Interesting Engineering | Health & Medical Care
“A stem-cell-based artificial liver created by researchers at the Southern Medical University has now been approved for clinical trials by regulators in China. If the problems are cleared successfully, the novel approach could help millions of people battling liver failure worldwide.”
From Interesting Engineering.
Northwestern University | Health & Medical Care
“While breastfeeding has many benefits for a parent and their baby, it has one major drawback: It’s incredibly difficult to know how much milk the baby is consuming.
To take the guesswork out of breastfeeding, an interdisciplinary team of engineers, neonatologists and pediatricians at Northwestern University has developed a new wearable device that can provide clinical-grade, continuous monitoring of breast milk consumption.
The unobtrusive device softly and comfortably wraps around the breast of a nursing parent during breastfeeding and wirelessly transmits data to a smartphone or tablet. Parents can then view a live graphical display of how much milk their baby has consumed in real time.
By eliminating uncertainty, the device can provide peace of mind for parents during their baby’s first days and weeks. In particular, the new technology could help reduce parental anxiety and improve clinical management of nutrition for vulnerable babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.”
From Northwestern University.
Johns Hopkins University | Health & Medical Care
“A robot trained on videos of surgeries performed a lengthy phase of a gallbladder removal without human help. The robot operated for the first time on a lifelike patient, and during the operation, responded to and learned from voice commands from the team—like a novice surgeon working with a mentor.
The robot performed unflappably across trials and with the expertise of a skilled human surgeon, even during unexpected scenarios typical in real life medical emergencies.”
From Johns Hopkins University.
“England will be the first country in the world to start vaccinating people against the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea.
It will not be available for everyone. The focus will mainly be on gay and bisexual men with a history of multiple sexual partners or an STI.
The vaccine is 30-40% effective, but NHS England hopes it will reverse soaring numbers of infections.
There were more than 85,000 cases in 2023 – the highest since records began in 1918.”
From BBC.
“Scientists at the University of Cambridge have identified a family of bacterial species, found naturally in the human gut, that absorb various PFAS molecules from their surroundings. When nine of these bacterial species were introduced into the guts of mice to ‘humanise’ the mouse microbiome, the bacteria rapidly accumulated PFAS eaten by the mice – which were then excreted in faeces.
The researchers also found that as the mice were exposed to increasing levels of PFAS, the microbes worked harder, consistently removing the same percentage of the toxic chemicals. Within minutes of exposure, the bacterial species tested soaked up between 25% and 74% of the PFAS.
The results are the first evidence that our gut microbiome could play a helpful role in removing toxic PFAS chemicals from our body – although this has not yet been directly tested in humans.
The researchers plan to use their discovery to create probiotic dietary supplements that boost the levels of these helpful microbes in our gut, to protect against the toxic effects of PFAS.”
From Cambridge University.
