News in brief – Highlander Newspaper

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UCR Researchers Create Sensor to Measure Liquid Samples

Researchers at UCR have recently developed a sensor to measure samples by using a piece of glass tubing, which will help when measuring samples that are in liquid.

The sensor can be used in many different applications including toxicology, developmental biology, plant sciences and biomaterials engineering. The research was focused on toxicology and how it could improve the current technology that is expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive.

The team was lead by William Grover, assistant professor of bioengineering at Bourns College of Engineering, and Shirin Mesbah Oskui, a bioengineering and biomedical engineering doctoral student in Grovers lab.

The research team discovered that when they bent a piece of glass tubing into a U shape and attached a speaker to it, it could be used to measure the mass density and volume of the sample inside the tube. Their sensor was expanded from a similar technique that was developed at MIT for weighing single cells.

They hope that this new technique will help further advance the field because of its automation, portability and low cost.

The team also consisted of Heran Bhakta, a graduate student in bioengineering, Graciel Diamante, a graduate student in environmental sciences, Huinan Liu, associate professor of bioengineering and Daniel Schlenk, professor of aquatic ecotoxicology.

Michael Nduati to represent UCR in NMQF 40-Under-40 List

Michael Nduati of the UCR School of Medicine has been chosen by the National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF) as one of the 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health.

Nduati currently serves as the senior associate dean for clinical affairs and CEO of UCR Health. As the senior associate dean, Nduati is responsible for the strategic development and growth of UCR Health, the medical schools clinical enterprise, and serves as the physician executive leader of the medical schools faculty practice.

The NMQFs 40 Under 40 List seeks to recognize leaders that are taking strides to improve and diversify the healthcare marketplace. In addition to these qualities, the NMQF looks for leaders that can be role models for the next generation of leaders in minority health. Nduati is being recognized for his leadership role in this community as a minority health leader.

Nduati started his education here at UCR with a bachelors degree in biomedical science. From here, he went to UCLA to earn his M.D. and M.B.A. After graduating from UCLA, he interned and did his residency at Kaiser Permanente Fontana. Then, he continued onto Harvard to earn his Masters in Public Health.

NMQF assists health-care providers, professionals, administrators, researchers, policy makers and community and faith-based organizations to create better programs for their communities to eliminate premature death and preventable illnesses.

The recipients of the 40-Under-40 List will receive their awards on April 25, 2017 at the 2017 NMQF Leadership Summit of Health Disparities and Congressional Black Caucus Spring Health Braintrust Gala Dinner in Washington, D.C.

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GMU students make 3D printed prosthetic arm for violinist | khou.com – KHOU

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Students from George Mason University design prosthetic arm for violist

Peggy Fox, WUSA 9:46 PM. CDT April 20, 2017

FAIRFAX, VA (WUSA9) - A new beginning for a Fairfax County girl who has just received a new prosthetic arm that was designed and 3-D printed by George Mason University college students.

Isabella Nicola, 10, has been raised by her mother, Andrea Cabrera, to never say never.

"My mom's phrase is, when you say 'I can't do it', it's 'I can't do it yet,'" said Nicola.

The fifth grader signed up to play violin in the strings program at Island Creek Elementary in Franconia last year, even though she knew it'd be a little difficult.

RELATED:Dog rescued from slaughterhouse gets prosthetic legs

She was born with an incomplete left arm. Her music teacher fashioned a makeshift prosthetic arm out of PVC to hold her bow. Then he a called his alma mater and got the engineering department on board.

But now, Isabella has a bright pink, custom-made, brand new prosthetic arm that allows her to hold and move the bow properly.

"I have to say thank you to them because without them I couldn't really be able to play," said Nicola.

The five students have been working as a team for more than a year on their capstone senior project. It was designed, 3D printed, and pieced together by five George Mason University bioengineering students, Yasser Alhindi, the lead, Abdul Gouda, Mona Elkholy, Ella Novoselsky and Racha Salha.

Dr. Elizabeth Adams, a GMU music teacher, explained that a player's arm movement affects the violin's sound. Adams worked with the students and Isabella, providing advice.

The faculty mentors are Wilsaan Joiner and Vasiliki Ikonomidou. Laurence Bray is head of the bioengineering department.

"We were brainstorming ideas right away. We were aiming to take the strain off her shoulder to make her as comfortable as possible," said Ella Novoselsky.

RELATED:Injured animals get life-changing prosthetics

"It's amazing. They didn't have any background when they started, of the mechanical engineering aspect. I'm amazed. When they came to me with all those designs, and they told me, this is going to go there and this will go like that. 'Ok, sure,'" saidVasiliki Ikonomidou, one of the mentors said about the student designers.

For Thursday's hand-off, the students had a surprise for Isabella. They also made a grip so that she can ride bike with both arms. Isabella beamed as she held it like she was holding the handlebars.

"Very cool and nice...They thought about other things. They went above and beyond," said Isabella.

She and the college students hit if off from the start. At their first meeting, Racha Salha said Isabella was "making jokes and laughing. We were actually the ones who were nervous....She's amazing."

"I want her to play the violin and love playing the violin and be excited. And I want her to believe she can do anything she wants," said Ella Novoselsky.

The bioengineering department has already received more inquiries from other people, so another group of students could soon have a new project on their hands.

2017 WUSA-TV

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Stanford Existential Risk Initiative tackles global threats – The Stanford Daily

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Stanford launched the official Stanford Existential Risk Initiative (SERI) on Friday, which aims to foster engagement from students and professors to produce meaningful work aiming to preserve the future of humanity. Specifically, its goal is to prevent global catastrophic risks (GCRs) risks that threaten to destroy human civilization or drive the entire species extinct.

The organizations current plans include hosting a speaker series of prominent people in the world of GCR-mitigation, such as Precipice author Toby Ord, as well as offering $7,500 stipends for undergraduate summer projects. Funding for between 10 and 20 projects will be provided by Open Philanthropy. And during the academic year, SERI hopes to integrate its offerings into the brand-new Catastrophic Risks and Solutions (CRS) concentration in the Science, Technology and Society (STS) major.

SERI, hosted under the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is the product of an alliance between the STS program, the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford Global Health and the existing local effective altruism community. Its co-leaders are professor Stephen Luby in the School of Medicine and professor Paul Edwards, the director of the STS program.

Luby and Edwards met over shared interest in teaching a course on human extinction at Stanford. That course, THINK 65: Preventing Human Extinction, is now in its second year and has about 100 students.

Edwards told The Daily that Luby reached out to him with the original idea for the class.

Right after I was hired at Stanford before anything had happened and while I was still in Ann Arbor Steve wrote me and said, Do you want to teach a course on preventing human extinction? Edwards said. And I had never met him, I knew nothing about him, I saw this email and immediately said, Yes. I have been working on climate change for the past 30 years, and before I worked on climate change I mainly worked on the role of computers in nuclear war.

Climate change and nuclear war are two of the four focuses of the class; the others are uncontrollable artificial intelligence and, of course, plague natural or artificial.

Luby described the possibility of human-caused extinction as a new phenomenon in his lifetime.

I dont think we got to the point where humans could destroy civilization until the advent of nuclear arsenals, he said.

But the course has not treated COVID-19 as a global catastrophic risk. Luby, an expert epidemiologist who spent time at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that the kind of worst-case scenarios the course describes short of extinction are things that would cause us to lose all our scientific understanding, all our art, and where humanity is reduced to being largely illiterate: things with no hope of recovery. COVID-19 is unlikely to alter the long-term trajectory of mankind.

The course discusses the novel coronavirus in the context of previous disasters of even larger scales the bubonic plague, which shut down the Silk Road and emptied entire cities in Europe in the Late Middle Ages, or the Old World epidemics that ravaged New World civilizations and tribes post-contact.

