December 22, 2023
(Associated Press) – Russia’s war on Ukraine has created a massive need for prosthetic limbs. An estimated 20,000 Ukrainians have had amputations since the war started in February 2022, many of them soldiers who lost arms or legs due to … Read More
December 22, 2023
(Businessweek) – A startup called Minicircle wants to reprogram human genes—and is enlisting biohacker Bryan Johnson as a human guinea pig in its unproven approach. (Read More)
December 21, 2023
(Nature) – Researchers are closing in on ways to produce CAR T cells in the body, raising hopes that the notoriously expensive and bespoke cancer therapies might one day become more accessible. In CAR-T treatment, immune cells called T cells … Read More
December 20, 2023
(IEEE Spectrum) – FUntil now, only about 50 humans have ever had BCIs implanted in their brains. And only a handful of those people have been able to leave the laboratory to use them in the real world, since most … Read More
December 19, 2023
(KFF Health News) – The men’s deaths are among more than 4,500 reports since August 2017 in which the HeartMate 3 may have caused or contributed to a patient’s death, according to a KFF Health News analysis of the FDA’s … Read More
December 19, 2023
(Bloomberg) – Retro Biosciences, a startup with $180 million from Sam Altman, has a simple and audacious goal: Add 10 good years to your life. And until now, we haven’t had a glimpse of its best ideas. (Read More)
December 15, 2023
(Wired) – Our B cells help prevent us from getting sick. Their job is to make antibodies, immune system proteins that fight off viruses and other foreign invaders. And they make a lot of antibodies—thousands of them every second. What … Read More
December 15, 2023
(Business Insider via MSN) – Using just 20 watts of power, the human brain is capable of processing the equivalent of an exaflop — or a billion-billion mathematical operations per second. Now, researchers in Australia are building what will be … Read More
December 14, 2023
(MIT Technology Review) – Vertex Pharmaceuticals has agreed to buy rights to use a dominant CRISPR patent owned by the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, avoiding a potential lawsuit over its new gene-editing treatment for sickle-cell disease. The agreement … Read More
December 13, 2023
(MIT Technology Review) – Brain organoids, clumps of human brain cells grown in a dish, can be hooked up to an electronic chip and carry out simple computational tasks, a new study shows. Feng Guo and his team at Indiana … Read More
December 12, 2023
(Nature) – Engineered immune cells have given 15 people with once-debilitating autoimmune disorders a new lease on life, free from fresh symptoms or treatments. The results raise hopes that the approach — called CAR-T-cell therapy — might one day be … Read More
December 11, 2023
(The New Yorker) – We routinely test for chemicals that cause mutations. What about the dark matter of carcinogens–substances that don’t create cancer cells but rouse them from their slumber? [Article by Siddhartha Mukherjee] (Read More)
December 8, 2023
(Wall Street Journal) – The gene-editing revolution is jumping from the lab to the marketplace. The U.S. has approved the world’s first medicine employing Crispr technology, a Nobel Prize-winning discovery that promised a powerful new tool for modifying genes to … Read More
December 8, 2023
(STAT News) – Imagine getting surgery without ever being cut open. Researchers at Duke University and Harvard Medical School have successfully demonstrated a proof of concept in new research published Thursday in Science using a 3D printer that uses ultrasound … Read More
December 7, 2023
(Wired) – Digital health company Celero Systems is developing an electronic pill that can measure heart rate, breathing rate, and core temperature—from inside the human stomach. As a first step, the company envisions people with ongoing conditions using the digital … Read More
December 6, 2023
(Nature) – The approval of yet another RNA-based vaccine for COVID-19 might not seem momentous. But the endorsement last week by Japanese authorities of a jab against SARS-CoV-2 constructed using a form of RNA that can make copies of itself … Read More
December 6, 2023
(Wall Street Journal) – Crowley will take on his biggest role yet in March, when he becomes chief executive officer of Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a powerful trade group whose members are mostly small health-focused companies. Crowley will succeed Rachel King, … Read More
December 5, 2023
(The Verge) – DNA data storage might sound like a far-off solution. But a startup called Biomemory is bringing it a little closer to reality with the release of new DNA cards that anyone can purchase — if you have … Read More
December 4, 2023
(The Conversation) – Our reproductive lives are considerably different from those of our ancestors, thanks in part to health innovations that have taken place over the past few decades. Practices such as IVF, donor eggs and sperm, womb transplants, surrogacy … Read More
December 4, 2023
(New York Times) – Traumatic brain injuries have left more than five million Americans permanently disabled. They have trouble focusing on even simple tasks and often have to quit jobs or drop out of school. A study published on Monday … Read More
December 1, 2023
(MIT Technology Review) – By the middle of December, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, based in Boston, is expected to receive FDA approval to sell a revolutionary new treatment for sickle-cell disease that’s the first to use CRISPR to alter the DNA inside … Read More
November 30, 2023
(Wall Street Journal) – In the quest to help people live longer, scientists and companies are turning to dogs. Humans have greater genetic similarities to dogs than other common subjects of aging research, like mice. Our species get many of … Read More
November 30, 2023
(MIT Technology Review) – Money can’t buy happiness, but X Prize founder Peter Diamandis hopes it might be able to buy better health. Today the X Prize Foundation, which funds global competitions to spark development of breakthrough technologies, announced a … Read More
November 28, 2023
(The Atlantic) – The results are so astounding that this therapy, from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, became the first CRISPR medicine ever approved, with U.K. regulators giving the green light earlier this month; the FDA appears prepared to follow … Read More
November 27, 2023
(Wall Street Journal) – At healthcare conferences, someone always asks, “What if there was a magic pill?” One that could cure major diseases. What would the healthcare industry look like? Some emergency rooms and hospitals but less doctors and spending? … Read More
