Author Interviews, Education, Pediatrics, Smoking, Technology, Tobacco Research / 29.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jon-Patrick Allem, Ph.D., M.A. Research Scientist Keck School of Medicine of USC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly explain what is meant by JUUL?  Response: The JUUL vaporizer is the latest advancement in electronic cigarette technology, delivering nicotine to the user from a device about the size and shape of a thumb drive. JUUL has taken the electronic cigarette market by storm experiencing a year-over-year growth of about 700 percent. In our most recent study, we wanted to document and describe the public’s initial experiences with JUUL. We collected posts to Twitter containing the term “Juul” from April 1, 2017 to December 14, 2017. We analyzed over 80,000 posts representing tweets from 52,098 unique users during this period and used text classifiers (automated processes that find specified words and phrases) to identify topics in posts. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Technology / 22.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kenichi Takahata, Ph.D., P.Eng. Associate Professor Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty of Applied Science University of British Columbia Vancouver, B.C., Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this technology and study?  Response: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one cause of mortality globally. One of the most common and proven treatments for CVD is stenting. Millions of stents are implanted annually worldwide. However, the most common complication called in-stent restenosis, re-narrowing of stented arteries, still poses a significant risk to patients. To address the current lack of diagnostic technology to detect restenosis at its early stage, we are developing “smart” stents equipped with microscale sensors and wireless interface to enable continuous monitoring of restenosis through the implanted stent. This electrically active stent functions as a radio-frequency wireless pressure transducer to track local hemodynamic changes upon a re-narrowing condition. We have reported a new smart stent that has been engineered to fulfill clinical needs for the implant, including its applicability to current stenting procedure and tools, while offering self-sensing and wireless communication functions upon implantation. The stent here has been designed to function not only as a typical mechanical scaffold but also as an electrical inductor or antenna. To construct the device, the custom-designed implantable capacitive pressure sensor chip, which we developed using medical-grade stainless steel, are laser-microwelded on the inductive antenna stent, or “stentenna”, made of the same alloy. This forms a resonant circuit with the stentenna, whose resonant frequency represents the local blood pressure applied to the device and can be wirelessly interrogated using an external antenna placed on the skin. (more…)
ASCO, Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Technology / 22.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alexandra Urman, MPH Clinical Research Manager Clinical Development IBM Watson Health  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: Cancer statistics show only 3-5% of cancer patients participate in clinical trials although up to 20% may be eligible. Dr. Tufia Hadad, a medical Oncologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota sought to address this issue and spearheaded a project conducted at the Rochester facility in collaboration with IBM Watson Health. The objective was to determine if the use of cognitive computing increased clinical trial enrollment and screening efficiency in the breast cancer clinic. Watson for Clinical Trial Matching (CTM) is a cognitive system which utilizes natural language processing to derive patient and tumor attributes from unstructured text in the electronic health record that can be further used to match a patient to complex eligibility criteria in trial protocols. (more…)
Author Interviews, Memory, Technology / 15.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Eric Krokos 5th-year Ph.D. student in computer science Augmentarium visualization lab augmentarium.umiacs.umd.edu University of Maryland  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: I am interested in exploring the use of virtual and augmented reality in high-impact areas like education, medicine, and high-proficiency training. For VR and AR to excel as a learning tool, we felt there needed to be a baseline study on whether people would perceive information better, and thus learn better, in an immersive, virtual environment as opposed to viewing information on a two-dimensional desktop monitor or handheld device. Our comprehensive user-study showed initial results that people are able to recall information using virtual reality—there was an 8.8 percent improvement in recall ability from our study participants using VR. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Technology / 13.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Richard S. Blackburn BSc (Leeds), PhD (Leeds), CCol FSDC Associate Professor in Coloration Technology Head of Sustainable Materials Research Group University of Leeds MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: I’ve been working with my colleague Professor Chris Rayner at The University of Leeds for over 10 years in the field of anthocyanins, which are pigments that provide colour to most berries, flowers, and many other fruits and vegetables. We have developed techniques to isolate these compounds from food waste, characterise the chemistry of the extracts, and use these natural pigments in various applications. In this work, anthocyanins extracted from blackcurrant waste created during the manufacture of blackcurrant cordial (Ribena) have for the first time been used in an effective new hair dyeing technology. Why hair dyeing? The global hair coloration industry is worth more than $10 billion a year, with the number of people colouring their hair in professional salons and at home on the increase, but some of the ingredients found in commonly-used synthetic hair dyes, are known irritants and can trigger severe allergic reactions. There is also much debate about whether these ingredients also cause cancer. Dyes that some may consider ‘natural’ – such as those including henna – usually escape scrutiny when it comes to health concerns, but the main natural colorant in henna is lawsone, which the EU Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety states is toxic. What is more, it is thought up to 95% of all dyes end up washed down the drain; their effect on the environment is unknown. Because of issues and concerns around conventional dyes, we wanted to develop sustainable, biodegradable alternatives using green chemistry processes that minimise potential risks to health and offer consumers a different option. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Diabetes, Gastrointestinal Disease, Technology, Weight Research / 13.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeff Karp B.Eng. PhD. Professor of Medicine Center for Nanomedicine and Division of Engineering in Medicine Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School Boston MA MedicalResearch.com: How would you briefly explain the most important findings and conclusions of this study to a non-expert?