We taught that course last spring for the first time, and we were surprised that it generated so much interest, Luby said. Then someone at Effective Altruism, maybe Kuhan, reached out to us and Open Philanthropy reached out to me and as part of that conversation we thought about how we could help build skills and capacities for students who are interested in taking global catastrophic risk seriously.

Effective altruism is a philosophy that focuses on doing good based on evidence rather than intuition or tradition. It also emphasizes diverting college students toward high-impact careers to fight challenges such as runaway climate change in the current century.

Kuhan Jeyapragasan 20 M.S. 20, the president of student group Stanford Effective Altruism, is a student collaborator in SERI who linked Luby and Edwards to Open Philanthropy funding. He described the issues of civilization collapse and mankinds extinction as a natural extension of general effective altruism thought.

A lot of effective altruists are focused on making sure the future goes well, and going along with that is the idea of preventing really bad catastrophes that would either cause extinction or the permanent downfall of civilization, Jeyapragasan said.

Jeyapragasan, who has led some work for the summer program, designed the project to immerse ambitious students in a full-time network of people and ideas. To apply, students had to find a mentor and compose a project proposal. Jeyapragasan described being blown away by scores of detailed applications and technical project ideas, focused on issues such as nuclear policy and bioengineering and, most of all, climate change.

Accepting all proposals would require millions of dollars, which is beyond SERIs reach. But interested students unable to secure summer funding can still participate in SERI through part-time projects or its upcoming speaker series, which will include mentors from the summer program as well as Stanford professors focused on issues such as climate change. SERI also hopes to develop relationships with similar groups at other universities, such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative at MIT, headed by former secretary of energy Ernest Moniz.

The question of nuclear destruction is the original spark for all modern extinction-prevention efforts, even as the number of ways humanity might destroy itself has ballooned.

SERI is Stanfords newest answer to the question of extinction. Future speaker events, virtual or in person, will be publicized through Stanford mailing lists and interest groups.

Jeyapragasan said that SERI is not an outlet for pessimistic prognosticators, but for hopeful optimists.

If you look at how humanity has progressed in terms of alleviating poverty and on social issues, education, all these other fronts, weve done a pretty miraculous job, Jeyapragasan said. And I think we will continue to find solutions and that the future will be really great the problems we face today, like climate change, we can solve. And eventually we might eradicate existential risk, or at least anthropogenic existential risk.

Contact Cooper Veit at cveit at stanford.edu.

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ABI researchers to develop a more personalised approach to ventilator monitoring – New Zealand Doctor Online

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Ventilators save lives, but treating patients with mechanical ventilators is not without risk.

Dr Haribalan Kumar, Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI), University of Auckland, plans to reduce that risk with a technology that will allow for more precise and dynamic monitoring of lung function at the bedside of a patient being treated with a ventilator. He and his team have received $150,000 from the Health Research Councils Explorer Fund to do so.

A ventilator takes over the bodys breathing process when the lung begins to fail as it does when a patient has lung disease such as pneumonia, which has affected many Covid-19 patients. This gives patients time to recover from their condition.

However, mechanical ventilation involves using high pressures to pump oxygen into the tiny air sacs of the lung, which can save peoples lives but also cause lung injury, particularly if a patient requires long term treatment.

The monitoring of lung function (and adjusting the ventilators in response) is crucial to avoiding ventilator-related injury, particularly in critical care patients.

Such patients need bedside monitoring, but this is currently limited to measurements taken externally: pressure, volume and blood gases. This makes it very difficult for clinicians to track how a patient is responding with any precision, says Dr Kumar.

It means they can only respond to significant changes in a patient; without more precise monitoring, the greater the risk to the adverse effects of mechanical ventilation, which can affect the patient for life.

Building upon New Zealands reputation in modelling lung physiology and working with international collaborators, he and his team (including Professor Merryn Tawhai and Dr Alys Clark) hope to resolve this issue by combining patient-specific models of the lung with low-cost dynamic imaging.

Electrical Impedance Tomography (or EIT) is a technology that allows for imaging of the lungs inside the chest wall, by measuring signals from a belt of electrodes placed around the chest. EIT offers an imaging solution for continuous monitoring but EIT has not been taken up widely because it has much lower resolution than other established imaging methods and it can be difficult to interpret, says Dr Kumar.

He points out that differences in individual physiology (age, size, height, underlying health conditions etc.) mean that one lung is not like another, and this complicates the translation of measurements into a meaningful image.

Dr Kumars approach, if successful, will personalise the imaging information and improve its clinical value. We hope our research will transform EIT from a potentially useful but difficult to interpret technology, to one that is personalised and easy for clinicians to use and interpret, says Dr Kumar.

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12th Annual Wisconsin Stem Cell Symposium to focus on bioengineering – University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Over the past several years, gene editing has become a powerful tool for creating cellular models of human diseases, particularly with the emergence of technologies like CRISPR-Cas9.

But one concern with gene editing tools like CRISPR which allows scientists to cut and paste genetic sequences into a genome to correct errors or introduce changes is precision, says Krishanu Saha, a bioengineering professor at the University of WisconsinMadison. That is, editing genes sometimes introduces errors that could have unintended consequences.

Saha is using CRISPR to reprogram human pluripotent stem cells and immune cells to study diseases like Fragile X syndrome, to discover new drugs and develop cell therapies, and to ask fundamental questions about human biology. On Wednesday, April 19, he will present the strategies his lab has developed to make gene editing more precise at the 12th Annual Wisconsin Stem Cell Symposium.

My talk is focused on genome-level engineering of human cells, Saha says. I will cover ongoing work in my lab that engineers human pluripotent stem cells and T cells from cancer patients.

The strategies Saha and his research team have developed help correct pathogenic point mutations and introduce transgenes with precision, reducing and in some cases eliminating undesirable genomic effects.

Another UWMadison scientist, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Eric Shusta, is using stem cells to explore the biology of the blood-brain barrier. This work will be the subject of his talk at the symposium, which is hosted by the UWMadison Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center (SCRMC) and the BioPharmaceutical Technology Center Institute (BTCI).

The blood-brain barrier is an impermeable network of endothelial cells that protects the brain from toxins and other potentially harmful agents that may be circulating in the blood. A healthy blood-brain barrier is essential for well-being, but issues with this security system for the brain can lead to developmental or other types of disease.

Using stem cells, Shusta and his colleagues have been able to reconstruct the blood-brain barrier in the laboratory dish, providing scientists with a potent model for drug discovery and to explore neurological disorders that may be associated with a compromised barrier. The advent of patient-sourced induced pluripotent stem cells means it may be possible to mimic diseases or conditions and possibly devise treatments for disorders that are now untreatable.

The symposium will also gather a handful of national and international speakers, like Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centers Michel Sadelain (New York) and Leiden University Medical Centers Christine Mummery (The Netherlands), focused around the theme: Engineering Cells and Tissues for Discovery and Therapy.

We sought to bring bioengineers together with biologists and clinicians this year, says Saha, who is also a co-organizer of the event with UWMadison Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Sean Palecek. Because bioengineers are working at many levels the genome, cell and tissue we have invited scientists across these scales.

Talks will focus on emerging strategies to control stem cell behavior in the lab and in the body and include genome and cell engineering; stem cells as models of cell and developmental biology; in vitro maturation of stem-cell derived tissues; tissue engineering and organoid development; biomanufacturing; and treatments utilizing engineered human cell products.

We see great synergy in bringing together techniques of controlling behavior across these scales to generate new research tools and therapeutics, Saha says.

