NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Robots Fight Superbugs in Hospitals

One of the biggest worries about American's obsession with antibacterial soaps is the possibility that viruses and bacteria will develop into "superbugs." At Johns Hopkins Hospital a new method is being tested to prevent the rise of superbugs by using robot-like devices that spray hydrogen peroxide.

These bots are about the size of a washing machine and weigh nearly 60 pounds each. Two bots are placed in a sealed room that has had its vents covered. One device sprays a light bleaching agent into the air to kill and prevent the spread of drug-resistant bacteria. A thin layer of the hydrogen peroxide agent, about 2 to 6 microns thick, coats all of the surfaces in the room, including equipment, tables and chairs. A second vaporizer breaks down the bleaching agent into its water and oxygen components, making it non-toxic to humans. The entire process takes about an hour and a half to complete.

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The vaporizers were first developed in Singapore in 2002 to combat the spread of SARS and were stocked in U.S. government agencies in case of an anthrax outbreak.

The team at Johns Hopkins found the rate of patients contaminated with drug-resistant diseases dropped by 64 percent. The vapor also proved effective against bacteria like Staphylococcus, which causes staph infection, and its super cousin MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which is resistant to antibiotics and causes flesh-eating disease.

The study's senior investigator Trish Perl said in a press release that, "Our goal is to improve all hospital infection control practices, including cleaning and disinfection, as well as behavioral and environmental practices, to the point where preventing the spread of these multiple-drug-resistant organisms also minimizes the chances of patients becoming infected and improves their chances of recovery."

The positive results of the study has lead the hospital to purchasing two decontaminating units to be used in rooms that have a high-risk of drug-resistant bacteria. Further testing will be done to see if the bots are useful for decontaminating the outside packaging of unused but potentially exposed hospital equipment.

Credit: BioQuell 

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Alzheimer's Patient Gets Brain Pacemaker

By 2050, the number of Americans living with Alzheimer's is expected to triple -- from roughly 5.2 million to potentially 16 million people. While there is still no cure for the disease, researchers continue to forge ahead with the belief that their innovative methods could lead to medical breakthroughs.

The latest effort comes from researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and neurosurgeon William S. Anderson, M.D. who recently implanted a pacemaker-like device into the brain of an early-stage Alzheimer's patient. The device, which has already been used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, provides deep brain stimulation in the form of low-voltage electrical charges to boost memory and reverse cognitive decline.

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Preliminary safety stages of the research began in 2010, when similar devices were implanted in six Canadian patient's afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. Researchers found that over a 13 months, patients showed sustained increases in glucose metabolism, which indicates neuronal activity. In most Alzheimer's patients, glucose metabolism decreases over that same time frame.

The most recent surgery performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital was one of the first such operations in the United States.

The procedure involves drilling holes into the patient's skull and implanting wires into the brain's fornix, the pathway essential to bringing information to the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the part of the brain where learning begins and memories are made. It's also where the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer's start to appear.

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Wires connected to the "brain pacemaker" emit small electrical impulses 130 times a second. Patients don't even feel the current, according to Paul Rosenberg, M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

"Recent failures in Alzheimer's disease trials using drugs such as those designed to reduce the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in the brain have sharpened the need for alternative strategies," Rosenberg said in a press release. "This is a very different approach, whereby we are trying to enhance the function of the brain mechanically. It’s a whole new avenue for potential treatment for a disease becoming all the more common with the aging of the population."

via Extreme Tech

Credit: ABK/BSIP/Corbis

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Cellphones Track Malaria in Kenya

Millions of cellphone users in Kenya are helping the fight against malaria. In the Oct. 12 issue of the journal Science, scientists report using cellphone location data to create a map of "sources" and "sinks" of malaria, which could lead to better-focused efforts against the mosquitoes that carry it.

The researchers used location data from every call and text made by a mobile phone user in Kenya -- 14.8 million of them. The location data was gathered from the 11,920 cell towers that dot the country, spread among 692 settlements. That data was used to track where people traveled. The researchers then superimposed maps of population density and the rate of infection of malaria. The prevalence of the number of people infected with the disease combined with the travel data was then used to establish a per-day probability that a person would be infected if they visited a specific location.

