.

The DRDO has developed 11 such products to combat the coronavirus. These products include visor-based full-face shield, isolation shelter, mobile area sanitisation system, advanced N99 masks, personal sanitisation equipment, portable backpack area sanitisation equipment, advanced PPEs (Personal Protection Equipment) for doctors and frontline health workers, ventilators and sanitisers.

With an anticipation of a growing need for ventilators in the coming days for patients fighting the coronavirus, the DRDOs Defence Bioengineering and Electromedical Laboratory in Bangalore, in partnership with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Scanray Pvt Ltd in Mysuru, will develop modern and portable ventilators at the earliest.

And, according to sources in the DRDO, works on the development of such ventilators are progressing and each scientist and technician is working to come up with the best and most advanced form of ventilator. Apart from this, a personal sanitisation equipment which is a full body disinfection chamber has been developed by the DRDOs Vehicle Research and Development Establishment laboratory in Ahmednagar. This personal sanitisation equipment, which is currently being used at the entrance of many markets across the country, is a walk-through full body disinfection chamber. It is a portable system equipped with sanitiser and soap dispenser.

The decontamination is started using a foot pedal at the entry. On entering the chamber, an electrically operated pump creates a disinfectant mist of hypo sodium chloride for disinfecting. The mist spray is calibrated for an operation of 25 seconds and stops automatically, indicating completion of operation.

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IIT Guwahati Researchers Develop Affordable Antiviral Spray-based Coating For PPE – Swachh India NDTV

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Highlights

Guwahati: In an attempt to safeguard healthcare workers and citizens from coronavirus, a team of researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati have developed an affordable antimicrobial spray-based coating for PPE kits to kill and prevent the spread of microbes once they come in contact with the coated PPE surface. They have also developed 3D printed ear guard for the comfortable use of face masks by healthcare workers, said IIT Guwahati in a statement.

Also Read: Taking Cue From Other Countries, Centre Launches Arogya Setu Mobile App To Monitor Coronavirus Cases, Curb Transmission

In a press release, IIT Guwahati said that the concepts were developed by Dr Biman B. Mandal, Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Guwahati, along with his Ph.D. scholars, Bibhas K. Bhunia and Ashutosh Bandyopadhyay.

Talking about the work, Dr. Biman B. Mandal, Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Guwahati, said, Effective yet affordable technologies are need of the hour for India. We at IIT-G under the leadership of our Director, Prof. T.G. Sitharam, are committed to contribute to the nations immediate need at this hour of COVID-19 crisis.

Also Read:Combating COVID-19: Thermal Screening By Drone In Delhi Begins

PPEs that are being used presently are designed to protect the wearer from infectious microbes/aqueous virus droplets acting as a barrier.

However, these PPE, generally, do not have the ability to prevent the spread of microbes as the surface of the fabric readily allows adherence and accumulation of microbes with time. This leads to further spread of the microbes due to the negligent handling of PPE and wrong disposal protocols, said IIT Guwahati.

Also Read:Former Miss World Manushi Chhillar Raises Awareness About COVID-19 Through UNICEF Campaign

The strategic association of metal nanoparticle cocktail, such as copper, silver and other active ingredients, present in the spray acts as an antimicrobial agent.

This ensures limited penetration and accumulation of microbial contaminants on PPE. Thus, the coating has the potential to reduce the risk of secondary infection by limiting the transmission of the microbes.

Also Read:Goa Government To Conduct Door To Door Survey To Identify Possible COVID-19 Patients

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IIT Guwahati Researchers Develop Affordable Antiviral Spray-based Coating For PPE - Swachh India NDTV

Exclusive: How far are we from lab-grown organs? This Y Combinator startup is printing a road map – FierceBiotech

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Thirty years ago, when the field of tissue engineering beginning to coalesce, experts predicted we were just a couple decades away from creating brand-new organs for patients. After all, replacement parts made of plastic or metal had become a realityjust ask the millions of people living with knee or hip replacements.

So, why arent we, in 2020, growing replacement lungs, livers and kidneys to fill the gap that donor organs cant address?

People asked that question back when tissue engineering was being defined in the 90s, said Jordan Miller, Ph.D., an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice University. They said: Weve got a scaffold, weve got cells and weve got growth factorsso, give me a liver, then.

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Growing new organs turned out to be a little further off than anyone thought, chiefly because weve learned a lot that we didnt know we didnt know, said Miller. But, thanks to advances in technology, he believes the field is in striking distance this decade.

There are thousands of labs working to make better cells that could eventually work the way natural organs do. But figuring out the best medium to grow cells in or the best recipe of nutrients to feed them are just pieces of the puzzle. Those cells need to be organized in the right way for them to work properly.

You can grow billions of cells in a lab. You can grow hundreds of billions of cells, all flat at the bottom of a petri dish, Miller said. But put them in 3D, in a scaffold with factors, they will die if theyre any bigger than about half a millimeter.

Whats missing, Miller says, is architecture: If you dont have it, you cant get nutrients to cells and cells will die.

RELATED:3D printing lungs using blue light, hydrogel and 'yellow dye #5'

And thats where Volumetric, the startup Miller co-founded with Bagrat Grigoryan, Ph.D., comes in. While others work to solve the cell-sourcing question, as Miller puts it, Volumetric is focused on the architecture those cells will be put into to become tissues, and then organs. It started out with $150,000 in seed funding from Y Combinator and stands to reel in more after pitching its work to investors at the accelerator's Demo Day this week.

