Shimadzu, one of the world leaders in analytical instrumentation, has appointed Jürgen Semmler as the new managing director of its European organization from July 1, 2021. Previously, head of Shimadzu Deutschland, he succeeds Jürgen Kwass, who led Shimadzu Europa from 2003 to the present and is now retiring. Semmler and Kwass have both been affiliated […]
Medovate has successfully secured additional CE Mark approvals for its SAFIRA (SAFer Injection for Regional Anaesthesia) technology to include an NRFit syringe and a Palm Operator
Minaris Regenerative Medicine, a leading contract development and manufacturing organization for the cell and gene therapy industry, will be the commercial manufacturer in Europe for bluebird bio’s Skysona (elivaldogene autotemcel, formerly Lenti-D gene therapy), for the treatment of Early Cerebral Adrenoleukodystrophy (CALD).
Owen Mumford has been awarded a RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) gold health and safety award. The awarded is given to organisations that achieve exceptional control of risk with very low levels of error, harm and loss.
Siemens Healthineers has recently started offering its customers WeScan. WeScan is a new service that helps healthcare providers to perform magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations if they lack qualified radiology staff. With the WeScan service, customers may seek access to a pool of skilled remote imaging technologists who help operate the MRI scanner using syngo […]
The US FDA has granted Fast Track designation to APB-102, Apic Bio’s lead gene therapy candidate designed to treat SOD1 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Apic said they plan to commence a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in early 2022.
Canon Medical Systems Corporation recently announced a major operational plan to strengthen its healthcare information technology (HIT) division which will see it broaden its capabilities and leverage Canon Medical’s global infrastructure to accelerate the delivery of a full range of Enterprise, AI, and collaborative imaging solutions. As part of the development, Vital Images, Inc. will […]
CN Bio, a leading organ-on-a-chip company (OOC) that designs and manufactures singleand multi-organ microphysiological systems (MPS), has secured the licensing rights to a novel tool for modelling the gut microbiome, GuMI, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and North-eastern University. Planned for commercial launch in 2023, the technology will be integrated into CN Bio’s PhysioMimix […]
Ashikaga Red Cross Hospital, Japan’s first green hospital
Leaders of the global healthcare community are invited to attend an important virtual event looking at developing innovative practices for a sustainable future.
The event – Green Hospitals: Sharing innovative practices for a sustainable future – on 7 October (12pm – 3pm UTC), is being hosted by the International Hospital Federation and Dialog Health.
It will bring together hospital executives from around the world to share their strategies and experiences in promoting sustainability in the healthcare sector.
Hospital and healthcare professionals are at the forefront of the fight against climate change, which is at risk of becoming the biggest public health threat of our generation:
Dr. Satoru Komatsumoto, Emeritus Director of Ashikaga Red Cross Hospital, will share his insights into designing a resilient hospital.
The keynote speaker at the event will be Dr. Satoru Komatsumoto, Emeritus Director of Ashikaga Red Cross Hospital, which is Japan’s first green hospital Dr. Komatsumoto will share his insights into designing a resilient hospital.
He commented: “Sixteen years ago, I proposed that our hospital should be eco-conscious. I wanted to create a hospital that would be beautiful and that would organically integrate all the features to meet the challenges of the future… I wondered what kind of hospital would meet the needs of our time. I studied very hard to imagine a next generation hospital.”
The program also includes speakers from Europe and the USA who will share strategies to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030, sustainable food circuits and building a carbon-neutral hospital. There will also be dedicated time for small group discussions with the experts to explore innovative ideas.
Thomas Korn, professor of experimental neuroimmunology at TUM
Scientists have long been aware of a link between the gut microbiome and the central nervous system (CNS). Until now, however, the immune cells that move from the gut into the CNS and thus the brain had not been identified. A team of researchers in Munich has now succeeded in using violet light to make these migrating T cells visible for the first time. This opens up avenues for developing new treatment options for diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and cancer.
The link between the gut microbiome and the CNS, known as the gut/brain axis (GBA), is believed to be responsible for many things: a person’s body weight, autoimmune diseases, depression, mental illnesses and Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and LMU University Hospital Munich have now succeeded in making this connection visible for the first time. This is cause for hope – for those suffering from MS, for example. It may offer ways to adapt treatments, and T cells could perhaps be modified before reaching the brain.
The immune system is affected by environmental factors – also in the central nervous system in case of MS patients. This autoimmune disease is subject to repeated flare-ups, experienced by patients as the improvement or worsening of their condition. T cells collect information and, in MS patients, carry it to the central nervous system (in the brain or spinal cord) where an immune response is triggered. Until now, however, it was long uncertain how and from where the T cells were travelling to the CNS
The team working with Thomas Korn, a professor of experimental neuroimmunology at TUM, has developed a method for marking immune cells in mice using photoconvertible proteins. The T cells can then be made visible with violet light. The researchers successfully tested this method with the mouse model in lymph nodes, both in the gut and the skin. They were able to track the movement of the T cells from those locations into the central nervous systems.
T cells from the skin migrated into the grey and white matter of the CNS, while almost all T cells from the gut ended up in the white matter. For T cells in the brain, it was still possible to determine their origin.
“What makes these insights so important is that they demonstrate for the first time that environmental influences impact the T cells in lymph nodes in the gut and the skin, which then carry this information into the distant organs,” said Prof. Thomas Korn. “The characteristics of the T cells are sufficiently stable for us to determine whether immune responses are influenced by skin or gut T cells,” added LMU researcher Dr. Eduardo Beltrán, who performed the bioinformatic analyses in this study.
Michael Hiltensperger, first author, remarked that the research provided an important insight for MS patients: “If gut or skin cells were known to be the cause, the T cells could be treated at the source of the disease and predictions could be made on the progress of the chronic inflammation and autoimmune condition. The results of the study could also mean a breakthrough for research on other autoimmune diseases or cancer.
Hiltensperger, M., Beltrán, E., Kant, R. et al. Skin and gut imprinted helper T cell subsets exhibit distinct functional phenotypes in central nervous system autoimmunity. Nature Immunology 22, 880–892 (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-021-00948-8
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