Moderators of the symposium include Timothy Kamp, professor of medicine and co-director of SCRMC ; William Murphy, professor of biomedical engineering, orthopedics and rehabilitation, and co-director of SCRMC; Saha and Palecek. It takes place from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. at the BioPharmaceutical Technology Center, 5445 E. Cheryl Parkway, Fitchburg, Wisconsin 53711.

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2 Biotechnology ETFs That Could Be Good For Diversification – ETF Trends

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While biotech stocks are often too risky for many investors, with the coronavirus raging and the race for a vaccine in play, taking a look at some ETFs that contain biotech stocks that are making strides might not be such a bad idea.

With the COVID-19 pandemic raging, biotechs that are consistently profitable and that offer drugs that patients absolutely must have could be seen as relatively safe compared to many other stocks on the market. For investors looking to stay in the market and diversify portfolios, here are two biotech ETFs that could be worth diversifying into during the coronavirus crisis.

With biotech companies like Gilead Sciences, which has been in the news a lot recently for the antiviral drug remdesivir, which appears to be the most promising treatment for COVID-19, IBB is a place for biotech investors to consider. Gilead is conducting late-stage studies of the drug and could report initial results as early as April. Gilead also has adividend yield currently stands at nearly 4%. The company has even augmented its dividend by 58% over the last five years.

IBB seeks to track the investment results of the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index, which contains securities of companies listed on NASDAQ that are classified according to the Industry Classification Benchmark as either biotechnology or pharmaceuticals and that also meet other eligibility criteria determined by Nasdaq, Inc. The fund generally invests at least 90% of its assets in securities of the index and in depositary receipts representing securities of the index. It may invest the remainder of its assets in certain futures, options and swap contracts, cash and cash equivalents. It is non-diversified.

While the iShares Genomics Immunology and Healthcare ETF has no directly related coronavirus drug-making companies in its holdings, it does contain stocks like Exelixis, which makes drugs that are used to treat kidney, liver, and medullary thyroid cancer, which will continue to be important going forward. The fund seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of developed and emerging market companies that could benefit from the long-term growth and innovation in genomics, immunology, and bioengineering.

For more market trends, visitETF Trends.

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Review: Pandemic How to Prevent an Outbreak – The Corsair

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An invisible enemy threatens the globe and tests if the world is equipped to confront it. The equation presented in this docuseries: Detect the case, isolate the case, then stop the chain of transmission.

It sounds simple, but this documentary reveals every single battle that the front-line teams need to overcome, in order to save lives. A societal disruption in the Netflix docuseries, Pandemic How to Prevent an Outbreak, portrays how the steadiness of health services is endangered and normal infrastructure gets under attack. In addition, unexpected susceptibilities like lack of food supplies occur when a killer version of flu reappears and threatens human lives.

I think the series couldnt have come at a more crucial time with the recent COVID19 outbreak. The series premiered in January, but with the recent coronavirus crisis it has been pushed into Netflixs Top 10 shows, " said TV and film producer Mando Stathi (The American Runestone).

Vasileios Christopoulos, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California (UCR) said it is important to stay home. Because we are facing a very aggressive and fast-moving virus, in which we do not have herd immunity, and there is no vaccine or treatment.

The current COVID-19 reality parallels Pandemic closely, showing how people die from a form of influenza and what would happen if it was allowed to spread globally. According to the documentary, millions of lives could be lost.

However, resources for early detection are limited, says the docuseries which was released on Netflix on January 8, in tandem with the threats of COVID-19 becoming global.

Stathi deems the series is really informative and truly inspiring with a range of characters from scientists and doctors to disaster experts, trying to get the hospital system ready for a deadly pandemic and create a global one-shot flu vaccine available for free to people in developing countries.

In the documentary Dennis Carroll, Director of Emerging Threats Unit U.S. Agency for International Development said, Influenza and respiratory viruses are the ones that youre most concerned about, in terms of being able to spread rapidly from one human to another and spread around the world very quickly.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1918s influenza pandemic was one of the most lethal pandemics in history, caused by a virus called H1N1. World War I (WWI) soldiers spread the virus as they returned home from around the world.

The documentary briefly shares the lethal story that far more people died in the 18-month period of that flu than died in all of WWI and World War II (WWII).

While Pandemic boasts the world with 7.8 billion people, a virus like the one in 1918 would result in hundreds of millions of deaths. Dr. Syra Madad, the Senior Director of New York Citys Health System, assured audiences, special pathogens dont respect any peoples boundaries.

Christopoulos said the pandemics of the past, such as the 1981 influenza pandemic, or H1N1 influenza in 2009 gave us important insights to understand how we can stop the spread of the virus before it gets out of control.

This docuseries touches vaccination matters that have long been battled legislatively. While pro-vaccine advocates believe that all children must be required to receive vaccinations in order to attend any school, anti-vaccine advocates do not feel comfortable with them and believe my body my rules, according to Caylan Wagar, mother of five children. Wagar from Oregon, homeschools all of her children and has not vaccinated them. The focus of my life is to allow my kids to be who they are, Wagar said.

The efforts toward creating an affordable vaccination to fight flu season continue and fortunately, there are some amazing people who dedicate their life to this, said Bill Gates in the documentary, who contributes to science for vaccines through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.As weve seen various flu scares, we havent had a super good response. And its pretty surprising how little preparedness there is for it, said Gates.

People in breathing masks, lying in hospital beds with body aches and ventilators, rely immensely on these front-line doctors and scientists for creating cures. It seems as if science and prayers go hand-to-hand in the docuseries as they are preparing to fight back an invisible enemy.

Dr. Jake Glanville, Founding Partner and Chief Science Officer said if we really are serious about creating cures, and vaccines can be cures, unlike many other types of medicine, then we need to finish the job and the way to do that is to subsidize its release globally.

Although scientists from the past said hey, youre never gonna get to the Moon. No ones done it before, according to Dr. Glanville those voices will always be wrong because humans are moving towards a greater future.

As Dr. Madad puts it: We are all in it together.

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Mind Over Body: Improving Brain-Computer Interfaces – UPJ Athletics

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When people suffer debilitating injuries or illnesses of the nervous system, they sometimes lose the ability to perform tasks normally taken for granted, such as walking, playing music or driving a car. They can imagine doing something, but the injury might block that action from occurring.

Brain-computer interface systems exist that can translate brain signals into a desired action to regain some function, but they can be a burden to use because they dont always operate smoothly and need readjustment to complete even simple tasks.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University are working on understanding how the brain works when learning tasks with the help of brain-computer interface technology. In a set of papers, the second of which was published today in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the team is moving the needle forward on brain-computer interface technology intended to help improve the lives of amputee patients who use neural prosthetics.

Lets say during your work day, you plan out your evening trip to the grocery store, said Aaron Batista, associate professor of bioengineering in Pitts Swanson School of Engineering. That plan is maintained somewhere in your brain throughout the day, but probably doesnt reach your motor cortex until you actually get to the store. Were developing brain-computer interface technologies that will hopefully one day function at the level of our everyday intentions.

Batista, Pitt postdoctoral research associate Emily Oby and the Carnegie Mellon researchers have collaborated on developing direct pathways from the brain to external devices. They use electrodes smaller than a hair that record neural activity and make it available for control algorithms.

In the team's first study, published last June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group examined how the brain changes with the learning of new brain-computer interface skills.

When the subjects form a motor intention, it causes patterns of activity across those electrodes, and we render those as movements on a computer screen. The subjects then alter their neural activity patterns in a manner that evokes the movements that they want, said project co-director Steven Chase, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Neuroscience Institute at Carnegie Mellon.

In the new study, the team designed technology whereby the brain-computer interface readjusts itself continually in the background to ensure the system is always in calibration and ready to use.