He likens building an organ to building a city. The same way cities need roadways to deliver food and remove waste, organs need blood vessels. And, depending on what they do, different organs have additional roadways: The lungs move air through their airways and the kidneys move urine through the urinary tree. Volumetric is using 3D bioprinting to create road maps for these organs.

Instead of 3D-printing hard plastics or metals, Volumetric is using water-based materials to make parts that are biocompatible with the body, mimicking the water content and stiffness of human organs.

What we have been able to do is make the first vascular unit cell for lung tissue in a material that is mostly water, Miller said. He means the smallest building block that, by itself, has organ-level function. In the lung, thats the air sac. In a paper published in Science last May, Volumetric described a hydrogel with the roadways for an air sac and surrounding blood vessel network. It has worked with a small model of the liver lobule and is looking into pancreatic islets and kidney glomeruli.

Theres still some work between these unit cells and a functioning organ. For starters, Volumetric needs to scale up its single air sac to 600 million air sacs to reproduce the function of a lung. And, down the road, it will need to find the cells to put into its architecture to make these new organs.

The beauty of doing architecture is we can give those architectures out to labs all around the world to do studies with. That way, the scientific community together can find the solution, Miller said. Its not only less money we need to raise, but its better because we can try more things.

RELATED:Researchers build 3D-printed heart out of patient's donor cells

And those labs arent the only avenue for collaboration: Volumetrics technology could help companies improve the drug development process. Instead of testing their prospects in animal models that may not translate to humans, they could test them in engineered tissues and organs.

Were talking with pharma companies right now to identify their needs for 3D human-like architecture and their drug development pipeline. That is a very important problem because a lot of drugs fail at the phase 3 clinical trial. If you cant get efficacy at that level, you cant go to market, Miller said.

Research applications aside, he figures the first therapeutic use of Volumetrics technology may be in bridging treatments, which keep patients with failing organs alive long enough to receive a donor organ.

An analogy we like is the left ventricular assist device (LVAD) for someone who needs a heart transplant but is not able to get one because supply is low. Sometimes, it may be appropriate to give them an LVAD, Miller said. Its not a heart replacement, but its a heart assist device that buys them more time.

Ultimately, though, Volumetric exists so that organ donation will become a thing of the past. A potential benefit of its technology would be to grow organs for patients using their own cells, resulting in a perfect match and eliminating the need for lifelong immunosuppressive therapy. And creating bespoke organs would solve multiple problems stemming from the shortage of donor organs.

There are very difficult ethical issues that have to be wrestled with, with a limited supply, Miller said.

You have to be quite sick to be on the organ donation waitlist, he said. But there is a whole class of conditions that would preclude someone from being on that listpeople with cancer, for example, or those with alcohol-related liver damage who dont meet certain criteria for a transplant.

The duo sees their work as the logical next step in the evolution of therapies for human disease. Treatments have evolved from small molecules to biologics, antibodies and cell therapies.

At Volumetric, we are working on the next stages after that: tissue-level, then organ-level therapies The potential is to make replacement organs for a patient from their own stem cells and in a way that the organ would be so compatible with their body that it would eventually become a part of their body and not have to be replaced, Miller said.

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Exclusive: How far are we from lab-grown organs? This Y Combinator startup is printing a road map - FierceBiotech

This Professor Is Very Excited to Teach in Front of a Hogwarts Backdrop For a Few Weeks – POPSUGAR

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William Grover, an associate professor of bioengineering at the University of California, is spreading some seriously magical vibes to all the educators who have to teach their courses from home for the foreseeable future. In an insanely wholesome tweet, he shared that teachers can choose their own backgrounds using the video conferencing site Zoom. And his pick? Hogwarts, of course.

"A [pro tip] for my fellow professors plunging into online education: Zoom lets you select a 'virtual background,'" he wrote. "I'm looking forward to lecturing at Hogwarts this Spring." During times like these, it's important to appreciate the little things that get you through the day, and this discovery certainly falls into that category.

And parents, if you're finding yourself having to temporarily educate your kids at home, check out these free resources and educational shows for inspiration.

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This Professor Is Very Excited to Teach in Front of a Hogwarts Backdrop For a Few Weeks - POPSUGAR

The New Study finds a New Biomarker in Blood for Early Detection of Alzheimer’s disease – TheHealthMania

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A new study published in the journal Current Biology by the researchers at the University of California San Diego discovers that high blood levels of RNA delivered by the PHGDH gene could fill in as a biomarker for early recognition of Alzheimers disease. The work could prompt the advancement of a blood test to distinguish people who will build up the disease years before the side effects shown by them.

The proteins and RNA that are produced by the PHGDH gene are basic for mental health and functions in newborn children, kids and teenagers. As individuals get older, the gene ordinarily inclines down its creation of these proteins and RNAs.

Study in detail here.

The lead author of the study is a professor of bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering in collaboration, Sheng Zhong proposes that the PHGDH gene causes the overproduction of a kind of RNA, called extracellular RNA (exRNA) that could give an early admonition indication of Alzheimers ailment in older people.

Read more-New Research Shows Air Pollution Is One of the Top Causes of Death Worldwide

Sheng Zhong tells that A few realized changes related with Alzheimers ailment for the most part appear around the hour of clinical finding, which is excessively late. Researchers suspected that there is an molecular predictor that would show up a long time previously, and that is the thing that persuaded this investigation

This discovery is just made due to a technique created by Zhong and colleagues that is sufficiently enough to succession countless exRNAs in under one drop of blood. The strategy, named SILVER-SEQ, was utilized to examine the exRNA profiles in blood tests of more than thirty old people 70 years and those who were checked as long as 15 years before death.

