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Gene Therapy For Hearing Loss
2008-02-07 15:01:00
Human hair cells. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Virginia Health System)A novel gene therapy approach has been developed by the scientists in University of Virgina Health System to treat the patients with genetic or acquired hearing loss.The research has focused on a gene called KCNQ4. It is said that this gene is responsible for genetic hearing loss in human when it get mutated. According to the resources, Dr. Jeffrey Holt, associate professor of neuroscience and otolaryngology at UVa, and his research team, including Dr. Bradley Kesser, an assistant professor of otolaryngology, have engineered a correct version of this gene. Then they have transferred these modified genes in to hair cells obtained from inner ears of people having genetic hearing loss, by using a gene therapy delivery system, developed by this team"Our results show that gene therapy reagents are effective in human inner ear tissue” says Dr. Holt.Hair cells are special kind of cells that lines the cochle...
More About: Loss , Therapy , Gene , Gene Therapy , Hearing

Biochip That Mimics the Body
2008-02-06 18:54:00
Tha datachip -Human liver cells are dotted across the chipPhoto Credit: Moo-Yeal Lee/Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteAnimals are widely being used by cosmetics and pharmaceuticals industry to test chemicals and drug candidates for their toxicity and activity, before being used by the humans. This process is not an easy task as it is getting harder and harder everyday with the emerging laws, higher cost and with the huge amount of chemicals being synthesized. Therefore an effective, faster and a much cheaper alternative for animal-based toxicology screening was a major requirement for a long time; because, deployment of newly synthesized pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, without pre-screening, can be very dangerous for the usage by human.Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of California at Berkeley, and Solidus Biosciences Inc. have come up with a promising solution for the problem. They have developed two biochips, the datachip and the metachip that when...
More About: Body , The Body

Battery-powered Bus
2008-02-06 11:07:00
An automotive engineer Bruce Emmons has designed an electric bus which gets its power by using batteries. Exists still as a prototype, the inventors are hopping to debut this by the middle of year 2008.The bus is propelled by motors attached to each wheel. Theses motors are exclusively powered by batteries. The secret behind this is that the body and chasis is developed from high-strength lightweight stainless steel, which reduces the weight of the bus half as mush as a normal city bus. Reduction of the weight increases the fuel efficiency of the bus as it saves the energy that is generally consumed by a heavy conventional bus to overcome the huge drag created when it is on the run. Therefore the power produced by a battery is said to be sufficient to boost up a bus with a low weight, like this.According to the researchers the invention also provides an effective solution to the problem of carbon dioxide—a major green house gas, produced by standard diesel powered buses.Autokineti...
More About: Battery

Molecular Nanovalves- Nanotechnology for Storing Gas
2008-02-05 17:46:00
Scientists in University of Calgary, have produced a novel approach to capture and store gases from the environment. It is said that this approach eliminates the use of special storage tanks and security concerns which are highly necessary in storing gases with high densities.In this technique, a unique solid structure, made by modifying a chemical material called barium organotrisulfonate is used as a storage material. The material consists of a series of open channels which can be converted in to a collection of closed air tight chambers when filled with air. This conversion is done by heating the material—a quick process that encloses the nanovalves in the material. To release the trapped gases, water is added to the material to re-open the closed nanovalves."The process is highly controllable and because we're not breaking any strong chemical bonds, the material is completely recyclable and can be used indefinitely," says George Shimizu, a professor in Chemistry at University...
More About: Nanotechnology

Sperm Cells from Bone Marrow.!!
2008-02-05 13:47:00
(Credit: Newcastle University, England)Sounds like something that is impossible. But according to the researchers in Germany, it is not quite an ‘impossible’ task.A research carried out in Germany has successfully produced early-stage sperm cells by culturing isolated stem cells from human bone marrow. (Stem cells are special type of cells which have the ability to develop in to other body tissues such as muscles)For this remarkable experiment scientists took isolated stem cells from human bone marrow and cultured in the laboratory conditions. Then these cells were coaxed to differentiate into germ cells—male reproductive cells. The results were surprising; researchers were able to correctly identify the presence of early-stage sperm cells which are also described as spermatagonial stem cells, in the same culture medium informing them that the cells previously obtained from the bone marrow have converted into male reproductive cells."We're very excited about this discovery, p...
More About: Sperm , Bone