We change how the neural activity affects the movement of the cursor, and this evokes learning, said Pitts Oby. If we changed that relationship in a certain way, it required that our animal subjects produce new patterns of neural activity to learn to control the movement of the cursor again. Doing so took them weeks of practice, and we could watch how the brain changed as they learned.

In a sense, the algorithm learns how to adjust to the noise and instability that is inherent in neural recording interfaces. The findings suggest that the process for humans to master a new skill involves the generation of new neural activity patterns.The team eventually would like this technology to be used in a clinical setting for stroke rehabilitation.

Such self-recalibration procedures have been a long-sought goal in the field of neural prosthetics, and the method presented in the teams studies is able to recover automatically from instabilities without requiring the user to pause to recalibrate the system by themselves.

Lets say that the instability was so large such that the subject was no longer able to control the brain-computer interface, said Yu. Existing self-recalibration procedures are likely to struggle in that scenario, whereas in our method, weve demonstrated it can in many cases recover from even the most dramatic instabilities.

Both research projects were performed as part of theCenter for the Neural Basis of Cognition. This cross-institutional research and education program leverages the strengths of Pitt in basic and clinical neuroscience and bioengineering with those of Carnegie Mellon in cognitive and computational neuroscience.

Other Carnegie Mellon collaborators on the projects include co-director Byron Yu, professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering, and also postdoctoral researchers Alan Degenhart and William Bishop, who led the conduct of the research.

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Stanford Scientists Discovered the Invisible Pattern That Growing Neurons Follow to Form a Brain – SciTechDaily

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Stanford researchers used advanced microscopy and mathematical modeling to discover a pattern that governs the growth of neurons in the flatworm brain, shown here. Using this technique, they hope to find patterns that guide the growth of cells in other parts of the body in order to pave the way to bioengineer artificial tissues and organs. Credit: Courtesy of Wang Lab

Using microscopy and mathematics, researchers have discovered the invisible pattern that growing neurons follow to form a brain. The technique could one day allow bioengineers to coax stem cells to grow into replacement body parts.

Life is rife with patterns. Its common for living things to create a repeating series of similar features as they grow: think of feathers that vary slightly in length on a birds wing or shorter and longer petals on a rose.

It turns out the brain is no different. By employing advanced microscopy and mathematical modeling, Stanford researchers have discovered a pattern that governs the growth of brain cells or neurons. Similar rules could guide the development of other cells within the body, and understanding them could be important for successfully bioengineering artificial tissues and organs.

Their study, published in Nature Physics on March 9, 2020, builds on the fact that the brain contains many different types of neurons and that it takes several types working in concert to perform any tasks. The researchers wanted to uncover the invisible growth patterns that enable the right kinds of neurons to arrange themselves into the right positions to build a brain.

How do cells with complementary functions arrange themselves to construct a functioning tissue? said study co-author Bo Wang, an assistant professor of Bioengineering. We chose to answer that question by studying a brain because it had been commonly assumed that the brain was too complex to have a simple patterning rule. We surprised ourselves when we discovered there was, in fact, such a rule.

The brain they chose to examine belonged to a planarian, a millimeter-long flatworm that can regrow a new head every time after amputation. First, Wang and Margarita Khariton, a graduate student in his lab, used fluorescent stains to mark different types of neurons in the flatworm. They then used high-resolution microscopes to capture images of the whole brain glowing neurons and all and analyzed the patterns to see if they could extract from them the mathematical rules guiding their construction.

What they found was that each neuron is surrounded by roughly a dozen neighbors similar to itself, but that interspersed among them are other kinds of neurons. This unique arrangement means that no single neuron sits flush against its twin, while still allowing different types of complementary neurons to be close enough to work together to complete tasks.

The researchers found that this pattern repeats over and over across the entire flatworm brain to form a continuous neural network. Study co-authors Jian Qin, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, and postdoctoral scholar Xian Kong developed a computational model to show that this complex network of functional neighborhoods stems from the tendency of neurons to pack together as closely as possible without being too close to other neurons of the same type.

While neuroscientists might someday adapt this methodology to study neuronal patterning in the human brain, the Stanford researchers believe the technique could be more usefully applied to the emerging field of tissue engineering.

The basic idea is simple: tissue engineers hope to induce stem cells, the powerful, general-purpose cells from which all cell types derive, to grow into the various specialized cells that form a liver, kidney or heart. But scientists will need to arrange those diverse cells into the right patterns if they want the heart to beat.

The question of how organisms grow into forms that carry out useful functions has fascinated scientists for centuries, Wang said. In our technological era, we are not limited to understanding these growth patterns at the cellular level but can also find ways to implement these rules for bioengineering applications.

Reference: Chromatic neuronal jamming in a primitive brain by Margarita Khariton, Xian Kong, Jian Qin and Bo Wang, 9 March 2020, Nature Physics.DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-0809-9

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My Senior Year at Penn Is Over. But Im Learning to Be Okay With That. – Philadelphia magazine

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Coronavirus

Crying and other ways I'm coping with virtual commencement, virtual classes, and the onslaught of drastic changes brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

Sophie Burkholder

I felt prepared for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at least in the beginning.

Im a Bioengineering major at the University of Pennsylvania, where classes in cellular engineering and statistical analysis gave me the knowledge and understanding to answer the questions my friends and family have during this pandemic.

Can I get infected more than once? Not within a short period of time.

Should I still get my flu shot? Yes, especially if youre older. A flu shot can reduce your bodys chances of potentially having to fight off two viruses at once.

If Im young and healthy, is this still a big deal? Absolutely.

From the start of the coronavirus outbreak in China, I closely followed its spread. I saw the lockdowns that accompanied its public discovery there. I read stories of the people who were sick and dying in overcrowded Wuhan hospitals. And I looked for tales of hope of doctors who prevailed against infections, of vaccines and treatments that might soon help, of families that made dramatic adjustments to their lifestyles for the sake of others.

But over the past month, those moments of hope shrank in comparison to the growing anxiety and certainty that the virus would arrive here in the United States, and eventually, in Philadelphia. I begged my sister to cancel her spring break plans to France. I called my parents every day to make sure they ordered prescription medications in advance. But in worrying about the dramatic adjustments everyone else would have to make in the face of an unprecedented challenge to modern life, I never thought about how it might affect me.

I went home to Pittsburgh for spring break this year, with little plans other than to watch television, knit a scarf, and practice new baking recipes.

But then the rumors of Penns closure started among fellow school newspaper staffers. Harvard terminated its semester, transitioning all classes to an online format and giving students just a five-day notice to leave campus. Other Ivy League schools soon followed suit, and Philadelphia-based universities like Temple announced closures as well.

The next day, one of my professors sent an email describing how we would transition to having class via Zoom, if necessary. Still, I doubted the notion that Penn would shut down for the remainder of the semester that my senior spring would be cancelled with an impersonal email from President Amy Gutmann.

But thats exactly what happened. As I read over her words, Virtual instruction will continue through the remainder of the spring semester, hot tears welled up in my eyes.

I felt so stupid. Of course Penn had to close. We werent the first school to do so in response to the pandemic, and we wouldnt be the last. Since receiving the news last week, my youngest sisters high school issued temporary cancellations and Governor Tom Wolf announced that all Pennsylvania schools must close.

On Monday, Gutmann wrote us another email. This time she told us theyd be canceling commencement in favor of a virtual ceremony.

Furious, my classmates immediately started a petition to postpone graduation to a later date. It garnered more than 5,000 signatures in less than 24 hours. But some of us simply sat there and cried, knowing our last chance to see each other and celebrate the past three and a half years had vanished. (On Tuesday evening, Gutmann emailed us again to say that in addition to the virtual ceremony, Penn will recognize our graduating class with an in-person commencement on campus when it is safe and feasible to do so. She explained that it will be some time before they could know specifics.)

