Science and Health News

Choosing the best treatment for a cancer patient is often an inexact science. Drugs that work well for some patients may not help others, and tumors that are initially susceptible to a drug can later become resistant. In a new approach to devising more personalized treatments, researchers at MIT and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have developed a novel way to test tumors for drug susceptibility.

Device can predict tumor responses by measuring cell growth after drug exposure.

Surgeons at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, have carried out the world’s first internal eye operation using a robot, remotely controlling the machine to lift a membrane 100th of a millimetre thick from a patient’s retina, thus setting the new world record for the World’s first robotic eye surgery, according to the World Record Academy.

A new tool that uses a forest-like array of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes that can be finely tuned to selectively trap viruses by their size can increase the detection threshold for viruses and speed the process of identifying newly-emerging viruses. The research, by an interdisciplinary team of scientists at Penn State, is published in the October 7, 2016 edition of the journal Science Advances.

Graduate student seeks humane method for ending lives of research subjects

In a groundbreaking new study led by University of Minnesota biomedical engineers, artificial blood vessels bioengineered in the lab and implanted in young lambs are capable of growth within the recipient. If confirmed in humans, these new vessel grafts would prevent the need for repeated surgeries in some children with congenital heart defects.

Keyboard-monitoring technique can detect motor difficulties as patients type.

Organovo Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONVO) («Organovo»), a three-dimensional biology company focused on delivering scientific and medical breakthroughs using its 3D bioprinting technology, today announced its plan to develop 3D bioprinted human liver tissue for direct transplantation to patients.