The outcomes indicated a precarious increment in PHGDH exRNA creation in all converters roughly two years before they were clinically determined to have Alzheimers. PHGDH exRNA levels were on normal higher in Alzheimers patients. An expanding pattern wasnt shown in the controls, aside from in one control that got named a converter.

Zhong further tells that the scientists noted some vulnerability in regards to the irregular converter. Since the subject died at some point during the 15-year checking, it is indistinct whether that individual would have undoubtedly built up Alzheimers if the person lived longer.

The co-first author, Zixu Zhou who is a bioengineering alumnus from Zhongs lab, explains that this is a review study dependent on clinical subsequent meet-ups from the past, not a randomized clinical preliminary on a bigger sample size. So researchers are not yet calling this a checked blood test for Alzheimers disease.

In this study, the data from clinically gathered samples strongly bolster the revelation of a biomarker for anticipating the development of Alzheimers disease. In addition to randomized preliminaries, future examinations will incorporate testing if the PHGDH biomarker can be utilized to recognize patients who will react to drugs for Alzheimers ailment.

Read more-The New Study Finds that Psychiatric disorders Cause Pregnancy Issues

The team is also open to collaborating with Alzheimers research groups that might be interested in testing and validating this biomarker.

The studys team is also working together with Alzheimers research group that may be keen on testing and approving this biomarker.

Koo tells that if the outcomes of this study can be recreated by different centres and extended to more cases, at that point it recommends that there are biomarkers outside of the brain that are modified before clinical disease onset and that these progressions additionally foresee the conceivable onset or development of Alzheimers malady.

If this PDGDH signal is demonstrated to be precise, it tends to be very educational for diagnosis and treatment response for Alzheimers examination.

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The New Study finds a New Biomarker in Blood for Early Detection of Alzheimer's disease - TheHealthMania

Study maps landmarks of peripheral artery disease to guide treatment development – University of Illinois News

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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Novel biomedical advances that show promise in the lab often fall short in clinical trials. For researchers studying peripheral artery disease, this is made more difficult by a lack of standardized metrics for what recovery looks like. A new study from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers identifies major landmarks of PAD recovery, creating signposts for researchers seeking to understand the disease and develop treatments.

Having these landmarks could aid in more optimal approaches to treatment, identifying what kind of treatment could work best for an individual patient and when it would be most effective, said Illinois bioengineering professor Wawrzyniec L. Dobrucki, who led the study. He also is affiliated with the Carle Illinois College of Medicine.

PAD is a narrowing of the arteries in the limbs, most commonly the legs, so they dont receive enough blood flow. It often isnt diagnosed until walking becomes painful, when the disease is already fairly advanced. Diabetes, obesity, smoking and age increase the risk for PAD and can mask the symptoms, making PAD difficult to diagnose. Once diagnosed, there is no standard treatment, and doctors may struggle to find the right approach for a patient or to tell whether a patient is improving, Dobrucki said.

The researchers used multiple imaging methods to create a holistic picture of the changes in muscle tissue, blood vessels and gene expression through four stages of recovery after mice had the arteries in their legs surgically narrowed to mimic the narrowing found in PAD patients. They published their results in the journal Theranostics.

There are a lot of people who study PAD, so there are all these potential new therapies, but we dont see them in the clinics, said postdoctoral researcher Jamila Hedhli, the first author of the paper. So the main goal of this paper is utilizing these landmarks to standardize our practice as researchers. How can we see if the benefit of certain therapies is really comparable if we are not measuring the same thing?

The cross-disiplinary collaboration identified landmarks over four stages of disease recovery. Pictured, from left: senior research scientist Iwona Dobrucka, professor Jefferson Chan, postdoctoral researcher Jamila Hedhli, graduate student Hailey Knox, professor Wawrzyniec Dobrucki, professor Michael Insana, adjunct John Cole.

Photo by Fred Zwicky

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Dobruckis group collaborated with bioengineering professor Michael Insana, chemistry professor Jefferson Chan and senior research scientist Iwona Dobrucka, the director of the Molecular Imaging Laboratory in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, to monitor the mice with a suite of imaging technologies that could be found in hospitals or clinics, including ultrasound, laser speckle contrast, photoacoustics, PET and more. Each method documented a different aspect of the mouses response to the artery narrowing anatomy, metabolism, muscle function, the formation of new blood vessels, oxygen perfusion and genetic activity.

By serially imaging the mice over time, the researchers identified key features and events over four phases of recovery.

Each imaging method gives us a different aspect of the recovery of PAD that the other tools will not. So instead of looking at only one thing, now were looking at a whole spectrum of the recovery, Hedhli said. By looking at these landmarks, were allowing scientists to use them as a tool to say At this point, I should see this happening, and if we add this kind of therapy, there should be an enhancement in recovery.

Though mice are an imperfect model for human PAD, each of the imaging platforms the researchers used can translate to human PAD patients, as well as to other diseases, Dobrucki said. Next, the researchers plan to map the landmarks of PAD in larger animals often used in preclinical studies, such as pigs, and ultimately in human patients.

We are very interested in improving diagnosis and treatment, Hedhli said. Many people are working to develop early diagnosis and treatment options for patients. Having standard landmarks for researchers to refer to can facilitate all of these findings, move them forward to clinic and, we hope, result in successful clinical trials.

The National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland supported this work. Chan, Dobrucki, Hedhli and Insana also are affiliated with the Beckman Institute. Hedhli was supported by a Beckman-Brown Postdoctoral Fellowship.

