Category Health/Medical

At present, bacteria, fungi or viruses can generally only be detected with certainty by way of elaborate lab tests or animal experiments. The food and pharmaceutical industries would like to have faster tests to check their products. Fraunhofer researchers are therefore developing a stick that works like a pregnancy test and quickly delivers a result. In the future, it is also to be used for detecting allergens and disease pathogens in the blood.

“The ImmuStick can even detect pathogens outside the body – on medical devices or in hospital rooms for example. However, the technology would certainly also be of interest for testing human blood for germs or allergies,” says Dr...

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In cystic fibrosis, high dose ibuprofen helps slow decline of lung function, a disease caused by having two ‘bad’ copies of a gene that codes for a protein important in fluid secretion. Improved lung function is important, given that most people diagnosed die by their early 50s, usually due to chronic lung infections caused by their inability to move particles, including bacteria, up and out of the lungs. The downside is that ibuprofen doses that high, when taken routinely, can result in gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and – when combined with the antibiotics that these patients often have to take for their recurring lung infections – acute kidney injury...

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Stimulating the visual cortex of the brain for 20 minutes with a mild electrical current can improve vision for about 2 hours, and those with worse vision see the most improvement, according to a Vanderbilt University study published this week in Current Biology. A/prof Geoff Woodman said...

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The artificial pancreas – a device which monitors blood glucose in patients with type 1 diabetes and then automatically adjusts levels of insulin entering the body – is likely to be available by 2018...

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