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Malaria is caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, which bite an infected person and transmit the disease to someone else. In 2011, the disease resulted in some 655,000 deaths, 91 percent of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization's 2011 World Malaria Report.

"We really got to work out where the infections are coming from," Caroline Buckee, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and senior author of the study, told Discovery News.

The combination of two "big data" sources enabled the research team to see travel patterns and use that to find areas where most malaria infections come from. "One of the 'great' things about malaria is that we have very high spatial resolution maps of prevalence," Buckee said. The map of prevalence can be broken up into areas as small as a kilometer (about a thousand yards) on a side.

Some people don't show symptoms immediately, so they can be carriers. That means draining a swamp or spraying a certain area might kill the local bugs, but if people carry the parasite from an area that is untreated, the eradication effort won't do any good.

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The study found that many people travel from Nairobi to areas near Lake Victoria, where mosquitoes and malaria are prevalent. If infected, those travelers bring malaria back to Nairobi when they return. This is why there are more malaria cases showing up in Nairobi's clinics and hospitals than one would expect from the fact that there aren't many places for mosquitoes (of the species that transmits malaria) to live.

Buckee noted that the study doesn't involve finding someone with malaria and tracking their movements. Rather, it uses the data that local officials have about malaria prevalence and population density and combines it with the location information from the phone companies. That's combined with mathematical models of malaria transmission. There's no information about individual people.

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Aside for malaria, Buckee said there has been interest from other researchers in applying this method to studies of dengue, another mosquito-borne disease that tends to show up in tropical countries. Dengue, in fact, might be even easier to study as it tends to show up in urban areas where there are more cell phone towers, and thus better data on human movement.

Top image: Sources and sinks of people and parasites. The left map shows ranked sources (red) and sinks (blue) of human travel, while the right one shows the sources and sinks of parasites. The biggest source of parasites center on Lake Victoria, which is on the western side of the country, and the sink is in the area around Nairobi, in the south-central part of the map. Travelers, by contrast, move from Nairobi to Lake Victoria and back again.

Credt: Science / AAAS

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Bottoms Up, FDA Approves Sensor Pill

For most of us, swallowing a pill is no big deal. Usually, we take one or two at time with a glass of water and that's it.

But for those with more serious conditions, such as cancer patients, those with HIV or people who have undergone organ transplant, maintaining a pill regimen requires real discipline. Why? Because they have to take handfuls of pills at often at particular times of the day. Forgetting to take a pill or taking the wrong one can render the therapy ineffective.

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To help make sure this doesn't happen, Proteus Digital Health has designed a sensor that can be embedded into pills and ingested. 

Once the tiny chip, called the Ingestion Event Marker (IEM), reaches the stomach, it reacts with stomach fluid to send out a time-stamped indentification signal. A special patch worn by the person picks up that signal and wirelessly transmits it to a smartphone application. The signal also relays other information, such as heart rate, body position and activity level.

With patient consent, the data can be monitored by doctors and other caregivers to make sure the medication has been properly taken.

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Proteus received FDA approval on July 30th for the IEM system, which now allows it to go on the U.S. market.

"We are thrilled to have achieved this important milestone to market our ingestible sensor in the United States now, as well as in Europe," Dr. George M. Savage, co-founder and chief medical officer at Proteus Digital Health said in a press release. "We are very much looking forward to bringing the benefits of our ingestible sensor to the American public in the form of innovative product offerings."

Bottoms up.

via Gizmag

Credit: Proteus Digital Health

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Twitter Knows When You're Going To Get Sick

Any person who's feeling a little under the weather knows that some of the best medicine is sympathy. And where better to find tons of sympathy than from your social media group. Type in "#feelingsick" to Twitter to see what I mean.

Even if no one responded to your sympathy fishing, don't worry, Adam Sadilek and his colleagues at the University of Rochester in New York have been paying attention.

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Using 4.4 million tweets with GPS location from over 630,000 users in New York City, Sadilek and his team were able to predict when an individual would get sick with the flu and tweet about it up to eight days in advance of their first symptoms. Researchers found they could predict said results with 90 percent accuracy.

