Monday, October 21

Tag: biotech

The Race to Put Brain Implants in People Is Heating Up
25Dec By adminNo Comments
Technology

The Race to Put Brain Implants in People Is Heating Up

In September, Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink announced the much-anticipated news that it would start recruiting volunteers for a clinical trial to test its device. Known as a brain-computer interface, or BCI, it collects electrical activity from neurons and interprets those signals into commands to control an external device. While Musk has said he ultimately wants to merge humans with artificial intelligence, Neuralink’s initial aim is to enable paralyzed people to control a cursor or keyboard with just their thoughts.Rival efforts to connect people’s brains to computers are also moving forward. This year, Neuralink competitor Synchron demonstrated the long-term safety of its implant in patients. Other startups tested novel devices in human subjects, while new ventures came ...
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The First Crispr Medicine Is Now Approved in the US
9Dec By adminNo Comments
Technology

The First Crispr Medicine Is Now Approved in the US

Casgevy uses the Nobel Prize–winning technology Crispr to modify patients’ cells so that they produce healthy hemoglobin instead. The Crispr system has two parts: a protein that cuts genetic material and a guide molecule that tells it where in the genome to make the cut.To do this, a patient’s stem cells are taken out of their bone marrow and edited in a laboratory. Scientists make a single cut in a different gene, called BCL11A, to turn on the production of a fetal form of hemoglobin that typically shuts off shortly after birth. This fetal version compensates for the abnormal adult hemoglobin. The edited cells are then infused back into the patient’s bloodstream.A total of 45 patients have received Casgevy in a clinical trial. Of the 31 patients followed for two years, 29 have been free ...
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A Cutting-Edge Cancer Treatment May Cause Cancer. The FDA Is Investigating
29Nov By adminNo Comments
Technology

A Cutting-Edge Cancer Treatment May Cause Cancer. The FDA Is Investigating

Scientists use harmless viruses to ferry and insert the new genetic material because of their natural ability to get inside cells. But the potential for these viruses to accidentally trigger another cancer has long been considered a theoretical risk. In its notice, the FDA said the use of these viruses may have played a role in patients developing secondary cancers.The downside of using viruses is that they tend to drop off their genetic cargo at a random place in a person’s genome. Depending on where this new genetic material integrates, it could potentially activate a nearby cancer gene. “The concern would be that somehow the new genetic material that you put into patients’ T cells can induce cancer in that cell, perhaps by where it gets inserted in the DNA,” Porter says.Because of this...
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The Second Person to Get a Pig Heart Transplant Just Died
1Nov By adminNo Comments
Technology

The Second Person to Get a Pig Heart Transplant Just Died

Lawrence Faucette, the 58-year-old patient with terminal heart disease who was the second person to receive a genetically engineered pig heart, died on October 30, according to a statement from the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, where the transplant was performed.Faucette received the transplant on September 20 and lived for six weeks—less time than the first recipient, despite extra precautions by the Maryland team. Initially, Faucette made progress following his surgery. He was doing physical therapy, spending time with family members, and playing cards with his wife, according to the university. But in the days leading up to his death, his heart began to show signs of organ rejection; in other words, his immune system recognized the pig heart as foreign and attacke...
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