Article • Lab

Drawing blood from capillaries

It hasn’t happened yet, but the laboratory testing industry in the United States is bracing up for a day when venous blood draws may become more of the exception than the rule. Report: Cynthia E. Keen

News • In dying cells

Potential way to control cholesterol levels

A discovery about how the body deals with the cholesterol contained within its dying cells has suggested an exciting new approach to control people’s cholesterol levels – and thus their risk of developing heart disease.

Sponsored • Non-invasive

Good news for diabetics, cardiology patients and caretakers

At this year’s MEDICA, CNOGA Medical Ltd. will be introducing its new line of non-invasive, pain-free patient vital signs monitoring TensorTip™ devices, and presenting its new Singular™ platform, a secure cloud-based ecosystem infrastructure platform as well as its new mobile application for sending results to physicians, friends and caretakers. CNOGA’s easy-to-use, portable devices are…

Article • Networking

Improvements in efficiency and quality through digitalisation

Increasing requirements for specialisation and diagnostic quality in pathology on the one hand and the importance of pathology findings for treatment planning on the other hand call for new solutions in pathomorphological diagnostics. One important starting point is the fast-paced opportunity for digitalisation along with communication systems which facilitate the storage and transfer of large…

Sponsored • Hot topic II

News from Israel

CNOGA Medical Ltd. is a leading developer and manufacturer of innovative e-health ecosystems for non-invasive, pain-free bio-marker monitoring and cloud-based ecosystem technology. At MEDICA CNOGA Medical presents its new Ecosystem Infrastructure of Non-Invasive Hemodynamics, Blood parameters & Blood gases Monitoring Devices, Cloud-Based Platform and Mobile Application.

News • Illuminating

Roadmap to easier blood draws

Blood drawing for patients with hard-to-reach veins just became a lot easier and less painful at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ, thanks to a small hand-held device that lights up veins like a roadmap. With the AccuVein illumination device, the need for multiple needle sticks to try to hit a good vein for a blood draw is a thing of the past.

Interview • Genom

I looked into my genes and changed some habits

“These dates we have access to a lot of genetic information which had previously not been available to us. For the individual, this can provide options for action with regards to leading a healthier lifestyle or to try and prevent diseases,” knows Dr. Theodor Dingermann. The senior professor of the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main has had his own genome decoded. In parts, the result…

News • “JEDI” Technology

New understanding of how immune system works

When it comes to fending off disease and helping prevent people from falling ill, the body’s immune system – armed with T-cells that help eliminate cancer cells, virus-infected cells and more – is second to none. But exactly how the immune system works remains, in many ways, a mystery, as there are numerous cell types whose functions and interactions with our immune systems have not been…

Sponsored • Technology

Panasonic set to launch 4K Ultra HD Micro Camera

Panasonic will launch a 4K Ultra HD micro camera at the forthcoming Compamed tradeshow in Düsseldorf, starting on Monday 16 November. The 4K micro camera (GP-UH532) has 3840x2160 resolution at 60p. It is capable of outputting images at up to 1600 TV lines, for smooth, detailed images and accurate colour reproduction.

News • Research

Drug engineered from bananas fights deadly viruses

A banana a day may not keep the doctor away, but a substance originally found in bananas and carefully edited by scientists could someday fight off a wide range of viruses, new research suggests. And the process used to create the virus-fighting form may help scientists develop even more drugs, by harnessing the “sugar code” that our cells use to communicate. That code gets hijacked by…

News • Cancer care

Swedish healthcare region invests in digital pathology from Sectra

The Swedish healthcare Region Östergötland is making a full commitment to digital pathology by investing in a solution from Sectra for storage, review and sharing of digital pathology images. The aim of the region’s investment is more rapid care for cancer patients, in which pathology has a key role in diagnosis and treatment.

News • Map

A social network of human proteins

Complex life is only possible because proteins bind to each other, forming higher-order structures and signal pathways. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich and at the MPI of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden have now drawn a detailed map of human protein interactions. Using a novel mass spectrometric quantification method, the…

News • Wastewater treatment plants

Analyzer measures chemical oxygen demand

Wastewater treatment plants can benefit from a new chemical oxygen demand (COD) analyzer that will provide plant engineers with another tool to monitor water quality and prevent environmental contamination.COD analysis is used to detect levels of organic pollutants in water, and early identification of these contaminants can indicate an issue in the treatment process of wastewater. The new Thermo…

Eating fruits, veggies in youth linked to healthy heart decades later

Eating more fruits and vegetables as a young adult may keep your arteries free of heart disease 20 years later, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

News • MRSA

Breast cancer drug eats superbug

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have found that the breast cancer drug tamoxifen gives white blood cells a boost, better enabling them to respond to, ensnare and kill bacteria in laboratory experiments. Tamoxifen treatment in mice also enhances clearance of the antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogen…

News • Toolkit

Microchip helps to visualize breast cancer proteins

A photograph may reveal how something looks, but direct observation can divulge how the objects behave. The difference can mean life or death, especially when it comes to fighting human disease. To help researchers examine exactly how human diseases work at the molecular level, Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientist Deborah Kelly has developed a new set of tools to peer into the…

News • Lung cancer

Immunotherapy superior to chemotherapy?

Researchers compared an immunotherapy and a chemotherapy drug in patients with non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease continued to progress after first-line chemotherapy. They found that nivolumab improved overall survival and was generally well tolerated. The results are significant because options for patients whose lung cancer progresses after initial treatment are…

News • Mystery solved

Key Element of cellular organization found

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have discovered evidence of a mechanism at the heart of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and related degenerative diseases. The research highlights a possible new treatment strategy for the devastating disorders.

News • Mutations

Cancer Genes open door to targeted treatments

In a discovery that could lead to more targeted and effective treatments for certain lung and prostate cancers, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have identified two new cancer-causing gene mutations – mutations that may be particularly susceptible to cancer-fighting drugs already approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. One of the gene mutations also may…

News • High Throughput WSI

New scanner for double sized slides

In the field of cancer diagnostics often tissue has to be cut in small pieces to fit on standard slides, although larger tissue sizes would be advantageous for diagnosis.In addition, most high throughput scanners available on the market are only able to scan normal sized slides. Some single slide scanners are able to process double sized slides but there is no system available for the automated…

News • See trough bones

Uncover new details about blood-forming stem cells

A team of scientists at the Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) has become the first to use a tissue-clearing technique to localize a rare stem cell population, in the process cracking open a black box containing detailed information about where blood-forming stem cells are located and how they are maintained. The findings provide a significant advance toward understanding…

News • Study

Safety concerns over new female sterilization device

Women who undergo implant based female sterilization have a significantly heightened risk of reoperation following complications, suggests a large study published in The BMJ.

News • Protein DART

New shock-and-kill strategy against HIV

A unique molecule developed at Duke Medicine, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and MacroGenics, Inc., is able to bind HIV-infected cells to the immune system’s killer T cells. It could become a key part of a shock-and-kill strategy being developed in the hope of one day clearing HIV infection.

News • Neurotransmitters

Coordinating traffic down the neuronal highway

An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the National University of Singapore (NUS), has identified a protein that regulates the growth of neurons by transporting key metabolic enzymes to the tips of neural cells. Their findings open up new avenues for design of drugs for ataxia, a motor coordination disorder.

News • Innovation

3D bone marrow made from silk biomaterials generates platelets

Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at Tufts University and their collaborators have successfully developed a 3-dimensional (3D) tissue-engineered model of bone marrow that can produce functional human platelets outside the body (ex vivo).