  • The type-2 diabetes (T2D) epidemic will affect over 642 million people worldwide by 2040. As a result, diabetes costs the US healthcare over $174 billion dollars annually and is the leading cause of blindness, amputations, renal failure, and poor cardiovascular outcomes. Recently, bariatric surgery, bypassing stomach and intestine from the food stream, has shown promising results and shown to be superior to pharmaceuticals in managing T2D. However, the risks of surgery along with permanent changes to gastrointestinal anatomy deters many suitable patients from surgery, with less than 1-2% of Americans who qualify for weight loss surgery actually undergoing the procedure. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a safe, non-invasive and effective treatment for wider diabetic patient population.
  • We envisioned a pill that a patient can take before a meal that transiently coats the gut to replicate the effects of surgery. During the past 8 years, we’ve been working on this idea and have developed a safe gut-coating material that can potentially mimic the beneficial effects of gastric bypass procedures in the form a pill.
  • LuCI can be activated in any part of gastrointestinal tract (e.g. stomach, duodenum, intestine, colon) to form a temporary physical barrier that isolates that part of gastrointestinal tract. In our pre-clinical models, LuCI coated the duodenum to modulate glucose responses in oral glucose tolerance tests.
  • These beneficial effect are observed without any evidence of systemic absorption of the drug.
  • We believe that LuCI could be a new therapeutic approach for T2D that is based on Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery, but is safer, associated with significantly less complications, and thus can potentially help a wide T2D patient population.
  • In a separate set of studies, we also showed that luCi allows delivery of certain proteins and drugs, which would normally be degraded by the gastric acid, to the GI tract, protecting it from gastric acid digestion and prolonging their luminal exposure.
(more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Technology / 30.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bruce E. Katz, M.D. Clinical Professor Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai Director, Juva Skin & Laser Center Past Director, Cosmetic Surgery & Laser Clinic Mt Sinai Hospital New York, N.Y. 10022 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Axillary hyperhidrosis is estimated to affect 1.4% of the U.S. population. Newer treatments such as microwave technology, botulinum toxin injections and lasers have emerged as effective methods. In this pilot study we examine the use of a non-invasive 1060nm diode laser, SculpSure, for the treatment of axillary hyperhidrosis. SculpSure focuses energy at the level of the sweat glands so we believed it would work for hyperhidrosis. After two SculpSure treatments, there was a long lasting resolution of hyperhidrosis. (more…)
Author Interviews, Emergency Care, Technology / 19.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Raymond E. Bertino, MD airRx lead developer and Clinical Professor of Radiology and Surgery at UICOMP MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for the airRX app and study? Response: With increasing air travel, in-flight medical emergencies have increased and physicians on commercial airline flights are routinely asked to volunteer assistance. A study presented this week at the annual meeting of The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) examined physician performance during practice simulations of in-flight medical emergencies with use of a smartphone app, airRx. In the unique study, cases based on commonly occurring in-flight medical emergencies were portrayed in a mockup of the airline cabin setting. Actors portrayed patients, family members, seat neighbors and flight attendants. Resident physicians in non-emergency specialties were asked to assist as if they were volunteering in actual medical emergencies. The study utilized airRx, the mobile app developed to help physicians and other medical personnel volunteering during in-flight medical events. The airRx app enables healthcare professionals to access 23 scenarios of the most common medical emergencies, with concise treatment algorithms and reference information to help evaluate and treat the patient.  (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Medical Imaging, Prostate Cancer, Technology / 17.