After the CDC announced that no gatherings of more than 50 people could take place for the next eight weeks, I had a creeping feeling that graduation would no longer happen. Still, after reading that email, I couldnt decide if I was happier to know with certainty that the worst possibility was now true or whether I still wanted that lingering sense of hope that things could magically change at the last minute.

The calm and reasoned logic Id initially brought to discussions of the coronavirus pandemic grew wishy-washy as more and more of my friends messaged me half-hearted goodbyes. One of my best friends, now with her family in Boston, texted that she wasnt sure if shed come back to Philly at all before her Massachusetts-based life science consulting job started in September. Underclassmen sent messages in our club group chats saying they were sorry they couldnt get to know the seniors better, and wished us all the best for the future.

I cried because I felt robbed of so many goodbyes to friends and teachers and mentors. But I also cried because nothing felt fair about any of this. Through tears, I whined to my sister over the phone about the likely cancellation of graduation and the fact that my senior design project a sort of capstone course for all Penn engineering majors had essentially been aborted.

My classmates are irate, and perhaps rightfully so. Nursing students have worries about meeting their required clinical rotation hours for graduation. Other students launched a petition demanding all classes alter to a pass-fail grading system. And even more students have dire concerns over where theyre supposed to live for the rest of the year.

My peers formed a Facebook group of Penn seniors who would still be around campus (many of us, myself included, have our own apartments). But over the weekend, we received even more emails from the administration chastising students who defied the universitys new policies by throwing St. Patricks Day parties or storming the labs of engineering buildings to salvage what they could of their projects. Lingering hopes to see friends, even in small gatherings, were quashed with threats of intervention by Penn Police.

I feel desperate and upset too. I hadnt yet bought my cap and gown, and now I maybe never will. Theres so much uncertainty and so little closure that I feel like Im going through a messy breakup. Im comforted by the hilarious quarantine playlists people have made on Spotify and the Zoom-related memes in my Facebook feed, but I still feel as if Im in a dream, drifting through what feels like an unending liminality of anxiety and board games. I expect that feeling will linger for a while.

Im not here to perpetually complain about the premature end to my senior year. Simply put, it blows.

But were in the midst of a pandemic like never before. Life as usual wont cut it anymore, and the transition from regular in-person interactions to isolation with a limited supply of toilet paper wont be easy. Still, the stories of nursing home patients dying from an outbreak in Washington or Italian doctors facing the choice of who they can and cant afford to give life-saving care to make me know that a lack of normalcy right now is necessary.

To all the young and healthy people out there who went out to restaurants and bars or concerts that were still happening last weekend (and maybe youre still gathering in large numbers now), please think more carefully about your choices. Recognize the privilege of your youth and health and use it to help those around you. The practices of social distancing and self isolation are the most important at the start of a pandemic, before the number of infections expands beyond control.

My senior year might be over, goodbyes splintered, and warm end-of-college memories erased before they were even made, but I want to stay positive. My Twitter feed tells me that I should use this isolation to write my magnum opus or discover a new physics law, but Im keeping calm by watching mindless sitcoms for now. Im learning to be a better texter and offering up video chats with friends and family as a substitute for face-to-face contact. Its not perfect or normal by any means and I still cry a lot but its the best I can do for myself and others.

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My Senior Year at Penn Is Over. But Im Learning to Be Okay With That. - Philadelphia magazine

Electromedical Technologies, Inc. Addresses America’s Opioid Crisis with its Wellness Pro Plus – GlobeNewswire

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SCOTTSDALE, AZ, Feb. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE Electromedical Technologies, Inc. (OTC: ELCQ) (the Company), an innovative medical technology company, commented today concerning use of the Companys Wellness Pro Plus, to aid patients suffering from the overuse and misuse of prescription drugs to fight opioid addiction. The Wellness Pro Plus is a non-invasive medical device used to address chronic, acute and intractable pain. The Companys Wellness Pro Plus is a viable alternative to prescription opioids for patients suffering with chronic or debilitative pain, is FDA-cleared and backed by over 10 years of successful healthcare treatment and many patient testimonials.

Matthew Wolfson, Founder and CEO of the Company, commented, "Our Wellness Pro Plus is our prescription-strength bioelectronics flagship device that has been helping many patients around the world live a better quality of life. We look forward to expanding awareness of our Wellness Pro Plus and of our new upcoming line of products so that medical practitioners and patients have an option for an organic, non-toxic and non-invasive solution to chronic pain.

Wolfson continued, The Wellness Pro Plus can be used as the first line of defense to manage pain, instead of medication harboring numerous negative side effects. Patients are less likely to start a path to opioid reliance when drug-free options are available. People must have choices.

Prescribing the use of the Wellness Pro Plus for long term pain relief is an easy and simple process for health care practitioners. The device is designed to use electrotherapy and frequencies in order to promote endorphin release (the bodys natural morphine) to help relieve chronic pain without the use of drugs, and in many cases provides relief instantly. The Company is now focusing on expanding its sales force and marketing aggressively in rural and urban areas. (To see a video explaining how the Wellness Pro Plus works, click here.)

A published article Why It's Time to Take Electrified Medicine Seriously by Time Magazine observed: The remarkable convergence of advances in bioengineering and neurology has resulted in a fast-developing way to treat chronic diseases, known as bioelectronic medicine. These advances allow scientists to identify specific nerves and implant devices that can be activated when needed to stimulate or dial down their activity; that in turn controls cells in organs targeted by those nerves that regulate the bodys many immune and metabolic responses. (To read the full article, click here.)

The Company believes that biofrequency medicine is the future and will be the norm alongside pharmaceuticals within the next 5 years.

Electromedical Technologies, Inc. will also be releasing its WellnessPRO POD projected for release in 2021. The WellnessPRO POD is intended to address anxiety, depression, and insomnia, in addition to all the other benefits the Wellness Pro Plus can provide, by using electronic frequencies that naturally affect the body.

About Electromedical Technologies, Inc.

International bioelectronic device pioneer, ElectroMedical Technologies, assembled a team of leading scientists from around the world in 2004 with a mission for improving the quality of life and wellness of people suffering from chronic and acute pain. In 2007, with FDA clearance, ElectroMedical delivered its first intelligent portable bioelectronic medicine therapy device, WellnessPro Plus, which provides faster, lasting pain relief using proprietary DeepPulse technology. WellnessPro Plus is FDA-cleared and Mexico Cofepris certified to treat chronic, intractable, post-surgical or post-traumatic acute pain. With more than 10 years in business, WellnessPro Plus is used by health care professionals, athletes, coaches and medical research facilities around the world. For more information, visit http://www.electromedtech.com.

Safe Harbor Statement:

This release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements and the assumptions upon which they are based are reasonable, we can give no assurance or guarantee that such expectations and assumptions will prove to have been correct. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of words like "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "intend," or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as these statements are subject to numerous factors and uncertainties, including but not limited to: adverse economic conditions, competition, adverse federal, state and local government regulation, international governmental regulation, inadequate capital, inability to carry out research, development and commercialization plans, loss or retirement of key executives and other specific risks. To the extent that statements in this press release are not strictly historical, including statements as to revenue projections, business strategy, outlook, objectives, future milestones, plans, intentions, goals, future financial conditions, events conditioned on stockholder or other approval, or otherwise as to future events, such statements are forward-looking, and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made.

