The regeneration of damaged body parts would certainly be a significant medical breakthrough (And almost a guaranteed trip to Stockholm).

thenewenlightenmentage:

Humans May Soon Regenerate Damaged Body Parts Like Salamanders

Australian researchers have isolated an immune system cell in salamanders which helps it regenerate missing limbs and damaged organs — and they suspect the same thing could work in humans, too.

Salamanders, or axolotls, are unique among vertebrates in that they’ve got remarkable regenerative powers. Adults can literally regrow and restore function to any part of the body, including the spinal cord and heart — even parts of the brain. Moreover, the regenerated tissue is scar free; once repaired, the new tissue looks almost the same as it was before.

Mammals obviously can’t do this. When we suffer tissue damage, the growth response is severely limited, while also being subject to scarring.

Now, thanks to the work of James Godwin and colleagues at Monash University’s Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, scientists are one step closer to figuring out how to transfer the salamander’s regenerative powers to humans.

A crucial part of the healing process involves the presence of macrophages — a major immune system cell type that patrols tissues and gobbles-up foreign invaders, like bacteria and fungi. What’s more, they also play an important role in determining the mode of repair and instigating the tissue regeneration process.

Godwin et al. determined this after they got rid of all the macrophages in the salamanders they were experimenting upon. Devoid of these immune cells, the salamanders completely lost their ability to regrow limbs. In a manner of speaking, they suddenly became mammal-like — left with stumps and scarred tissue.

But then, after the macrophages were re-introduced, their regenerative capacities were restored, and the salamanders were able to grow their limbs back.

“Previously, we thought that macrophages were negative for regeneration, and this research shows that that’s not the case — if the macrophages are not present in the early phases of healing, regeneration does not occur,” he said in a press statement. “Now, we need to find out exactly how these macrophages are contributing to regeneration. Down the road, this could lead to therapies that tweak the human immune system down a more regenerative pathway.”

The researchers theorize that chemicals released by the macrophages are crucial for regeneration. And indeed, this is the next phase of their research. Their ultimate goal is to reverse-engineer these techniques into human therapies — a medical breakthrough that could lead to treatments for heart and liver diseases associated with scarring (fibrosis). It could also lead to therapies for the treatment of spinal cord and brain injuries.

Read the entire study at PNAS: “Macrophages are required for adult salamander limb regeneration.”

Image: National Geographic/Stephen Dalton/Animals Animals—Earth Scenes.

Wow! Another great medical app. This time a hearing aid app.

springwise:

App turns iPhone into a hearing aid

Many of those with hearing problems have consigned themselves to wearing a hearing aid – which can often be cumbersome and expensive. The SCS1000 smart watch has already made steps towards helping deaf people remain aware of their surroundings, and now UK-based project BioAid is harnessing the power of smartphones to provide an easier and cheaper way to amplify the sounds around them. READ MORE…

Bionic prosthetics that can be controlled via a mobile app.

futurescope:

Bionic App

via NewScientist:

The powered thumb is controlled by signals from the user’s arm muscles or - in a first for upper limb prostheses - via a smartphone app: a tap of the screen and the hand automatically arranges itself into a preset grip. The thumb can move into 24 different positions and new, extra-sensitive fingertip electrodes also give improved dexterity.

“Powered thumb rotation, combined with the mobile app and quick access to all these new grips, gives me natural hand function that I never imagined would be possible,” says Bertolt Meyer, who wears one of the new hands.

The app makes it easy to configure presets by group, such as “work”, which includes positions ready for typing, handling documents or using a mouse. The app also includes diagnostic tools and training modes for new users.

[read more] [touch bionics] [Image: Murdoch Ferguson/Ferguson Imaging]

A functioning lab-grown kidney - a step forward for regenerative medicine.

futurescope:

Lab-grown kidney

From BBC News:

A kidney “grown” in the laboratory has been transplanted into animals where it started to produce urine, US scientists say. Similar techniques to make simple body parts have already been used in patients, but the kidney is one of the most complicated organs made so far. A study, in the journal Nature Medicine, showed the engineered kidneys were less effective than natural ones. […]

[read more] [paper] [OTT Lab] [via @warrenellis]

A look at temporary tattoos for machine interfaces, both medical and industrial.

joshbyard:

Progress in Using “Temporary Tattoos” Instead of Implants for Brain-Computer Interfaces

In recent years, brain implants have enabled people to control robotics using only their minds, raising the prospect that one day patients could overcome disabilities using bionic limbs or mechanical exoskeletons. But brain implants are invasive technologies, probably of use only to people in medical need of them.