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Study maps landmarks of peripheral artery disease to guide treatment development - University of Illinois News

Wuhan virus: China may have just accepted that the ‘man-made’ coronavirus escaped its biowarfare lab – International Business Times, Singapore Edition

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Japanese app to seek advise on Coronavirus

Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, several theories had pointed towards the fact that the novel coronavirus strain - COVID 19, which has now become a global epidemic was a bioengineered weapon that had escaped from a lab in Wuhan.

If evidence is to be believed this man-made plague may unwittingly have been unleashed on the population of China by its own government.

Last Friday, Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping called an emergency meeting following which the country's leadership has issued directives to all the bioengineering labs in the country including those in Wuhan to adhere to strict protocols.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping though never accepted that the coronavirus was manufactured in its lab in Wuhan said that a system should be set up to prevent similar epidemics in the future.

Jinping ordered that a national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place "to protect the people's health."

Soon after this, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a directive that laid out "Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus."

Experts are of the opinion that this definitely is proof that China unleashed the coronavirus plague that has killed thousands in China and is threatening to become a global epidemic.

Steven W. Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute wrote in NYPost the directive issued by the government to the labs is suggestive of its guilty, especially as there is only one lab capable of handling "advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus" and this one is located in Wuhan.

"It turns out that in all of China there is only one. And this one is located in the Chinese city of Wuhan that just happens to be ... the epicenter of the epidemic. That's right. China's only Level 4 microbiology lab that is equipped to handle deadly coronaviruses, called the National Biosafety Laboratory, is part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology," he wrote.

If the directive wasn't proof enough, now it has emerged that the People's Liberation Army's top biological warfare expert, Major General Chen Wei has been deputed to Wuhan at the end of January to help with the effort to contain the outbreak.

Major General Chen has been researching coronaviruses since the SARS outbreak of 2003 and it is understood that it is now her job to contain the spread of the virus.

And she will be working out of the bioengineering lab at Wuhan to find out ways to contain the spread - the same lab from where the COVID 19 is suspected to have escaped.

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Wuhan virus: China may have just accepted that the 'man-made' coronavirus escaped its biowarfare lab - International Business Times, Singapore Edition

Bioengineering | College of Engineering – UMass Dartmouth

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At the intersection of engineering, biology and chemistry, youll discover one of the fastest-growing engineering disciplines: bioengineering. Bioengineering is among the fastest-growing engineering disciplines with a high demand in the medical sector.

Bioengineers design and develop devices, systems, and techniques to improve patient diagnosis, treatment, and care. They utilize biotechnology to produce personalized drugs, to make biofuels and biopolymers, to engineer tissues to replace damaged organs, to grow human tissue for drug testing, and to create new diagnostic techniques.

UMassD's bioengineering program brings together the life sciences, medicine, and engineering to provide a solid academic foundation and a broad interdisciplinary approach to the field. You will:

Bioengineering is creating its own frontiers of development. Youll join a new generation of innovators and leaders in fields with significant and growing employment opportunities including health care, public health, biomanufacturing, and biomedical engineering. The department also offers a BS degree in bioengineering with a concentration in biomedical engineering.

Your education will prepare you to contribute to the profession in an ethical and socially responsible manner and to work effectively to further your career and to benefit society.

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Bioengineering | College of Engineering - UMass Dartmouth

Nuns Fight Evil in Space in Sisters of the Vast Black – Paste Magazine

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Sisters of the Vast Black follows nuns traveling aboard a living spaceship that can mate and produce baby spaceships. Yes, you read that correctly. Lina Rathers debut novella follows a crew of sisters from the Order of Saint Rita as they journey through space, responding to calls for help from newly established colonies. The cast of characters includes the enigmatic Reverend Mother, whose vow of silence keeps her mysterious past shrouded, the pragmatic Sister Faustina, the pious Sister Lucia, and Sister Gemma, who pines for a life outside the Order.

Set in the future after an apocalyptic interplanetary war, Rathers novella ambitiously tackles theology, personal faith crises, centralized governance, the sentience of creatures, bioengineering, sexuality, sin, and redemptionall in 160 pages.

Due to the novellas brevity, its initially difficult to distinguish one character from another. But as each sisters history and secrets are revealed, its easier to determine how a characters past influences their actions. Pacing issues parallel the initial muddied characterizations in the beginning, and much of the world-building occurs through dialogue between characters rather than through the narrative. During the first half of the novella, we hear foreboding secondhand accounts of an Earth-based Central Governance trying to resume control of the galaxy by using the far-reaching arm of the Catholic Church. But since we dont meet anyone from the Central Governance or the Church until later, the sisters main threat appears nebulous.

Fortunately, Rather ties everything together with dazzling mastery in the novellas second half. The time she invests in the characters during quiet moments pays off as a series of plot twists and reveals propel the narrative forward at breakneck speed. Here, its the sisters themselves who carry the plot, as they grapple with living out their personal faith against the threat of another war and the tightening grip of the Church. Rather also introduces Father Giovanni and Central Governance soldiers, who are both too young and too blind to see the insidious schemes of the organizations to which theyre so devoted. By the time the antagonists gain faces, their destructive corruption seems that much more terrifying due to the secondhand rumors that preceded their appearance.

Even as Rather raises the storys stakes to concern the fate of the whole galaxy, the narrative remains intensely personal and focused on the individual sisters. The storys heart lies in the sisters community formed within the flesh walls of their spaceship and in their struggles in remaining faithful to themselves, each other, and the Church. By the hopeful and open-ended conclusion, youll be left wanting to spend more time with Rathers characters.