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Electromedical Technologies, Inc. Addresses America's Opioid Crisis with its Wellness Pro Plus - GlobeNewswire

Organic vs. non-organic: The pros and cons – PhillyVoice.com

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We all want the best for our children especially when it comes to establishing a nutritious diet. My husband and I always strive to make informed decisions when it comes to our daughters health, but theres one thing we cant ever seem to agree on: organic or non-organic?

While my husband believes that organic fruits and veggies are healthier (and thus only wants to feed our daughter organic produce), I am content with giving her conventional fruits and vegetables as long as theyre washed and scrubbed thoroughly under running water. In my opinion, non-organic produce is healthy and a much more affordable option.

To avoid making a scene at the grocery store next time, I need to know: is organic better?

First things first what does organic really mean?

Organic refers to the way farmers grow, handle, and process food. To be classified as organic, foods must meet national standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). As part of these standards, organic crops must be produced without conventional pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, bioengineering, or ionizing radiation.

The process for producing organic fruits and vegetables includes using natural fertilizers such as manure or compost, controlling weeds naturally through methods such as crop rotation, hand weeding, mulching, and tilling, and controlling pests using natural methods and naturally-derived pesticides.

Organic food advocates believe that these farming practices produce better fruits and veggies. Here are some of the benefits of going organic:

Here is my concern (and that of many other consumers) with going organic: its expensive. Organic foods typically cost more than their non-organic counterparts. The USDA found that organic fruits and vegetables can cost more than 20 percent higher than conventional produce. Higher prices are due, in part, to more expensive farming practices.

While organic produce may cost more, thats not stopping some shoppers. Sales of organic food are steadily increasing. But some experts arent convinced that going organic is worth the cost. Heres why:

So, whats the solution? Should we buy organic produce or not?

If youre sold on the idea of going organic (like my husband) but arent ready to go completely organic (like me), you can always pick and choose. Each year, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) puts out a list, known as the Dirty Dozen, of conventionally grown foods most likely to contain pesticide residue. To help reduce your exposure to pesticides, consider buying organic versions of these produce items: apples, celery, cherries, grapes, kale, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, spinach, strawberries, and tomatoes.

The EWG also produces the Clean Fifteen, a list of non-organic fruits and vegetables that are low in pesticide residues. The 2019 list includes: asparagus, avocados, broccoli, cantaloupes, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, frozen sweet peas, honeydew melons, kiwis, mushrooms, onions, papayas, pineapples, and sweet corn.

Balancing the health of our family is a top priority. While I may not be 100 percent sold on the idea of going organic like my husband is, I think we can find a compromise by purchasing a mix of organic and non-organic produce.

This article was originally published on IBX Insights.

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NIH-funded i3 Center formed to advance cancer immunotherapy – Harvard Gazette

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Steven Hodi Jr., the i3 Centers other PI, and director of Melanoma Center and the Center for Immuno-Oncology at Dana-Farber, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), is leading the clinical cancer vaccine trial. He has been at the forefront of developing cancer immunotherapies using immune checkpoint inhibitors, a class of drugs able to re-activate tumor-destroying T cells that are muted in the tumor microenvironment. The funding for this center provides a unique opportunity to unite key investigators for translating fundamental advancements in immunology and biomedical engineering into highly synergistic approaches to improve the treatments for cancer patients, said Hod

Using both in vivo and ex vivo biomaterials-based approaches, the i3 Center aims to boost tumor-specific activities of cytotoxic T cells, by boosting different stages of the normal process by which T cells develop, and acquire anti-cancer activity. T cells normal development starts in the bone marrow where hematopoietic stem cells generate T cell progenitor cells. These migrate to the thymus to differentiate into nave T cells, which then travel further to lymph nodes. There, they encounter cancer-derived antigens presented to them by specialized antigen-presenting cells (APCs) that can activate T cells to recognize and eliminate cancer cells.

In relation to adoptive T cell therapies in which T cells are given to patients to fight their cancers, one team at the i3 Center will be led by Dana-Farber researchers Catherine J. Wu and Jerome Ritz, who along with Mooney, will develop and test biomaterials that can better mimic normal APCs in activating and directing the function of patient-derived T cells outside the human body, prior to their transplantation. Wu is chief of the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies, and Ritz is executive director of the Connell and OReilly Families Cell Manipulation Core Facility at Dana-Farber.

We need to make efforts to enhance the ability of theimmune systemto recognizetumor cells. One directionmylaboratoryis taking makes use of innovative biomaterialsto help us to efficiently expandpolyclonaltumor-specificfunctionally-effectiveT cellsex vivoin a way that can be readily translated to theclinical setting. In our studies, we are currently focusing on melanoma and acute myeloid leukemia, said Wu, whose research interests include understanding the basis of effective human anti-tumor responses, including the identification and targeting of the tumor-specific antigens.

A second project explores the use of DNA origami, biocompatible nanostructures composed of DNA, to create cancer vaccines. DNA origami could provide significant advantages in presenting tumor-specific antigens and immune-enhancing adjuvants to APCs because the concentrations, ratios, and geometries of all components can be modulated with nano-scale precision to determine configurations that are more effective than other vaccination strategies. The project will be run by Wyss Institute Core Faculty member William Shih, Derin Keskin, lead immunologist at Dana-Farbers Translational Immunogenomics Lab, and Mooney.

In a third project, David Scadden, professor at Harvards Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, will collaborate with Mooney to build on their previous work. They will engineer biomaterials that recreate key features of the normal hematopoietic stem cell niche in the bone marrow. Such implantable biomaterials could help rapidly amplify T cell progenitor cells, and enhance T cell-mediated anti-cancer immunity. Scadden also is the Gerald and Darlene Jordan Professor of Medicine at Harvard University, and co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

The i3 Centers investigators anticipate that it will stimulate additional cross-disciplinary concepts and research, due to the culture of continuous interactions, sharing of findings, data and samples between all investigators, as well strong biostatistical expertise provided by Donna Neuberg, a senior biostatistician broadly involved with exploring immune-modulating cancer interventions at the Dana-Farber.

This new i3 Center for cancer immunotherapy innovation really embodies how the Wyss Institute with its unparalleled capabilities in bioengineering and serving as a site for multidisciplinary collaboration, and can liaise with clinicians and researchers at our collaborating institutions to confront major medical problems and bring about transformative change, said Wyss Founding Director Donald Ingber. He is also theJudah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biologyat HMS and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Childrens Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS.

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AgeX Therapeutics Announces Drawdown of Second Tranche of Loan Facility from Juvenescence Ltd. – Business Wire

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ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. (AgeX; NYSE American: AGE), a biotechnology company focused on developing therapeutics for human aging and regeneration, announced the drawdown of a $1.3 million tranche of financing pursuant to its unsecured loan facility from Juvenescence Limited.

Juvenescence is pleased to continue its commitment to AgeX through this additional drawdown under the loan facility, commented Gregory Bailey, MD, Chairman of AgeX and CEO of Juvenescence. Juvenescence remains committed to funding the future development plans of AgeX through further advancements under the loan facility or otherwise. Since Juvenescences initial investment in AgeX in June 2018, AgeX has been an important element in the Juvenescence mission and strategy. Juvenescence is also investing its time and personnel to support AgeXs business development initiatives which have impressive potential. We look forward to AgeX announcing its plans for 2020 as it pursues tissue regeneration in Reverse Bioengineering, while advancing the development of BAT and VASC 1, the coupling of HLA-G with PureStem-derived cells for transplant therapies, and exploring partnerships with third parties.

This round of funding will allow us to continue to execute on our strategic plan to provide therapies for certain chronic and degenerative diseases through cellular regeneration and replacement, commented AgeXs founder and CEO Michael D. West, PhD.