Similar to Google's Flu trends, which uses "flu" search trends to pinpoint where and how outbreaks are spreading, Sadilek's system uses an algorithm to differentiate between alternative definitions of the word 'sick.' For example, "My stomach is in revolt. Knew I shouldn't have licked that door knob. Think I'm sick," is different from "I'm so sick of ESPN's constant coverage of Tim Tebow."

Of course, Sadilek's system isn't an exhaustive crystal ball. Not everyone tweets about their symptoms and not everyone is on Twitter. But considering New York City has more Twitter users than any other city in the world, the Big Apple is as good as a place as any for this study.

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Wouldn't it be cool if one day our smartphones or social network accounts used a system like this to warn us if we're at risk of getting sick? Until then, make sure to get enough exercise and sleep your body needs to stay healthy. And if you do feel like you're coming down with something, I'm always fond of fighting off sickness by bolstering my immune system with the dynamic duo of Vitamin C and Raw Garlic. Plus, that combo keeps the vampires away.

Below is a heat-map visualization of the flu spreading across New York City over the course of one day.

via NewScientist

Credit: Adam Sadilek

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Robot Doctor Will Now See You

We've heard about their potential for getting frisky in the bedroom. We've also seen how consoling they can be to someone on their deathbed. Now robots are set to conquer a new kind of bed -- a hospital bed.

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InTouch Health and iRobot are set to unveil their new medical robot called RP-VITA, or Remote Presence Virtual + Independent Telemedicine Assistant if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

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RP-VITA will be be cloud-connected, linked to your entire medical record and have special ports for plugging in diagnostic devices such as otoscopes and ultrasound. Plus, it will be potentially capable of autonomous navigation if its FDA patent is accepted. The robot is also equipped with the latest electronic stethoscope, a video screen and is controlled with an iPad.

"The RP-VITA is a game changer for acute care telemedicine, and it will become the cornerstone for many new clinical applications and uses. The RP-VITA is a platform that will immediately improve existing healthcare delivery models, and through additional collaboration and development will create new clinical innovations that we can only imagine,"  InTouch Health’s Chairman and CEO, Dr. Yulun Wang said in a press release.

As many hospitals struggle with the pressure of reducing operating expenses without compromising provided care, RP-VITA is expected to extend the reach and effectiveness of health care professionals.

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"The RP-VITA raises the bar for overseeing patient care remotely and allows me to proactively control a situation as if I were there,” said Dr. Jason Knight, Director of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County Transport Program and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, Irvine. “The robot is so easy to use that I can forget about the technology and just focus on the clinical needs at hand.

The robot will make its debut July 26 to 28 at the InTouch Health 7th Annual Clinical Innovations Forum in Santa Barbara, CA.

via iRobot

credit: iRobot

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Marijuana That Doesn't Get You Stoned

I have a hunch this next nugget I'm going to pack the pipe with is going to be a real drag for many card-carrying members (and friends) of the medical marijuana community.

DNEWS VIDEO: MODERN MEDICINE AND TECH

Tikun Olam, a government-approved medical marijuana plantation in northern Israel, has developed a new strain of cannabis that contains very low traces of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive constituent in marijuana that makes users feel high.

This new strain, called Avidekel, still retains the medicinal benefits of marijuana, it just doesn't make users feel stoned. That's because it contains less than one percent THC, compared to the Tikun Olam's most popular strand that contains 23 percent.

While THC may be the most popular of the 60-plus cannabinoids found in marijuana, one of the most important is cannabidiol (CBD), known for its anti-inflammatory benefits. Coupled with low doses of THC, Avidekel boasts a 16 percent concentration if CBD, thus offering to relieve pain without making users feel intoxicated.

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No big deal, right? After all, most medical-marijuana patients partake solely for the medicinal benefits, right? Surely they don't care about getting high?

(We'll pause here as screams of panic ring out from from the fertile hills of Humboldt County, Calif. to the dispensaries of Boulder, Colo. and on over to the coffee shops of Amsterdam.)

"Sometimes the high is not always what they need. Sometimes it is an unwanted side effect. For some of the people it's not even pleasant," Zack Klein, head of development at Tikun Olam, told Reuters.