Sisters of the Vast Black doesnt shy away from the big themes despite its small package, and it will successfully whet the appetite of anyone looking for a fresh take on the space opera genre.

Jane Huang is a neuroscience PhD student by day and a freelance writer by night. She currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA.

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Nuns Fight Evil in Space in Sisters of the Vast Black - Paste Magazine

Bio-Nylon Is The New Green: How One Company Is Fermenting A $10 Billion Market – Forbes

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In the inevitable shift away from fossil fuels, Genomatica announced the first commercial production ... [+] of bio-based nylon. Companies that seize the economic and environmental advantages of biomanufacturing stand to lead the way, whether its fabrics or face creams.

In the inevitable shift away from fossil fuels, Genomatica announced the first commercial production of bio-based nylon. Companies that seize the economic and environmental benefits of biomanufacturing stand to lead the way, whether its fabrics or face creams.

When we think of biotechnology, its easy to think just about pharmaceuticals. Even the broader term bioeconomy may only bring to mind things like agriculture, forestry, and food.

But the bioeconomy is best thought of as turning biomass into business, plants into products. What we call the bioeconomy today made up most of our economy before the 20th century, when petrochemistry and synthetic chemistry gave rise to a revolutionary material that became ubiquitous worldwide: plastics.

In the 21st century, consumers are increasingly demanding products that reflect their more sustainable values and lifestyles. Chemistry is giving way to synthetic biology, and engineered organismsusing the same kind of fermentation we use to make wine, bread, or kombuchacan now make the chemical building blocks for shoes, cars, and carpets.

There is just one question: Which producers will have the foresight to lead this biomanufacturing revolution?

Recently, a bioengineering company called Genomatica reached a milestone that epitomizes this shift from fossil fuels to biology. Genomaticaannouncedit had made a ton of the chemical building block that industry relies on to make nylon-6using a renewable fermentation approach.Heres why that matters.

First, its an economic opportunity. The nylon industry is worth $10 billion globally. Thats a huge potential market to tap into. Nylon became famous in the 1940s as a textile fiber in stockings. Today, it is found in everything from clothes to packaging.

Second, its an environmental necessity. As with most plastic production today, nylon-6 usually starts with crude oil. In this case, the molecule caprolactam is refined from crude oil and made into nylon. Every year, the world makes five million tons of nylon-6, which results in an estimated 60 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Producing nylon creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Manufacturing nylon also requires large amounts of water and energy, further contributing to environmental degradation and global warming.

Using a synthetic biology approach, Genomatica engineered microorganisms to ferment plant sugars to produce caprolactam, and therefore nylon, in a 100% renewable way. Christopher Schilling, CEO of Genomatica, thinks this is good for business and our planet.

Theres this idea that in order to be sustainable, youve got to find some totally novel material, said Schilling. But by producing the very same chemical precursor that industry would normally get from fossil fuels, he believes Genomatica can have a much bigger, more rapid impact on sustainability. As this product continues to scale, and the economics become more obvious, companies will begin to ask themselves: why would we source it any other way?

Genomatica wants to deliver sustainable nylon to brands like H&M, Vaude, and Carvico via its partnership with Aquafil, one of the largest producers of nylon in the world. Aquafils ECONYL brand of nylon takes old fishing nets, textile scraps, and other forms of nylon waste and transforms them into new yarn thats as good as virgin raw material. Aquafil sees this regeneration process as a new opportunity for the fashion and furniture industries, and a way to protect the environment.

It was important to us to establish a real connection point with consumer brands, said Schilling. As a technology innovator, Genomatica felt that the success of the product depended on being accepted at all points in the value chain. Aquafil was the best partner for that, where we could share a great story that consumer brands could latch on to and ultimately champion.

Schilling says that the initial one-ton production of the chemical precursor is a small but important step, and its next goal is to reach commercial-scale levels of 30,000-100,000 tons per year.

One of the things thats really differentiated Genomatica is our ability to scale, to know how to take something all the way from ideation to commercial realization, says Schilling.

Nylon is Genomaticas third big synthetic biology product to come to market, and its previous experience in this space is sure to help accelerate the transition from the lab bench to the marketplace.

Since 2016, Italian bioplastics company Novamont has been producing the bio-BDO at a rate of 30,000 ... [+] tons per year.

Genomaticas first big success was with 1,4-butanediol, known more colloquially as BDO. This chemical is used to make plastics, elastic fibers, and polyurethanes, and its found in everything from plastic bags to spandex. The world produces about 2.5 million metric tons of BDO every year, and at about US$2,000 per ton, the market is in the billions.

In 2012, Genomatica delivered a chemical engineering breakthrough by producing bio-based BDO with a cost-competitive fermentation process at a commercial scale. Bio-BDO is 100% bio-based and biodegradable, and can be found in athletic apparel, running shoes, electronics, and automotive applications.

A second big success came with a chemical named 1,3-butylene glycol. Few realize it, but many of our everyday personal care and beauty products are derived from crude oil. In early 2019, Genomatica announced the first commercial production of Brontideits brand name of the chemicalmade with natural plant-based sugars. As more and more of us strive to choose products that are in line with our personal values, those made with Brontide rather than fossil fuel derivatives offer consumers a choice that is kinder to the environment.

Taken together, there are now bio-based alternatives for the chemicals used to make everything from fuels to electronics, from shoes to cosmetics. Its a reminder of just how dependent we are on petrochemicals in our everyday lives.

