Category: Site News

Researchers at Keck School of Medicine of USC develop signals that could bring color vision and improved clarity to prosthesis for the blind. There are millions of people who face the loss of their eyesight from degenerative eye diseases. The genetic disorder retinitis pigmentosa alone affects 1 in 4,000 people worldwide. Today, there is technology available to offer partial eyesight to people with that syndrome. The Argus II, the world’s…

Engineers, using artificial intelligence and wearable cameras, now aim to help robotic exoskeletons walk by themselves. Increasingly, researchers around the world are developing lower-body exoskeletons to help people walk. These are essentially walking robots users can strap to their legs to help them move. One problem with such exoskeletons: They often depend on manual controls to switch from one mode of locomotion to another, such as from sitting to standing, or…

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors recognized that patients who developed a “cytokine storm”—a surge of pro-inflammatory immune proteins—were often the sickest and at highest risk of dying. But a cytokine storm can also occur in other illnesses, such as influenza. Today, scientists report preliminary results on a sweat sensor that acts as an early warning system for an impending cytokine storm, which could help doctors more effectively treat patients….

The womb is home to the most complex feat of human biology: the transformation from embryo to fetus to baby. But that magnificent conversion would be impossible without the placenta, the life-giving organ that the developing fetus is tied to via the umbilical cord. Even before a woman knows she’s pregnant, the placenta swells in size, poised to serve as the fetus’s kidneys and liver until the fetus has its…

New, reversible CRISPR method can control gene expression while leaving underlying DNA sequence unchanged. Over the past decade, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has revolutionized genetic engineering, allowing scientists to make targeted changes to organisms’ DNA. While the system could potentially be useful in treating a variety of diseases, CRISPR-Cas9 editing involves cutting DNA strands, leading to permanent changes to the cell’s genetic material. Now, in a paper published online…

The development of a wearable to detect early Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases years before symptoms show has taken a step closer to reality today, as UK charity Alzheimer’s Research UK announces a partnership with Boston University that will see the first digital data flowing into its global Early Detection of Neurodegenerative diseases (EDoN) initiative. The announcement comes as Alzheimer’s Research UK welcomes over 500 dementia researchers to its annual…

A millimeter-scale microLED display that fits onto a contact lens to provide augmented reality is, frankly, amazing, but for it to be useful it needs to know what to display. Last month at the IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference, augmented reality contact lens startup Mojo Vision in Saratoga, Calif., reported new details of the image chip and image processing circuits that tell their display what to paint onto your retina….

New hydrogel-based materials that can change shape in response to psychological stimuli, such as water, could be the next generation of materials used to bioengineer tissues and organs, according to a team of researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago. In a new paper published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, the research team — led by Eben Alsberg, the Richard and Loan Hill Professor of Biomedical Engineering — that…

Gene editing delivery method in mice suggests possible one shot treatment of high cholesterol The genome editing technology CRISPR has emerged as a powerful new tool that can change the way we treat disease. The challenge when altering the genetics of our cells, however, is how to do it safely, effectively, and specifically targeted to the gene, tissue and organ that needs treatment. Scientists at Tufts University and the Broad…

Millions of patients suffering from neurological and mental disorders such as depression, addiction, and chronic pain are treatment-resistant. In fact, about 30% of all major depression patients do not respond at all to any medication or psychotherapy. Simply put, many traditional forms of treatment for these disorders may have reached their limit. Where do we go from here? Research to be published in Nature Biomedical Engineering led by Maryam Shanechi, the Andrew…