Brain Reading Algorithm
2008-02-04 20:35:00
A group of cognitive neuroscientists and computer scientists in the Carnegie Mellon University have successfully developed a technique to tell what other people are thinking, by observing their brain activity.When a person thinks of some particular object, thoughts and perceptions are generated in various positions of the brain producing a particular pattern specific for that object. Different objects cause different patterns. By combining medical imaging and machine learning methods, scientists have been able to develop a novel algorithm—a set of well defined instructions to classifying them according to their corresponding objects. As a result, by analyzing those patterns, one can exactly tell what others were thinking about in a particular moment.In addition, when this algorithm is trained from datasets obtained from a particular person, it could correctly classify unknown datasets obtained from a different person showing that there are similarities between brain activities of ...
More About: Reading , Brain

‘ Antimicrobial Paints ’. –Low Cost and Environmental Friendly
2008-02-04 14:23:00
A research, done with the collaboration between City College of New York (CCNY) and Rice University of Houston have resulted in a new, environmental friendly and low cost technique of developing ‘antimicrobial paints’. What the technique does is embedding antimicrobial silver nanoparticles into vegetable oil-based paints as it is said that silver nanoparticles are having remarkable antibacterial properties while being non toxic to organisms.According to the researchers, the process is simple and economically significant. They are using the same natural lipid oxidization process that happens regularly within our body, to generate a variety of chemically active free radicals which subsequently act as a tool in synthesizing non-toxic, antibacterial silver nanoparticles in situ in the oil medium.“The simplicity of the process and economics should allow us to commercialize these paints as a versatile coating material for health and environmental applications” says Dr. Pulickel M....
More About: Environmental , Cost , Paints , Friendly , Low cost

Energy from Bacteria
2008-02-03 16:00:00
Energy from bacteria…is this possible? Well, this is possible according to Thomas Wood, a professor of chemical engineering in Texas A&M University with his novel technique of converting E-Coli bacteria in to energy factories which produce hydrogen as energy.Prof. Wood, a researcher at Texas A&M University has devised a new biotechnological technique to increase the production of hydrogen by E-Coli bacteria by altering its natural hydrogen producing process. This alternation is primarily done by selectively deleting six specific genes in E-Coli’s DNA which in turn, as a result, produces 140 times more hydrogen than is created via the natural process, along with a supply of sugar to utilize.Hydrogen is considered as a valuable component in fuel-cell technology. Therefore massive scale production of hydrogen is extremely important. Currently a process termed as “cracking water” does this task. But the current method has major drawbacks such as high cost of money and hi...
More About: Bacteria , Energy

Superhuman Vision
2008-02-03 10:47:00
"Looking through a completed lens, you would see what the display is generating superimposed on the world outside," said Babak Parviz, a assistant professor of electrical engineering, University of Washington in Seattle. This simply means that you would possibly see anything that is projected on to the display of your contact lenses along with the natural objects that we see on the world outside..such as in science fictions. Surprising..isnt it?Well…UW engineers have already developed a prototype of this amazing device and have already tested on rabbits for any adverse-effects. The results were truly encouraging —no adverse effects were produced by the rabbits after testing for up to 20 minutes.The lens comprises of an electric circuit as well as red light-emitting diodes for a display. As this still a prototype the display does not light up yet. “A full-fledged display won't be available for a while, but a version that has a basic display with just a few pixels could be oper...
More About: Vision

Cancer cells to ' commit suicide '..?
2008-02-03 05:40:00
Researchers in the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow have developed a novel technology to treat cancers. Researchers were already able to treat several types of tumors including bowel cancer, cervical and bone cells.The new method involves the activation of a specialized gene by the cancer cells which in turn, causes their own death. The gene is described as p73. According to the researchers, this new technology can be effectively used as an alternative to some of the current existing cancer treatment methods as most of these methods are based on a gene called p53 which is also an important gene in controlling cancers. But the main need for an alternation is that in most cases of cancers, p53 gene is held disabled. Scientists are actively working on these disabled p53 gene in order to find out a successful method to restore their function as a way of treating the disease. But the main strategy is that in some cases these p53 genes are kept disabled in such a way that ...
More About: Suicide