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Andrew J. Armstrong, MD ScM FACP Associate Professor of Medicine, Surgery, Pharmacology and Cancer Biology Associate Director for Clinical Research in Genitourinary Oncology Duke Cancer Institute Divisions of Medical Oncology and Urology Duke University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Men with prostate cancer commonly develop bone metastases and undergo nuclear medicine bone scans. However, these scans are non-quantitative, and disease burden has been challenging to assess over time and to relate to clinical outcomes. We developed a software program and measurement called the automated bone scan index that essentially reads a standard of care nuclear bone scan, provides a quantitative metric, and demonstrate in a phase 3 trial that this aBSI is highly associated with clinical outcomes including survival, time to symptomatic progression, and prostate cancer specific survival. We accomplished this within a prospective phase 3 international trial of men with metastatic hormone resistant prostate cancer who were followed over a long period of time.  All bone scans were read and measured using the aBSI at baseline, and we found that the aBSI was highly prognostic.  This work validates prior smaller phase 2 BSI studies, and demonstrates both the feasibility and clinical utility for incorporating the aBSI into clinical practice to provide this important prognostic information to patients and providers. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Breast Cancer, Technology, University of Michigan / 16.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Greg Thurber, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Chemical Engineering Assistant Professor Department of Biomedical Engineering University of Michigan  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Most current disease screening strategies rely on either blood tests, where the physician can obtain information on specific disease molecules but has no idea where they originated in the body, or anatomical imaging, where the physician can see changes in the structure of tissues but doesn’t have any molecular information. We wanted to develop a method that could provide both molecular information and an image of where these molecules were located. We know from decades of research in cancer that this is a molecular disease, so providing molecular information to the physician will help improve detection and diagnosis. Breast cancer screening provides an excellent opportunity to apply this approach to improve detection. Currently, estimates indicate that we are overspending $4 billion per year on the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer because we cannot accurately determine which patients need treatment and which can be safely monitored with no intervention. Despite this problem with overdiagnosis, however, screening saves lives…we simply need a better way. Molecular imaging has the capability of providing both molecular information and the location within the body. However, most of these techniques are expensive and use ionizing radiation, meaning there is a small risk of actually causing cancer. This is not acceptable for screening large numbers of otherwise healthy patients. To avoid this risk and provide a safe, inexpensive, and relatively easy method for patients to undergo screening, we decided to develop near-infrared fluorescent imaging agents that can be taken as a pill. The goal is for the patient to simply take a pill a day or two before their visit, and then the physician shines near-infrared light on the breast tissue to detect tumors where they ‘light up’ by giving off a different color of light. (more…)
Author Interviews, Global Health, JAMA, Pulmonary Disease, Technology / 15.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael Hawkes MD PhD Adjunct Professor Assistant Professor Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine School of Public Health University of Alberta MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
  • Pneumonia is the leading cause of mortality in children globally.
  • Oxygen is an essential therapy for children with hypoxemic pneumonia, but is not available in many resource-limited and rural areas.
  • Our innovation, solar powered oxygen delivery, harnesses freely available sun and air to delivery oxygen to patients independent of grid electricity.
  • We performed a randomized controlled trial of solar powered oxygen delivery, compared to standard oxygen delivery using compressed oxygen cylinders in children with hypoxemia hospitalized at two centres in Uganda.
  • Solar powered oxygen was non-inferior to cylinder oxygen with respect to clinical outcomes, and offers advantages in terms of reliability, simplicity, and cost.