On the performance side, our first goal is to make sure that the material delivers exactly the same performance features as you would get from conventionally or petroleum sourced nylon. Thats the same thing we did in BDO and butylene glycol, explains Schilling. He adds, When you have these large existing markets, you have to make sure you hit the spec to deliver the same quality.

Bio-based alternatives can offer another advantage over their fossil-based cousins: in some cases, they perform better. With butylene glycol, for example, heavy metals are a catalyst used in processing the ingredient from crude oil. In the final product, trace amounts of heavy metals remain. But with biomanufacturing, no catalysts are needed and theres no chemical processing, says Schilling. There are also different purity levels that were able to hit very effectively, he says.

The argument for sustainable, bio-based approaches to material precursors is a strong one. Through relatively simple fermentation processes, biology has shown time and again that it can make whatever we can pump out of the ground, offering precision, renewable production of key compounds. Bio-based caprolactam is another proof point.

The sticking point, as ever, is industry adoption. Industry leaders across the value chain need to seek out and support the scaling of sustainable and renewable bio-based components to speed their integration into a diverse array of end-products. Consumers want them, manufacturers can use them, and most importantly, the planet needs them.

Follow me on twitter at @johncumbers and @synbiobeta. Subscribe to my weekly newsletters in synthetic biology and space settlement.

Thank you to David Kirk and Kevin Costa for additional research and reporting in this article. Im the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest heres the full list of SynBioBeta sponsors.

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Bio-Nylon Is The New Green: How One Company Is Fermenting A $10 Billion Market - Forbes

Zachary Ball to Lead Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering – Texas Medical Center (press release)

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Rice University chemist Zachary Ball has been named director of Rices Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB). The institute promotes interdisciplinary research and education encompassing physics, chemistry, biology and engineering.Ball succeeds Jane Grande-Allen, who will continue to serve as the Isabel C. Cameron Professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering.

Zach is our first chemist in the role of IBB director and I am very excited about how he will expand the scope of our collaborative research, said Yousif Shamoo, Rices vice provost for research, who announced the appointment.

Ball sees his role with IBB as an opportunity to soften boundaries between departments at Rice and to help faculty connect with outside researchers in the Texas Medical Center.

There is this inherent tension at a university, Ball said. We still need a traditional department structure, but theres also a need to empower faculty in ways that are bigger and broader than traditional departments can provide. Thats a big reason why IBB is and remains a hugely important part of the Rice research ensemble. Its uniquely situated to encourage faculty collaboration.

Zach brings an objective clarity on integration, said Paul Cherukuri, IBBs executive director. He has a great analytical understanding of all the things were doing at IBB and how to integrate our activities across the disciplines.

Ball used his own recent experience at Rice as an example. Since my lab moved to the BioScience Research Collaborative, weve been near new people and its really changed how we think about some research problems, he said. I see on a small scale how bringing together people with different views can help build research that goes in new directions.

Balls Rice lab designs, builds and studies novel transition-metal complexes with unique structures and functions for applications in chemical biology and medicine, including the development of next-generation protein drugs.

Im a chemist who clearly works on biological problems, but Ive also traditionally viewed myself as on the fringes of what IBB does, he said. So I think its both a strength and a challenge that I arrive at IBB with a different perspective. Ill try to use that unique perspective while also relying on the strong network of IBB faculty to effectively enable progress in the many diverse fields that IBB encompasses.

Ball, an associate professor of chemistry, joined the Rice faculty in 2006. He earned a bachelors degree at Harvard University in 1999 and a Ph.D. at Stanford in 2004.

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Zachary Ball to Lead Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering - Texas Medical Center (press release)

Jennifer Cochran appointed chair of bioengineering – Stanford Medical Center Report

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Jennifer Cochran, PhD, has been appointed chair of Stanfords Department of Bioengineering, which is jointly operated by the School of Medicine and School of Engineering. Her five-year term begins Sept. 1.

This department has an amazing energy due in no small part to its faculty, students and staff, said Cochran, associate professor of bioengineering. These individuals nearly 500 of them, in all have an unwavering commitment to research, learning and service, and they exude a spirit of collegiality and collaboration that permeates our department and the broader Stanford community.

Cochrans research is interdisciplinary, integrating chemistry, engineering and biophysics. Her laboratory focuses on protein-based drug discovery for applications including oncology and regenerative medicine, and the development of new technology for high-throughput protein analysis and engineering.

In addition to being a superb scholar and educator and a proponent of deeper connections with Silicon Valleys burgeoning biotechnology activities, Jennifer is an enthusiastic, dynamic individual who will bring exciting leadership to the department and be a key contributor to the schools of Engineering and Medicine, Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, and Jennifer Widom, PhD, dean of the School of Engineering, said in a joint statement.

Cochran will succeed Norbert Pelc, ScD, professor of bioengineering, who has chaired the department since 2012. Norberts vision and leadership has brought the department to new heights, Minor and Widom said. The remarkable strength of our still relatively new Bioengineering Department reflects Norberts tireless work and deep dedication.

Cochran earned a PhD in biological chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. After a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT in biological engineering, she arrived at Stanford in 2005 as an assistant professor of bioengineering. In 2012,she was promoted to associate professor.She also advises cancer biology and biophysics graduate students and serves as director of the Stanford National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Predoctoral Training Program and as co-director of the Stanford National Institute of Standards and Technology Predoctoral Training Program.

