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    Category Health/Medical

    ‘Like a Lab in your Pocket’ — new test strips raise game in gene-based diagnostics

    March 8, 2024, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    The new testing strips will make rapid antigen testing as powerful as PCR testing.
    Photo: Getty Images

    Biosensing technology developed by engineers has made it possible to create gene test strips that rival conventional lab-based tests in quality. When the pandemic started, people who felt unwell had to join long queues for lab-based PCR tests and then wait for two days to learn if they had the COVID-19 virus or not.

    In addition to significant inconvenience, a major drawback was the substantial and expensive logistics needed for such laboratory tests, while testing delays increased the risk of disease spread.

    Now a team of bio]medical engineers at UNSW Sydney have developed a new technology offering test strips which are just as accurate as the lab-based detection...

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    World-first Trial of Regenerative Hearing Drug is Successfully Completed

    March 7, 2024, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    World-first trial of regenerative hearing drug is successfully completed
    Mean pure-tone air-conduction thresholds in the treated ear of all patients that completed 12 weeks follow-up (N = 42). Presented timepoints are baseline (black), 6 (blue) and 12 (red) weeks, error bars indicate standard deviations. Pure-tone thresholds are displayed in decibel hearing level (dB HL), frequency in kilohertz (kHz). Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45784-0

    Researchers at UCL and UCLH have successfully completed the first trial of a therapy designed to restore hearing loss. The REGAIN trial, the results of which were published in Nature Communications, was the first study of a treatment aimed at restoring lost hearing, focusing on a drug with the technical name gamma-secretase inhibitor LY3056480.

    The researchers found that while the t...

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    Common Immune Response is found to be Protective Across Many Diseases

    March 5, 2024, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Common immune response protective across many diseases
    Overview of study design, analytic methods, and dataset multi-omics. (A) Cartoon describing the collected single-cell and bulk multi-omic datasets with paired clinical data from infection, autoimmunity, and cancer contexts. (B) Cartoon depicting experimental and analytic strategies for single-cell and bulk data with a focus on NKG2A/C-expressing cell types. (C) Cartoon demonstrating NKG2A+ and NKG2C+ bias assignment at single-cell and bulk levels. (D) Cartoon displaying the different clinical and biological -omics to be compared between NKG2A+ and patients with an NKG2C+ bias. Credit: Cell Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.113872

    Combined, infection, autoimmunity and cancer account for 4 out of every 10 deaths worldwide, and represent major global health challenges...

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    Scientists Reveal How our Cells’ Leaky Batteries are making us Sick

    March 5, 2024, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    X ray of painful hands
    Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory condition that can damage joints.

    The new findings could lead to better treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and other inflammatory diseases – and may even help us slow aging.

    Researchers have discovered how “leaky” mitochondria can drive harmful inflammation responsible for diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Scientists may be able to leverage the findings to develop better treatments for those diseases, improve our ability to fight off viruses and even slow aging.

    The new discovery reveals how genetic material can escape from our cellular batteries, known as mitochondria, and prompt the body to launch a damaging immune response...

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