(more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Diabetes, Technology / 05.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Apostolos Tsapas, MD PhD MSc(Oxon) Associate Professor of Medicine Director of the Second Medical Department | Aristotle University Thessalonik Cruddas Link Fellow Harris Manchester College University of Oxford   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Artificial pancreas treatment, also referred to as closed loop glucose control, is an emerging treatment option combining a pump and continuous glucose monitoring with a control algorithm to deliver insulin (and potentially glucagon) in a glucose responsive manner. Compared with insulin pumps or sensor augmented pumps, artificial pancreas use can reduce the burden for patients by automatically adjusting the amount of insulin entering the body on the basis of sensor glucose levels. The US Food and Drug Administration has recently approved the first artificial pancreas system for use by people with type 1 diabetes over 14 years of age, based on a safety outpatient study. (more…)
Author Interviews, CMAJ, Heart Disease, Technology / 03.04.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Benjamin Hibbert MD PhD FRCPCz Interventional Cardiologist Clinician Scientist and Assistant Professor CAPITAL Research Group Vascular Biology and Experimental Medicine Laboratory University of Ottawa Heart Institute MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: When we designed the study in 2014 we were routinely using the modified allen's test (MAT) to screen patients for transradial access for coronary angiography and PCI. We all had iPhones and we started using the HeartRate monitoring application as a photoplethysmograph. Quite quickly we found that using the application was simple, worked well and because we always had our iPhone with us we tended to use it more often. That being said - we wanted to test it in a scientifically rigorous method and thus we elected to perform an RCT to evaluate it's diagnostic accuracy. smart app measures blood flowThe current study is the first to use the photoplethysmographic capabilities of smartphones to assess blood flow - in this case in the hand to assess for blockages in arteries before accessing them for a procedure. The hand is supplied by two arteries - the radial artery and the ulnar artery. In many cases in medicine we use the radial artery, whether it be placing a catheter to monitor blood pressure, as a method of getting to the heart for angioplasty and in coronary artery bypass grafting it is removed and used as a bypass to restore blood flow to the heart. In many instances doctors assess the patency of the ulnar artery to decided if they are going to use the radial artery for a procedure - the concept being that if the ulnar is compromised and we use the radial then the hand can develop complications from not enough blood flow. To determine if a patient is eligible doctors would use a bedside physical exam test called the modified Allen's test in which they occlude both arteries to cause the hand to turn white. They then release pressure on the ulnar letting blood only pass through this vessel to see if the hand turns pink. However, there is a lot of variability in what doctors consider to be abnormal and determining if the test is positive can depend on numerous factors including skin tone, the amount of pressure applied and the size of the vessels. (more…)
Author Interviews, Memory, Technology / 28.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Robert E. Hampson, PhD Professor, Physiology & Pharmacology School of Medicine Wake Forest MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There are many diseases and injuries that affect human memory, and many types of memory deficits, from inability to recall stored memories to the inability to make new memories.  We focused on problems with making new memories, and identifying the brain activity associated with those memories.  We found that we could identify when the brain formed "codes" for new memory, and when those codes were incorrect or faulty.  By identifying what both "strong" and "weak" naturally occurring codes should be, we influence the process to strengthen the weak codes, resulting in better memory. (more…)
Author Interviews, Ophthalmology, Technology / 28.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Caroline A. Blackie, OD PhD FAAO Medical Director, Dry Eye Johnson & Johnson Vision MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for these studies? Would you briefly explain the problem of dry eye, how common it is and why it is difficult to treat?  Response: Dry eye disease is a condition where the eyelids and/or the tear film are unable to protect the ocular surface from the negative effects of desiccating stress. If left untreated, a vicious cycle ensues resulting in a broad spectrum of sequelae, including ocular discomfort and compromised vision. The result is partial or pervasive reduced quality of life for the individual along with a significant economic burden on our society. Conversely, when the ocular surface is healthy, patients feel better, see better and live better. Meibomian gland health is essential for ocular surface health. Meibomian glands secrete the oils necessary to protect the ocular surface from the negative effects of desiccating stress. Predictably, meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) is a leading cause of dry eye disease. MGD is almost always the result of thickened and stagnated gland secretions. These stagnated secretions obstruct and/or limit the flow of functional oil into the tear film. MGD is the most common form of dry eye disease and is also known as evaporative dry eye. While management of dry eye in general can be complex, the management of MGD affords a relatively straightforward approach, which is to improve meibomian gland function by treating obstruction. Dry eye disease is pretty common – more than 340 million people suffer from it globally. Short-term management of dry eye involves improving signs and symptoms of the condition, including the use of tear supplementation and reducing ocular surface inflammation. Long-term dry eye management requires that the cause (or causes) of the condition is also diagnosed and treated. That cause is often MGD, and MGD can be successfully managed with LipiFlow®.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brain Cancer - Brain Tumors, Emory, PNAS, Technology / 16.