A new test could help researchers understand how patients might respond to an unpredictable type of drug called a biologic. The test uses stem cells to give a more accurate prediction for how the drugs will affect a person's entire body, not just specific cells, and could make drug trials much safer in the near future.
My mom always used to say that video games were never good for anything, but a new game developed in part by Ubisoft, creator of Assassin's Creed, may prove her wrong. Dig Rush, which was created in conjunction with Amblyotech Inc. and based on the research of ophthalmologists at McGill University, is more than just a game: It's designed to help treat amblyopia, the condition more commonly known as "lazy eye," where one eye doesn't work together smoothly with the other and with the brain. The National Institute of Health estimates that the condition is pretty common, affecting two or three out of every hundred children.
Surgeons at the California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) in San Francisco have gotten pretty good at doing kidney transplants; they have done about 200 of them per year since 1968. But over the next two days, a team of five surgeons and over 60 support staff will complete a six-way kidney transplant, operating on 12 individuals: 6 donors and 6 recipients.
Everyone knows the age-old tactics for losing weight: eat better, eat less, and exercise more. But researchers at the University of Southern California may have found a way to sidestep that simple-sounding advice. Mice injected with a newly discovered hormone called MOTS-c gained less weight and were better able to regulate blood sugar, the same benefits they would have received if they had been exercising.
Traumatic injuries, like falls or car crashes, can cause the victim to lose a lot of blood very quickly. The result is thousands of preventable deaths per year, especially among Americans under age 44, for whom injury is the leading cause of death. Researchers at the University of Washington have developed an injectable material that can help blood clot faster and more effectively, plugging up the wound to stop the bleeding. The study was published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