As announced in the companys news release on August 14, 2019, AgeX has obtained a $2 million credit facility from Juvenescence to finance AgeXs operations and advance its product development programs.

About AgeX Therapeutics

AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. (NYSE American: AGE) is focused on developing and commercializing innovative therapeutics for human aging. Its PureStem and UniverCyte manufacturing and immunotolerance technologies are designed to work together to generate highly-defined, universal, allogeneic, off-the-shelf pluripotent stem cell-derived young cells of any type for application in a variety of diseases with a high unmet medical need. AgeX has two preclinical cell therapy programs: AGEX-VASC1 (vascular progenitor cells) for tissue ischemia and AGEX-BAT1 (brown fat cells) for Type II diabetes. AgeXs revolutionary longevity platform induced Tissue Regeneration (iTR) aims to unlock cellular immortality and regenerative capacity to reverse age-related changes within tissues. AGEX-iTR1547 is an iTR-based formulation in preclinical development. HyStem is AgeXs delivery technology to stably engraft PureStem cell therapies in the body. AgeX is developing its core product pipeline for use in the clinic to extend human healthspan and is seeking opportunities to establish licensing and collaboration agreements around its broad IP estate and proprietary technology platforms.

For more information, please visit http://www.agexinc.com or connect with the company on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements that are not historical fact including, but not limited to statements that contain words such as will, believes, plans, anticipates, expects, estimates should also be considered forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements and as such should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect the business of AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. and its subsidiaries, particularly those mentioned in the cautionary statements found in more detail in the Risk Factors section of AgeXs Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commissions (copies of which may be obtained at http://www.sec.gov). Subsequent events and developments may cause these forward-looking statements to change. AgeX specifically disclaims any obligation or intention to update or revise these forward-looking statements as a result of changed events or circumstances that occur after the date of this release, except as required by applicable law.

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AgeX Therapeutics Announces Drawdown of Second Tranche of Loan Facility from Juvenescence Ltd. - Business Wire

Scientists Dispute Whether Snakes Are Source of Wuhan Coronavirus In Humans – Caixin Global

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Scientists affiliated with UK-based universities have disputed a widely-circulated study pointing to snakes as the source of Chinas deadly new coronavirus, saying that bats are more likely to be the real culprit.

A study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Virology had compared the novel virus genes to that of other pathogens from various geographic locations and host species. It concluded that while the virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization, was a combination of coronaviruses found in bats and other unknown origins, it resided in snakes prior to making the jump to humans.

Results derived from our evolutionary analysis suggest for the first time that snake is the most probable wildlife animal reservoir for the 2019-nCoV, wrote the studys authors, hailing from Peking University, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Ningbo University and the Wuhan University of Bioengineering.

However, scientists at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) and the Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University disputed the findings.

Citing recombination analysis, which create visual depictions of similarities between various genetic sequences, the researchers argued in a Thursday post on a medical discussion forum that 2019-nCoV is most closely related to several viruses originating from bats.

There is no evidence of snakes being involved, although, given the propensity of coronaviruses to switch hosts, involvement of another species cannot be discounted, wrote David L Robertson, head of CVR bioinformatics. There is also a very good chance that a non-bat intermediate species is responsible for the beginning of the current outbreak in Wuhan.

Coronaviruses are a category of pathogens that caused the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that emerged in 2002 and also include far less lethal viruses such as some forms of the common cold.

The study identifying snakes as the possible source also noted that those who were first infected with the 2019-nCoV virus were exposed to wildlife animals at a now-shuttered wholesale market in Wuhan, Central Chinas Hubei province, where seafood, poultry, snake, bats, and farm animals were sold.

On Wednesday, Chinese biology and conservation experts called on (link in Chinese) law enforcement agencies in charge of wildlife protection to step up their duties in preventing the trade and consumption of wild game.

As of Thursday, Chinese officials said (link in Chinese) 617 people had fallen sick from the virus while 17 had died. Wuhan has imposed a massive quarantine of the entire city of 11 million, suspending all bus, subway, ferry and long-distance transport systems as of 10 a.m., and have asked residents to remain in the city.

Since its discovery in December, the disease, akin to pneumonia, has spread to regions including Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the U.S., and Singapore. Doctors at several major local hospitals in Wuhan told Caixin that it is estimated that the number of people infected with the epidemic may exceed 6,000.

Follow Caixin Globals latest updates on the Wuhan coronavirus here.

Contact reporter Dave Yin (davidyin@caixin.com)

Related: Wuhan Suspends Public Transit System Amid Virus Fears

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Scientists Dispute Whether Snakes Are Source of Wuhan Coronavirus In Humans - Caixin Global

A New Device that Measures the Stickiness of Tumor Cells May Improve Cancer Prognosis – DocWire News

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Researchers have created a device that measures how sticky cancer cells are, which could improve prognostic evaluation of patient tumors. The device is built with a microfluidic chamber that sorts cells by their physical ability to adhere to their environment. The findings were published inCancer Research.

This new device could be the first step to better assess how likely tumor recurrence is, said Adam Engler, bioengineering professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and senior author of the study in a press release. Patients with few of these aggressive cells lying dormant in their surrounding tissue may be less likely to see a tumor reoccur 5, 10, or 20 years later. Engler noted that by knowing a patients risk, follow-up treatments could be better tailored to the individual.

The device they developed includes a microfluidic chamber coated with an adhesive protein. After cancer cells adhere, they are placed in the chamber before a fluid is pushed through to detach cells. The faster the fluid moves, the higher the stress exerted on the cancer cells. The analysis led the team to another critical finding: weakly adherent cells possess a unique genetic signature that identifies them and enables them to migrate and invade faster. Comparing this signature to thousands of patients in the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, researchers observed that patients with tumors high in this weakly adherent signature experienced tumor recurrence occurred earlier and more frequently.

First author Pranjali Beri, a bioengineering Ph.D. student in Englers lab noted that: If our mouse model shows that these cells indeed reduce cancer-free survival times, it will pave the way for substantial prognostic studies in humans with these types of solid tumors.

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Researchers use Irish whiskey to create graphene – The Irish Times

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Irish researchers have found a new use for Irish whiskey creating the worlds wonder material, graphene.

The discovery was made by researchers at the SFI Research Centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research (Amber), hosted by Trinity College Dublin, when they were investigating new ways to make the material.

Graphene is one of the thinnest and strongest materials in the world, and is known to have unique mechanical and electrical properties. It is the worlds first 2D material, almost completely transparent. And at an atom thick, it is the thinnest material known to science. Its conduction properties open up potential uses in computers, smartphones and sensors.

One of the most efficient ways of making it is through a process called liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE), which was pioneered by Amber researchers and produces nanosheets from layered crystals.

The new research found Irish whiskey could be used to produce defect-free sheets of graphene. The project also found that printable inks produced using the whiskey LPE process could be printed into nanosheet networks for future use in electronics such as RFID tags, data storage or pixels in OLED televisions.

The team looked at a number of alcoholic liquids for the process, and found Irish whiskey in this case, Teeling Small Batch Irish Whiskey produced the best results.

Whiskey is uniquely suited for stabilising our nanomaterials because of the maturation process it must undergo, explained Prof Jonathan Coleman, Amber co-lead investigator on the project and principal investigator in Amber and Trinitys school of physics.

Before a spirit can be called a whiskey, it needs to be aged in a barrel for a minimum of three years and, over the three years, the majority of the flavour compounds are added to the whiskey. Other clear spirits like vodka are ostensibly just water and ethanol flavourings are added according to the brand so they lack the broad compound profile inherent to whiskey. These compounds are what help to stabilise our nanomaterials.

The whiskey process showed better results for stabilising nanomaterials in a liquid or ink compared with the current process of mixing water and ethanol.