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lee Cooper, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Emory University School of Medicine - Georgia Institute of Technology MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Gliomas are a form of brain tumor that are often ultimately fatal, but patients diagnosed with glioma may survive as few as 6 months to 10 or more years. Prognosis is an important determinant in selecting treatment, that can range from simply monitoring the disease to surgical removal followed by radiation treatment and chemotherapy. Recent genomic studies have significantly improved our ability to predict how rapidly a patient's disease will progress, however a significant part of this determination still relies on the visual microscopic evaluation of the tissues by a neuropathologist. The neuropathologist assigns a grade that is used to further refine the prognosis determined by genomic testing. We developed a predictive algorithm to perform accurate and repeatable microscopic evaluation of glioma brain tumors. This algorithm learns the relationships between visual patterns presented in the brain tumor tissue removed from a patient brain and the duration of that patient's survival beyond diagnosis. The algorithm was demonstrated to accurately predict survival, and when combining images of histology with genomics into a single predictive framework, the algorithm was slightly more accurate than models based on the predictions of human pathologists. We were also able to identify that the algorithm learns to recognize some of the same tissue features used by pathologists in evaluating brain tumors, and to appreciate their prognostic relevance. (more…)
Allergies, Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, Stanford, Technology / 03.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kavita Sarin, M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Dermatology Stanford University Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Drug reactions occur in the majority of patients undergoing cancer therapies. Half of serious drug reactions are detected after market approval which can result in painful complications and interruption in therapy. Post-market drug surveillance platforms such as FDA monitoring rely on medical publications and physician reporting and take time to identify trends. We sought to determine if we could identify trends in patient discussions in internet health forums to more rapidly identify chemotherapeutic drug reactions. We chose skin reactions as a proof-of-principle because patients can more easily describe what they see on their skin. Julia Ransohoff, a medical student, and Azadeh Nikfarham, an informatics postdoctoral fellow trained a computer to recognize when a patient undergoing anti-cancer treatment with PD-1 antagonists or EGFR-inhibitors described a drug reaction in their internet forum posts. (more…)
Author Interviews, Social Issues, Technology / 02.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeffrey A. Hall, Ph.D. Associate Professor The University of Kansas Relationships and Technology Lab MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The idea that new forms of media displace our face-to-face relationships with close friends and family is an old idea.  Two decades ago, when the internet experienced a period of rapid growth, the most recent form of the social displacement hypothesis emerged. Studies from that time ended up finding little to no evidence of displacement by the internet. The main findings of this study focus on displacement by social media.  The first study was conducted with a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of Americans from 2009-2011.  This study found that during a period of rapid social media adoption, there was little to no association between adopting and using social media and direct social contact over the three years of the study.  Furthermore, using more social media did not result in lowered well-being. The second study in this paper looked at data from 2015, and found that using social media in a day had little bearing on who people communicated with and how they communicated. That is, passive social media use did not seem to displaced face-to-face communication with close friends and family.  (more…)
Author Interviews, End of Life Care, Heart Disease, JAMA, Technology / 27.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Larry A. Allen, MD, MHS Associate Professor, Medicine Associate Head for Clinical Affairs, Cardiology Medical Director, Advanced Heart Failure Aurora, CO 80045 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Deciding whether or not to get a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) is one of the most challenging medical decisions created by modern medicine. LVADs improve overall survival but also come with serious risks and lifestyle changes. Particularly for older patients with multiple medical problems, this is a complex choice. Our research group at the University of Colorado spent years systematically developing unbiased pamphlet and video decision aids for patients and caregivers. We also developed a clinician-directed decision support training for LVAD program staff. The DECIDE-LVAD trial studied the implementation and effectiveness of this decision support intervention with patients and their caregivers in 6 hospitals in the U.S. When compared to previously used education materials, the decision aids appeared to improve patients’ decision quality and lowered the total number of patients getting LVADs. (more…)