After researching CBD-enriched cannabis since 2009, Tikun Olam came up with Avidekel six months ago.

Raphael Mechoulam, a professor of medicinal chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told Reuters he thought Avidekel is one of a kind.

"It is possible that" Avidekel's "CBD to THC ratio is the highest among medical marijuana companies in the world, but the industry is not very organised, so one cannot keep exact track of what each company is doing," he explained.

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All you sparkers of the sweet cheeba, I know it sounds like Avidekel threatens to cash your favorite pastime. Though you may be less stoked to toke it, at least the folks at Tikun Olam have your best interest in mind: your health. After all, the real reason behind all those bong rips is because you are afflicted and in no way, shape or form enjoy getting stoned, right?

via Gizmag

Photo Credit: A ripe bud of a flowering Sativa Strain used for medical marijuana. Corbis

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Does Easter Island Hold Alzheimer's Cure?

Anyone who's ever had to watch a family member wither away from Alzheimer's disease knows how devastating and lingering it can be. I should know, I watched my own grandfather succumb to it.

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So I consider myself and those who've lost loved ones to Alzheimer's invested in the following: Texas scientists reported finding exciting results with a drug called rapamycin that helps restore cognitive skills -- such as memory and learning -- which erode with age, especially in those stricken with Alzheimer's disease.

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Fitting that a potential cure for one of life's most mysterious diseases should come from one of the world's most mysterious places. Rapamycin is a bacterial product found in the soil on Easter Island, world-famous for its Ahu Akivi statues.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center added rapamycin to the food of healthy mice throughout their lifespan and found that it enhanced learning and memory in young mice and elevated these skills in older mice.

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"We made the young ones learn and remember what they learned better than what is normal," Veronica Galvin said in a press release. Galvin works for Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University of Texas and was part of the study.

"Among the older mice, the ones fed with a diet including rapamycin actually showed an improvement, negating the normal decline that you see in these functions with age," she added.

The research team published their findings in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

via io9

Credit: David Madison / Getty Images

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Smoking Vaccine Extinguishes Cravings

Gum, patches, inhalers and those pseudo electronic cigarettes...a smoker certainly isn't without options if he or she needs help quitting. But ask anyone trying to shake his habit and you're likely to hear this: Nothing satisfies the cravings more than the real thing.

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Bearing that in mind, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College developed a vaccine that addresses the craving. The vaccine could prevent those who've yet to try cigarettes from ever lighting up.

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The vaccine makes the recipient's kidney pump out antibodies that sweep the bloodstream of nicotine, thus cutting off the addictive rush before it ever reaches the brain.

The research team used the genetic sequence of an engineered nicotine antibody and piggy-backed it onto an adeno-associated virus (AAV), a virus designed to be harmless. Also included was genetic information for the vaccine to go to liver cells called hepatocytes. Once inside the nucleus of the hepatocytes, the antibody's genetic sequence caused the cells to emit more antibodies that neutralized nicotine in the bloodstream.

So far the vaccine has only been tested on mice, but the results were promising. Studies showed that the vaccine continuously produced high levels of the antibody.

Ronald G. Crystal, the study's lead investigator, compared the vaccine to one of the most famous video games of all time.

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"As far as we can see, the best way to treat chronic nicotine addiction from smoking is to have these Pacman-like antibodies on patrol, clearing the blood as needed before nicotine can have any biological effect," he said in a Weill Cornell press release. "Our vaccine allows the body to make its own monoclonal antibodies against nicotine, and in that way, develop a workable immunity."

Crystal and his team plan to test the vaccine on rats and then primates before testing it on humans.

via Gizmag

Credit: Brand X Picture / Getty Images

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Obamacare? I'm Moving to Canada: DNews Nuggets

Obamacare? I'm Moving to Canada: After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Obama's healthcare mandate was constitutional, Twitter lit up with people saying that they were moving to Canada to get away from socialized medicine. Here are couple of examples: "I'm moving to Canada. Obviously the United States doesn't know what they are doing anymore. This used to be a great country... Pretty sad." And "That's it. I'm moving to Canada #sodissapointed #scotus #healthcarereform." My personal favorite: "I'm moving to Canada, the United States is entirely too socialist." via BuzzFeed

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