We have shown that 2D nanomaterials are more stable in whiskey than simply water and ethanol and that the whiskey with the suspended nanomaterials can be printed using aerosol jet printers, said Dr Adam Kelly, a post-doctoral researcher at Amber.

We have now created whiskey-based inks of graphene and tungsten disulphide [a conductor and semiconductor] so we are able to print working transistors. While there is scope to improve their performance, the fact that they function at all shows that devices made from 2D nanosheets can withstand contamination to a high degree.

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Xiongan plans genetic therapy and data center, will explore bioscience and biotech – Dodson Digest

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Technicians detect a non-alcohol drink made of bamboo in a biotechnology company in Anji County, east Chinas Zhejiang Province, June 3, 2016. Anji is known for its pleasant environment with flourishing bamboo plantations and many scenes from the famous movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were shot here. The county persists in green, low-carbon development, and strives to protect environment as well as to develop local economy. China has pledged to coordinate its efforts of environmental protection and economic development in 2019, an important year for winning the tough battle against pollution. At the annual Central earlier this month, authorities called for building on this years achievement in pollution control, making more efforts and input in 2019. Since the turn of this year, China has made solid efforts to combat pollution and seen constant improvement of the environment. The Central Economic Work Conference made it clear that local governments must avoid past simple and unscrupulous practices in dealing with environmental problems. (Xinhua/Tan Jin)

The in North Chinas Hebei Province plans to build a genetic data center, in an attempt to develop the areas bioscience and biotechnology industries, the Hebei provincial government said.

In a document released by the provincial government on Monday to support the provinces bioengineering and pharmaceutical industry, companies are encouraged to undertake technical research into gene therapy.

In addition, the province supports the clinical application of gene sequencing technology, and the establishment of a genetic testing application demonstration center and public technology platform.

The province will allocate more money to support the study of bioscience, bioengineering and biomedical engineering in local universities as a way to cultivate talent, said the document.

Hebei is looking to the future because the gene-related industry is really new in China, Wang Jun, deputy director of the department of information at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

As a millennium plan of our country, Xiongan must foster its own competitive industries The move by Hebei is a way to look ahead, to explore and develop a promising industry at an advanced technological level.

Wang noted that based on current conditions, the main focus in Xiongan is developing light industry as well as high-technology sector.

Being adjacent to Beijing and North Chinas Tianjin Municipality, both of which have abundant technology resources, Xiongan New Area can take advantage of the scientific research institutions, companies and talent in the two cities, he said.

If Xiongan can aggregate the resources in the genetic area and grab a market share at an early stage under the guidance of policy, it will have a great opportunity to develop the gene-related industry well, Wang said.RELATED ARTICLES:

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Xiongan plans genetic therapy and data center, will explore bioscience and biotech - Dodson Digest

University of Maryland grad student restores movement to mice crippled with multiple sclerosis – Baltimore Sun

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Crippled by multiple sclerosis, the lab mice's hind legs and tails were limp with paralysis, but Lisa Tostanoski had an idea about how she could treat them.

With a tiny needle, the doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park injected the mice with a dose of time-released medicine. Two weeks later the mice were scampering around their cages.

"They were able to stand up on their hind legs," Tostanoski said. "We reversed the paralysis."

The treatment, a complex combination of immunology and engineering, earned Tostanoski, 26, a prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, awarded to her and eight other students and teams earlier this month. The prize for the most promising young inventors in America awards her $15,000 for her medical invention to reverse symptoms of debilitating autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Her novel approach has shown promise for developing treatments in an area that has long eluded researchers.

"If her invention that she's working on proves successful, it's a game changer," said Stephanie Couch, executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. "She didn't shy away from something that seems big and daunting."

Autoimmune diseases occur when a person's immune system mistakes healthy cells in the body for a foreign threat and attacks the tissue. With multiple sclerosis a disease afflicting more than 2.3 million people worldwide the immune system's defense cells attack the fatty myelin sheaths that cover nerves. Researchers don't know why these confused "T-cells" attack. But persistent barrages can damage nerves, causing muscles to weaken and stiffen, and lead to paralysis.

Doctors routinely treat multiple sclerosis patients with medicine to suppress the entire immune system and stave off attacks. But this strategy has widespread and often dangerous side effects in the body, and the benefits diminish over time.

Tostanoski, a McDonogh School alumnae from Catonsville, working in University of Maryland bioengineering lab, has embraced a different approach: transform the T-cells.

She began experimenting five years ago to develop a method to target the bad T-cells. Such a treatment would transform care for millions of people with multiple sclerosis.

"It's the Holy Grail of MS. Finding the exact T-cells that are causing the disease and getting rid of them could be close to a cure," said Bruce Bebo, executive vice president for research at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in Waltham, Mass. "By selectively targeting the T-cells, you might be able to stop MS in its tracks."

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has spent nearly $650,000 to fund Tostanoski's work at the Jewell Research Lab in College Park. Elsewhere, researchers are trying to develop similar pinpoint treatments that leave immune systems unscathed. The society has committed $80 million over the next four years to fund more than 300 research projects around the country.

Rather than suppressing the bad T-cells, Tostanoski's method aims to change the cells from foe to friend within the lymph nodes. These glands swell to produce defense cells when a person becomes sick.

"Think of the lymph nodes like a classroom," she said. "Cells that recognize myelin learn to mature and become inflammatory, then travel out of the lymph node to the brain where they attack."

She injected tiny fragments of myelin into this lymph node classroom. But her breakthrough came when she encapsulated the fragments with a coating that gradually wears down to prolong the release of myelin.

"You're basically keeping the stuff around longer," said Christopher Jewell, an associate professor of bioengineering who runs the College Park lab. "If you just inject something in there, it could flow out and be gone."

T-cells that develop in the presence of myelin don't attack it, though researchers don't know why. These cells will leave the lymph nodes and actually defend myelin. They also will calm the attacking cells.

The concept was born from theories that injections with low doses of bee pollen will diminish someone's allergy to bees. In two weeks of myelin treatments, the lab mice gradually recovered.

"What's really unique about what Lisa's working on is depositing in the lymph node and controlling the release," said Jewell, her academic adviser.

By focusing on multiple sclerosis, Tostanoski took on a large and vexing medical riddle, which attracted the Lemelson prize judges. Among the recent winners were students who developed a folding drone, an advanced prosthetic foot, a protein to fight superbug bacteria, and a portable device to convert text to Braille.

Multiple sclerosis is two to three times more common in women than men, according to the society. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50. The average American has about a one in 750 chance of contracting multiple sclerosis, according to the MS society.

Further research remains before Tostanoski's treatment is tested on people with MS. Researchers in the College Park lab plan to next test her methods on human lymph nodes removed during biopsies.

Tostanoski expects to receive her Ph.D. in bioengineering in the coming months, and she intends to find a research job with a university and one day become a professor. Researchers at the University of Maryland will carry on her work.

For now, she's relishing her award from the Lemelson judges. She learned of their decision by voice mail.

She was busy in the lab when they called.

tprudente@baltsun.com

See the rest here:
University of Maryland grad student restores movement to mice crippled with multiple sclerosis - Baltimore Sun

How Advances In Bioengineering Are Allowing People To Unlock Natural Resilience – Forbes

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How Advances In Bioengineering Are Allowing People To Unlock Natural Resilience
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... and programmed it to behave like a normal leg. When I visited his lab at MIT, he had a pair of those babies strapped on, and we walked across the icy quad to lunch. If that is not an expression of human resilience unleashed by bioengineering I ...

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How Advances In Bioengineering Are Allowing People To Unlock Natural Resilience - Forbes