Category Health/Medical

Therepi’s reservoir, which would attach directly to the damaged heart tissue, is placed on a dime for size reference and connected to a self-sealing subcutaneous port. Credit: Nature Biomedical Engineering, Whyte et al.; Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license

A team of researchers is hoping to halt the progression from heart attack to heart failure with a small device called ‘Therepi.’ The device contains a reservoir that attaches directly to the damaged heart tissue. A refill line connects the reservoir to a port on or under the patient’s skin where therapies can be injected either by the patient or a healthcare professional.

After a patient has a heart attack, a cascade of events leading to heart failure begins...

This is an image of ‘surgery in a pill’ in the intestine. Credit: Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Randal Mckenzie

Over the last decade, bariatric surgeons have made strides in performing weight loss surgery that not only reverses obesity but can also reverse type 2 diabetes in patients with both conditions. Despite dramatic improvements in quality of life and diabetes remission, the number of patients who pursue surgery remains relatively low, according to Ali Tavakkoli, MD, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Metabolic Surgery at BWH...

Learning Impairments, Memory Deficits, and Neuropathology in Aged Tau Transgenic Mice Are Dependent on Leukotrienes Biosynthesis: Role of the cdk5 Kinase Pathway. Molecular Neurobiology, 2018; DOI: 10.1007/s12035-018-1124-7

Reversing memory deficits and impairments in spatial learning is a major goal in the field of dementia research. A lack of knowledge about cellular pathways critical to the development of dementia, however, has stood in the way of significant clinical advance. But now, researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) are breaking through that barrier. They show, for the first time in an animal model, that tau pathology – the second-most important lesion in the brain in patients with Alzheimer’s disease – can be reversed by a drug.

“We show t...

The aorta of a mouse model of atherosclerosis on a high-fat diet for 12 months (top) has significantly more plaques (bright red) than the aorta of the same type of mouse that also produces the anti-inflammatory E06 antibody (bottom). Credit: UC San Diego Health

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine discovered that they can block inflammation in mice with a naturally occurring antibody that binds oxidized phospholipids (OxPL), molecules on cell surfaces that get modified by inflammation. Even while on a high-fat diet, the antibody protected the mice from arterial plaque formation, hardening of the arteries and liver disease, and prolonged their lives.

This study, published June 6 by Nature, marks the first demonstration in a living system that OxPL triggers in...