Author Interviews, Radiology, Technology / 17.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Eric Karl Oermann, MD Instructor Department of Neurosurgery Mount Sinai Health System New York, New York 10029  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Supervised machine learning requires data consisting of features and labels. In order to do machine learning with medical imaging, we need ways of obtaining labels, and one promising means of doing so is by utilizing natural language processing (NLP) to extract labels from physician's descriptions of the images (typically contained in reports). Our main finding was that (1) the language employed in Radiology reports is simpler than normal day-to-day language, and (2) that we can build NLP models that obtain excellent results at extracting labels when compared to manually extracted labels from physicians.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Stroke, Technology / 14.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with E. Paul Zehr PhD Professor & Director Centre for Biomedical Research, Rehabilitation Neuroscience Laboratory, McKinnon Division of Medical Sciences Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD)| Affiliate, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, UBC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: For many years we explored the role of the spinal cord in regulating rhythmic arm and leg movements like we do during walking, running and swimming.  Although we humans tend to move and locomote around on our two legs as bipeds, we are basically quadrupeds in terms of how our nervous system controls our limbs during walking. We have an extensive network of brain and spinal cord connections that help coordinate our limbs while we move. A lot of our work showed that using the arms rhythmically, like during arm cycling, strongly affected the activity of the spinal cord controlling leg muscles. Getting the spinal cord for leg muscles more coordinated and activated is a major goal of rehabilitation  of walking after neurotrauma so we wanted to see if training the arms could help with this. This is particularly important because a lot of the time, the arms are not engaged at all in rehabilitation training for the legs. We found that after only 5 weeks of arm cycling (3 x 30 minutes each week), neural excitability, strength, and leg function were increased along with enhanced clinical tests of balance and walking ability. (more…)
Author Interviews, Hepatitis - Liver Disease, Imperial College, Technology / 14.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marcus Dorner, PhD Non-Clinical Senior Lecturer in Immunology Wellcome Trust Investigator Imperial College London Department of Medicine, Section of Virology School of Medicine London United Kingdom  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response:  Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection globally affects over 250 million people and is currently not curable. This infection can lead to liver cirrhosis and liver cancer and is among the leading causes for liver transplantation. Unfortunately, HBV is among the most difficult viruses to study in the laboratory, since model systems are not very good at recapitulating what happens in infected humans. We have just described the first model to effectively change this. Using an artificial “Liver-on-a-Chip”, we have developed a tool, which can potentially revolutionise how we study viral infections by merging the study of viruses with tissue engineering. This model is over 10,000-fold more susceptible to HBV infection and accurately mimics, what happens in an infected patient. This can now be utilised to develop novel and potentially curative therapies, which would benefit millions of people currently living with chronic HBV infection.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Electronic Records, Technology / 08.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: http://www.timicoin.io/Will Lowe, Timicoin CEO Mr. Lower discusses the first cryptocurrency blockchain mobile platform for storing medical records that can be safely accessed from anywhere. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this announcement? Would you briefly explain what is meant by blockchain technology? How does it allow for more efficient storage and transmittal of encrypted medical records? Response: We do not store the data on any cloud storage to avoid any threat to data security and server overhead for data processing as well as to avoid temporary potential data unavailability. When a certain kind of data is queried by the consumer, our cloud engine first passes on the query to each of the providers (our gateway applications that are running on their node) and see if there are enough query results, it shows a sample to the consumer and if consumer decides to pay, it creates a Blockchain channel between the providers and the consumer that queried the data and all the provider nodes propagate the queried data onto that channel. So a common trust is built between the nodes and the consumer on that Blockchain channel and the shared query stays there as the trust builder. Then the consumer can anytime access the data needed from that blockchain channel. (more…)
Author Interviews, Hearing Loss, Pediatrics, Technology / 05.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Niki Katerina Vavatzanidis MSc Department of Neuropsychology Max Planck Institute for Human and Cognitive Brain Science Leipzig, Germany Technische Universität Dresden, Germany      MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Cochlear implants (CIs) are a way of providing hearing to sensorineural deaf individuals. The implant works by first picking up sounds from the environment and transforming them into an electric signal. Via an array of electrodes the implant then transmits the signal directly to the auditory nerve, which then leads to auditory sensations in the brain. In our study, we were interested to see how language acquisition is affected when language immersion occurs at an untypically late age. Children with cochlear implants that grow up in exclusively or predominantly hearing environments will have their first language encounter at the time of implantation, which nowadays is roughly between the age of one and three. Besides the later starting point in language acquisition, children with CIs are facing a compromised input quality compared to typical hearing. We know from typically hearing children that it is around the age of 14 months that their vocabulary becomes robust enough to react to name violations. That is, when a picture is labelled incorrectly, their brain waves will display with the so-called N400 effect. In our study we were interested whether children with CIs would also show the N400 effect and if so, how many months of hearing experience are necessary. We measured the brain activity of children implanted between the age of one and four at three time points: 12, 18, and 24 months after implant activation. To our surprise, congenitally deaf children whose only language input had been via the cochlear implant already displayed the N400 effect after 12 months of language immersion, i.e. earlier than seen in typically hearing children.   (more…)