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Jennifer Cochran appointed chair of bioengineering - Stanford Medical Center Report

How One Building Created a Cascade of Change – WPI News

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Its been nearly a decade since the doors to WPIs Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center (LSBC) opened. The first building to rise at Gateway Park, an 11-acre mixed-use campus taking shape just north of downtown Worcester and a short walk from the main WPI campus, the LSBC, formally dedicated on September 17, 2007, represented something of a gamble. In building the 125,000-square-foot research facility, the university was betting that by making a $65 million investment in the life sciences (the cost of the building and the site clean-up), it would realize dividends down the road.

That bet has paid off, and then some, says Eric Overstrm, former professor of biology and biotechnology, who joined WPI in 2004 as head of that department. This building has produced a return on investment well beyond anything we anticipated at the time, he says.

The LSBC was the answer to a question that had been nagging at WPI since it acquired the Gateway Park property in 1999, jointly with the Worcester Business Development Corporation: How could that former industrial brownfield benefit the university? The idea of constructing a building to provide much-needed space for a growing a research enterprise emerged early on, but what kind of research would be represented was unclear.

Overstrm recalls a meeting where several faculty members described the facilities they envisioned for the new center, including fire labs and a drop tower for impact research. He and his fellow life sciences department heads, the late Chris Sotak in Biomedical Engineering and Jim Dittami in Chemistry and Biochemistry, huddled and decided to propose a more focused approach: move all of WPIs graduate research programs in the life sciences and bioengineering to the new building.

The idea had a practical motivation. The wet labs in the 115-year-old Salisbury Laboratories building, where the biologist and biomedical engineers worked, were poorly suited to modern research, while lab space in the newer Goddard Hall, home to chemistry, biochemistry, and chemical engineering research, was running short as the WPI faculty grew.

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How One Building Created a Cascade of Change - WPI News

Volume Moving the Tape For Shares of Green Planet Bioengineering Co Ltd (GPLB) and Nation Energy Inc (NEGY) – DARC News

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Green Planet Bioengineering Co Ltd (GPLB) shares are moving today onvolatility-68.29% or $-0.024 from the open.TheOTC listed companysaw a recent bid of $0.0111 and2500shares have traded hands in the session.

Deep diving into thetechnical levels forGreen Planet Bioengineering Co Ltd (GPLB), we note that the equitycurrently has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of -85.01. Active investors may choose to use this technical indicator as a stock evaluation tool. Used as a coincident indicator, the CCI reading above +100 would reflect strong price action which may signal an uptrend. On the flip side, a reading below -100 may signal a downtrend reflecting weak price action. Using the CCI as a leading indicator, technical analysts may use a +100 reading as an overbought signal and a -100 reading as an oversold indicator, suggesting a trend reversal.

Green Planet Bioengineering Co Ltds Williams Percent Range or 14 day Williams %R currently sits at -98.17. The Williams %R oscillates in a range from 0 to -100. A reading between 0 and -20 would point to an overbought situation. A reading from -80 to -100 would signal an oversold situation. The Williams %R was developed by Larry Williams. This is a momentum indicator that is the inverse of the Fast Stochastic Oscillator.

Currently, the 14-day ADX for Green Planet Bioengineering Co Ltd (GPLB) is sitting at 30.34. Generally speaking, an ADX value from 0-25 would indicate an absent or weak trend. A value of 25-50 would support a strong trend. A value of 50-75 would identify a very strong trend, and a value of 75-100 would lead to an extremely strong trend. ADX is used to gauge trend strength but not trend direction. Traders often add the Plus Directional Indicator (+DI) and Minus Directional Indicator (-DI) to identify the direction of a trend.

The RSI, or Relative Strength Index, is a widely used technical momentum indicator that compares price movement over time. The RSI was created by J. Welles Wilder who was striving to measure whether or not a stock was overbought or oversold. The RSI may be useful for spotting abnormal price activity and volatility. The RSI oscillates on a scale from 0 to 100. The normal reading of a stock will fall in the range of 30 to 70. A reading over 70 would indicate that the stock is overbought, and possibly overvalued. A reading under 30 may indicate that the stock is oversold, and possibly undervalued. After a recent check, the 14-day RSIforGreen Planet Bioengineering Co Ltd (GPLB) is currently at 45.22, the 7-day stands at 42.83, and the 3-day is sitting at 35.98.

Needle moving action has been spotted in Nation Energy Inc (NEGY) as shares are moving today onvolatility-67.30% or -0.067 from the open.TheOTC listed companysaw a recent bid of 0.0327 and1424shares have traded hands in the session.

After a recent check, Nation Energy Incs 14-day RSI is currently at 42.44, the 7-day stands at 36.43, and the 3-day is sitting at 23.85.

Taking a deeper look into the technical levels ofNation Energy Inc (NEGY), we can see thatthe Williams Percent Range or 14 day Williams %R currently sits at -98.07. The Williams %R oscillates in a range from 0 to -100. A reading between 0 and -20 would point to an overbought situation. A reading from -80 to -100 would signal an oversold situation. The Williams %R was developed by Larry Williams. This is a momentum indicator that is the inverse of the Fast Stochastic Oscillator.

Nation Energy Inc (NEGY) currently has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of -141.42. Active investors may choose to use this technical indicator as a stock evaluation tool. Used as a coincident indicator, the CCI reading above +100 would reflect strong price action which may signal an uptrend.

Currently, the 14-day ADX for Nation Energy Inc (NEGY) is sitting at 9.40. Generally speaking, an ADX value from 0-25 would indicate an absent or weak trend. A value of 25-50 would support a strong trend. A value of 50-75 would identify a very strong trend, and a value of 75-100 would lead to an extremely strong trend.