Instead, electrical engineer Todd Coleman at the University of California at San Diego is devising noninvasive means of controlling machines via the mind, techniques virtually everyone might be able to use.

His team is developing wireless flexible electronics one can apply on the forehead just like temporary tattoos to read brain activity. “We want something we can use in the coffee shop to have fun,” Coleman says.

The devices are less than 100 microns thick, the average diameter of a human hair. They consist of circuitry embedded in a layer or rubbery polyester that allow them to stretch, bend and wrinkle. They are barely visible when placed on skin, making them easy to conceal from others.

The devices can detect electrical signals linked with brain waves, and incorporate solar cells for power and antennas that allow them to communicate wirelessly or receive energy. Other elements can be added as well, like thermal sensors to monitor skin temperature and light detectors to analyze blood oxygen levels.

Using the electronic tattoos, Coleman and his colleagues have found they can detect brain signals reflective of mental states, such as recognition of familiar images. One application they are now pursuing is monitoring premature babies to detect the onset of seizures that can lead to epilepsy or brain development problems. The devices are now being commercialized for use as consumer, digital health, medical device, and industrial and defense products by startup MC10 in Cambridge, Mass.

APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!

(via Temporary Tattoos Could Make Electronic Telepathy, Telekinesis Possible - Business Insider)

(via thescienceofreality)

Gel to stop bleeding. A must for any medical kit and EMTs.

mothernaturenetwork:

College student invents gel that halts bleeding

Veti-Gel is a synthetic version of ECM, which binds cells together and initiates the clotting process.

A look at further advances in medical 3D printing or additive manufacturing as it is also called.

joshbyard:

A New Technique to 3D Print Human Ears

A team of bioengineers and physicians over at Cornell University recently detailed their work to 3D print lifelike ears that may be used to treat birth defects like microtia and assist those who have lost or damaged an ear due to an accident or cancer.

The product, which is, “practically identical to the human ear,” according to the school, was created using 3D printing and gels made from living cells — collagen was gathered from rat tails and cartilage cells were taken from cow’s ears.

The whole process is quite quick, according to associate professor Lawrence Bonassar, who co-authored the report on the matter, “It takes half a day to design the mold, a day or so to print it, 30 minutes to inject the gel, and we can remove the ear 15 minutes later. We trim the ear and then let it culture for several days in nourishing cell culture media before it is implanted.”

(via Cornell scientists 3D print ears with help from rat tails and cow ears)

(via futurescope)

Bionics with a sense of touch! What a breakthrough for cybernetics!

neurosciencestuff:

A sensational breakthrough: the first bionic hand that can feel

The first bionic hand that allows an amputee to feel what they are touching will be transplanted later this year in a pioneering operation that could introduce a new generation of artificial limbs with sensory perception.

The patient is an unnamed man in his 20s living in Rome who lost the lower part of his arm following an accident, said Silvestro Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

The wiring of his new bionic hand will be connected to the patient’s nervous system with the hope that the man will be able to control the movements of the hand as well as receiving touch signals from the hand’s skin sensors.

Dr Micera said that the hand will be attached directly to the patient’s nervous system via electrodes clipped onto two of the arm’s main nerves, the median and the ulnar nerves.

This should allow the man to control the hand by his thoughts, as well as receiving sensory signals to his brain from the hand’s sensors. It will effectively provide a fast, bidirectional flow of information between the man’s nervous system and the prosthetic hand.

“This is real progress, real hope for amputees. It will be the first prosthetic that will provide real-time sensory feedback for grasping,” Dr Micera said.

“It is clear that the more sensory feeling an amputee has, the more likely you will get full acceptance of that limb,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston.

“We could be on the cusp of providing new and more effective clinical solutions to amputees in the next year,” he said.

(via fuckyeahrobots)

Another medical step forward with this bionic eye.

holdinghope:

World’s First Bionic Eye Receives FDA Approval

http://goo.gl/SQ36e

The new retinal prosthesis, called Argus II, can restore partial sight to people blinded by a degenerative eye disease. The Argus II works by substituting a small array of electrodes for the light-sensing cells that normally react to light by sending an electric signal toward the back of the retina. Those signals are relayed to the optic nerve behind the eye, and travel back along the nerve to the brain. In people with the genetic disease Retinitis pigmentosa, which affects about 100,000 people in the U.S. today, those light-sensing cells gradually stop working, resulting in total blindness. In addition to the electrode array, which is implanted in the retina at the back of the eye, the Argus II system consists of a small video camera attached to a pair of eyeglasses and a visual processor the user carries around their waist. Data from the video camera is sent to the visual processor and then back to the glasses, where it is transmitted wirelessly to the embedded electrodes.

(via futurescope)