Author Interviews, Surgical Research, Technology / 05.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Dimitri Amiras, FRCR Consultant radiologist Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Dr. Philip Pratt PhD Research Fellow Department of Surgery & Cancer Imperial College London at St Mary's Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We have used the Microsoft HoloLens to assist with complex reconstructive surgery on several patients at a major trauma centre at St Marys Hospital. We believe this is the first report of such a use in reconstructive surgery. From dedicated CT scans we have been able to construct patient specific 3D models of the vascular channels supplying the skin to help the surgeon plan their surgical approach for the harvest of these skin flaps. These 3D models are then projected onto the patient as holograms using the Microsoft HoloLens making the information available and directly relevant at the time of the procedure. The technique helps the surgeon in planning his approach for the patient as well saving time locating the correct vessels at the time of surgery.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Nature, Technology / 02.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Sarav Rajan, PhD Scientist Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering MedImmune MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: During an infection, B cells (a type of white blood cell) create antibodies against antigens present on a pathogen. These cells can be extremely rare, and finding them among the millions of other cells is extremely challenging. Existing methods to examine B cells require a trade-off: either capture the full sequence repertoire by next-generation sequencing but functionally screen just a subset, or culture a subset of B cells and fully screen them. Instead, our method captures the complete repertoire within a typical blood draw and screens all its members to identify the rare antigen-positive antibodies. Using a new microfluidic approach, we recovered the antibody genes from one million B cells encapsulated in picoliter-scale droplets, breaking through a widely-published view that amplifying from single cells in such small volumes is inefficient. The resulting library seamlessly integrates into our high-throughput screening infrastructure to enable rapid isolation of desired antibodies. Using this method, we were able to isolate a panel of rare cross-reactive antibodies targeting influenza. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Technology / 02.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “chipped tooth” by bagaball is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. Ming Yang Key Laboratory of Microsystems and Microstructures Manufacturing, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Self-healing materials and coatings are smart solutions to environmental and energy problems. There are heavy demands for these materials in many productions such as consumer electronics, the automotive industry and healthcare. Current coatings that can self-heal are typically soft. This means they are not as anti-scratch as rigid surfaces and the benefit of the ability to repair themselves could be overwhelmed by their limited robustness vulnerable to normal mechanical contact. It would be very useful to have a self-healing coating with a hardness that can be comparable or even outperform rigid coatings. This is normally difficult because mechanical hardness and self-healing are two conflicting properties with the opposite dependence on polymer dynamics. One good example in this context is many soft tissues can self-heal, but a notable exception is tooth enamel, which is the hardest part in our body but has no way to recover after decay. A new design will be needed to circumvent the fundamental limitation. We find that by mimicking the structure of epidermis, it is possible to combine two contradictory properties into an artificial coating, namely, self-healing ability and high hardness. The success relies on the placement of a hard layer containing graphene oxide on top of a soft sublayer with a seamless interface for interlayer diffusion. This allows a similar healing mechanism as that in skin, but the coating is not soft and has a hardness that even approaches tooth enamel.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Memory, Technology, UC Davis / 31.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Halle Dimsdale-Zucker University of California, Davis Center for Neuroscience | Ph.D. Candidate Dynamic Memory Lab MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This study sought to test competing models for how different types of retrieved contextual information (spatial, episodic - which is spatial AND temporal information) are supported by the hippocampus and its subfields. We only found differences between the subfields when people were spontaneously reactivating episodic, but not spatial information. This is surprising because a dominant view of the hippocampus is that it is specialized to represent spatial information. What this suggests is that when there is more than just spatial information that can be remembered that the hippocampus is able to flexibly represent whatever information is most task-relevant for remembering and distinguishing items from one another. Intriguingly, we found that different subfields represented shared episodic contextual information and item-unique contextual information. This highlights that our memories need to both link together common features of related events while retaining the event-specific details. (more…)
Author Interviews, Technology / 30.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lieutenant Commander Matthew Doubrava Senior Medical Officer, Naval Medical Research Unit Dayton, Ohio  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this research? What types of problems will be investigated using the Osprey? Response: The U.S. Marine Corps V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft will be used to conduct static aerospace medical research in an effort to provide solutions toward preventing musculoskeletal injury to tilt-rotor aircraft crew and en route care training at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Naval Medical Research Unit – Dayton (NAMRU-Dayton) has been tasked as the lead agency for the Navy to investigate tilt-rotor aircrafts potential effects of flight and vibration on aircrews. NAMRU-Dayton scientists will be partnering with the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, who will be investigating en route care training to figure out the best way for the crew to use the aircraft for that purpose. (more…)