Investors often closely follow fundamental and technical data. Even with all the evidence, it can be tough to determine if the economy and the markets are preparing for a whole new breakout run. With the recent trend resulting in a series of new all-time record highs, investors will have to put the pieces together to try and gauge how long the second longest bull market in history will continue. Some professionals are still wondering if the next recession is looming, and if a bear market is right around the corner. Investors commonly strive to locate the highest probability of success. The next goal may be to capitalize on what could become the most interesting part of the record bull market. Investors will most likely be concentrating on what has proven to work in the past, which may offer a better idea as to how successful the strategies will be heading into the second half of the year and beyond.

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Volume Moving the Tape For Shares of Green Planet Bioengineering Co Ltd (GPLB) and Nation Energy Inc (NEGY) - DARC News

Everything from pirate games to bioengineering – Shanghai Daily (subscription)

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I applied for the trip because I thought it sounded enjoyable and exciting and I would be able to learn about new things. I most enjoyed Pirate Training, where we got to make cannons, take part in fencing and archery and play capture the flag in an ice rink.

These are things I never thought I would do. Meeting the other students from NAE was great because they all seemed very similar to me and that made me feel a lot more confident about myself. It was also good fun to make new friends from around the world who I can continue to connect with through Nord Anglias Global Classroom.

MIT was a huge university, if I went there Id worry about getting lost but it looked like a nice place to live and learn. The same can be said for Harvard, which we also really enjoyed spending time at and learning about. If youre lucky enough to be picked next year, be prepared to take part in a range of activities which will make you work hard both physically and mentally, and pack some comfortable shoes as the MIT and Harvard sites are big and we did a lot of walking in order to visit the different facilities!

Iwan Jones, Year 7 student

When I first saw the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and maths) festival being offered by BISS Puxi I thought it would be an awesome opportunity to see how MIT use their research to apply science to the real world, and I was excited about these subjects. I knew it would be a great chance to work with other students who shared similar interests and to speak to students studying at MIT.

The activity I enjoyed the most was Biobuilder. In this session we learnt about how, in the future, we will be able to take parts of cells, which perform a certain function, and build it to make a new cell.

The most interesting aspect is these cells can be designed so they can be controlled to complete certain tasks. We used different shapes and colors to represent these different functions, and built a cell that would kill only cancer cells. This is a lot harder in real life, as you would need to take the cell and find what the function is before fusing the different parts together.

It was really fun working with schools from around the world, and we all felt like one big school. It was very easy to make friends with everyone and we were very upset to leave each other on Friday.

This experience has inspired me to go to a school like MIT because of all the different fields in science and technology I can have the chance to experience if I studied there. Some advice Id give to a student who plans to go next year is to really throw yourself into every activity and to make the most of this experience.

Alison Ohene-Djan, Year 7 student

When I heard about the chance to go to MIT I was really excited and applied to attend as I was sure I would learn a lot and I might not get the chance to attend something like this again.

Once we arrived we met with the students from all of the other Nord Anglia schools; I enjoyed working with different people from different places because they all had other stories and ideas to share. The fun really started once we got to start on the STEAM activities, I cant single out one particular activity because each one was a unique experience and fun in their own way, although I did enjoy being a pirate. This trip has inspired me to continue to work on areas of STEAM, Ive had the interest of going to universities like MIT before, but this trip just made me even more motivated to work hard and be accepted into a place like MIT. The one piece of advice I would give to students who plan to attend next years trip is to not worry so much about remembering everything that will be taught to you, if you enjoy and focus on the activity, you will pick it up along the way.

Liam Chan, Year 7 student

I applied for the trip because it is a once in a lifetime experience at one of the best universities in the world. Also, we would meet students from Nord Anglia schools around the world.

My favorite part was the 2.009 workshop, where in groups of ten we designed, and actually created, carnival games which could be used in real carnivals. Working with Professor David Wallace was a real highlight. I enjoyed collaborating with other schools because people from all across the globe worked together and came up with so many ideas to try and give the best possible answer.

The trip has definitely inspired me to attend MIT or universities like MIT because they have really good facilities and the professors teach lessons in a very exciting and interesting way. Advice that I would give students going next year would be: when stuck on a problem, look at things from a different perspective. The answer is usually there, it just needs more thought to reach it.

Emma Tang, Year 7 student

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Engineers Develop Prosthetic Arm That Allows Girl to Play Violin – Breitbart News

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The New York Post reportsthat ten-year-old Isabella Nicola Cabrera was born with no left hand, but thanks to a specialized prosthesis created by a team of bioengineering students at the George Mason University, Cabrera can once again play the violin.

Cabrerasmusic teacher and her school had previously built a rudimentary prosthesis that she used successfullyfor years, but ABC News reports the prosthetic was heavy. The instructor contacted the bioengineering students at the George Mason University, where he had graduated from, to see if they could develop something more advanced for the young musician.

Bioengineering studentsAbdul Gouda, Mona Elkholy, Ella Novoselsky, Racha Salha, and Yasser Alhindi decided to take on designing the prosthetic as a project required of them for their senior year. Its sort of a lot of pressure, Gouda told ABC News. Youve got this young girl whos counting on you and youre expected to deliver.

At atest fitting on Thursday, the team of bioengineers also surprised Cabrera with a secondary attachment for the prosthesis which would allow her to ride a bicycle.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

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Engineers Develop Prosthetic Arm That Allows Girl to Play Violin - Breitbart News