New research demonstrates that the six-step hand-hygiene technique recommended by the World Health Organization is superior to a three-step method suggested by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in reducing bacteria on healthcare workers

The MEDICAL FAIR ASIA, Southeast Asia

Non-healing chronic wounds are a major complication of diabetes, which result in more than 70,000 lower-limb amputations in the United States alone each year. The reasons why diabetic wounds are resistant to healing are not fully understood, and there are limited therapeutic agents that could accelerate or facilitate their repair.

University of Notre Dame researchers have discovered a compound that accelerates diabetic wound healing, which may open the door to new treatment strategies.

A team of researchers from Notre Dame

Physicists from the University of Sydney have devised a way to use diamonds to identify cancerous tumours before they become life threatening.
Their reveal how a nano-scale, synthetic version of the precious gem can light up early-stage cancers in non-toxic, non-invasive Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans.
Targeting cancers with tailored chemicals is not new but scientists struggle to detect where these chemicals go since, short of a biopsy, there are few ways to see if a treatment has been taken-up by a cancer.
Led by Professor David Reilly from the School of Physics, researchers from the University investigated how nanoscale diamonds could help identify cancers in their earliest stages.
‘We knew nano diamonds were of interest for delivering drugs during chemotherapy because they are largely non-toxic and non-reactive,’ says Professor Reilly.
‘We thought we could build on these non-toxic properties realizing that diamonds have magnetic characteristics enabling them to act as beacons in MRIs. We effectively turned a pharmaceutical problem into a physics problem.’
Professor Reilly’s team turned its attention to hyperpolarizing nano-diamonds, a process of aligning atoms inside a diamond so they create a signal detectable by an MRI scanner.
‘By attaching hyperpolarized diamonds to molecules targeting cancers the technique can allow tracking of the molecules’ movement in the body,’ says Ewa Rej, the paper’s lead author.
‘This is a great example of how quantum physics research tackles real-world problems, in this case opening the way for us to image and target cancers long before they become life-threatening,’ says Professor Reilly.
The next stage of the team’s work involves working with medical researchers to test the new technology on animals. Also on the horizon is research using scorpion venom to target brain tumours with MRI scanning.

University of Sydneyhttp://tinyurl.com/h8qj2ah

The lab of Patrick Aebischer at EPFL has developed a bioactive capsule containing cells that have been genetically engineered to produce antibodies against Abeta. The capsule is implanted in the tissue under the skin, and over time the cells produce and release a steady flow of antibodies into the bloodstream, from where they cross over into the brain to target the Abeta plaques.
Before going into capsule, the cells are first genetically engineered to produce antibodies that specifically recognize and target Abeta. The cells of choice are taken from muscle tissue, and the permeable membranes let them interact with the surrounding tissue to get all the nutrients and molecules they need.

EPFL