Medical tools

MIT software could bring 'DNA origami' to the masses

DNA molecules are not merely carriers of information. They are also highly stable and programmable, which is why researchers have been working so feverishly on a design strategy called DNA origami.

And now a team at MIT is developing a program that makes the game playable by more than just a select few.

DNA origami--constructing specific 2D and 3D shapes out of DNA strands--could prove to be a highly effective means of developing nanoscale tools, such as synthetic photocells that perform artificial photosynthesis and highly targeted drugs (think of sending a cancer drug to hunt down a specific tumor).

But it's still young. Paul Rothemund of CalTech first introduced DNA origami in 2006 (thereby making the cover of Nature and delivering a TED Talk showing tiny DNA smiley faces), and William Shih's lab at Harvard Medical School was able to up the game from 2D to 3D a few years later.

The result is that today a small number of brilliant and highly specialized minds are bent over a nanoscale game of origami, playing with various sequences to try to build specific shapes for specific tasks. Imagine a room of highly sophisticated gamers playing with building blocks in a world without Tetris; if they had the game, they'd be able to work faster.… Read more

Balding? Artas robot ready to harvest your hair

If you've tried every potion available to stop your hair loss, you might consider getting a robot to harvest your remaining locks for hair transplant surgery.

The FDA has given clearance to the Artas System, a machine that uses "image-guided robotics to enhance the quality of hair follicle harvesting," according to maker Restoration Robotics.

First the patient sits in the Artas chair, and his hair is cut to about 1 millimeter. A camera-equipped robotic arm under the control of a doctor then initiates "small dermal punches" while harvesting individual follicles.

The follicles are later manually transplanted. They develop blood supplies and gradually produce their own hair over months. No sutures or bandages were required in the prototype (PDF) of Artas, and the company expected to improve extraction rates to 750 to 1,000 follicular units per hour. … Read more

Scientists use radar to detect concussion

Most of us don't have to worry about getting a concussion on a daily basis. But plenty do (think hockey and football players, infantrymen, etc.), and without quick diagnosis, can risk long-term brain damage if they go back into the field too soon.

A new screening method developed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute could make fast and easy diagnosis, right on the sidelines, far more common. The technique, which examines a person's cognitive and motor skills at the same time, will be presented this week at the SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing conference in Orlando, Fla.

Using a simple radar system--the kind police use to measure the speed of vehicles--the researchers found that they were able to pick up on differences between normal walking patterns and those impaired by alcohol, which has been found to have a similar effect on walking as concussion impairment.

To be clear, this preliminary study is just that, preliminary, with a sample size too small to offer information that is more than anecdotal. But the findings have given the researchers enough data to want to test their approach further.… Read more

New test helps diagnose 'sudden death syndrome'

Sudden death syndrome--an umbrella term for a range of heart conditions that can lead to cardiac arrest--is notorious for striking those who seem most fit.

That is because the condition, thought to be largely hereditary, is often triggered by overexertion. Tragically for some, the first symptom can be cardiac arrest.

It's possible, though costly, to screen for SDS. In fact, after soccer prodigy John Marshall died of a sudden heart attack at age 16 in 1994, the day before he was set to join Everton, testing became compulsory for professional athletes in several countries.

Good thing, especially for those who don't have the means that professional athletes do, that a doctor at Tel Aviv University may have just made testing for the condition far simpler and more affordable.

"There is such a significant overlap between what's normal and abnormal on an ECG [electrocardiogram] that we need additional screening parameters," Dr. Sami Viskin, a cardiologist at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, said yesterday in a university press release. "This test, when done on people with strong symptoms, can really give...doctors a yardstick to compare those at risk for sudden death syndrome to those who would otherwise go on to live a healthy life."

Named after the doctor, the Viskin Test is easy on the patient, who simply undergoes a baseline ECG while resting in the supine position, and is then asked to stand quickly and remain still during continuous ECG recording.… Read more

A $55 million atlas of the human brain

Any time someone concatenates the words "Paul Allen," "brain," and "science" in one sentence, two assumptions can safely be made: What's being described will be expensive; what's being described will be newsworthy.

And so it comes as little surprise that the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science announced this week a world first: a highly detailed guide to both the anatomy and the genes of the human brain that includes 1,000 anatomical landmarks backed by 100 million data points measuring the strength of gene activity at each landmark. The cost of … Read more

U.S. grad students create app to diagnose malaria

It isn't every day that the second-place winner of a competition is as interesting, if not more so, than the first-place winner. But at the national level of Microsoft's 9th annual Imagine Cup, competition is tight, and the team that took second in the software design category Tuesday deserves attention.

Called Team LifeLens, the students from universities across the country developed an app that uses a Samsung Focus running on Windows 7 to photograph blood samples and diagnose malaria. And they've only been working on it since November 2010.

Computer engineering grad student Tristan Gibeau of the University of Central Florida remembers the day he got the algorithm right to get the cell detector running. "I was ecstatic," he says. "I was running around, just so excited."

According to the World Health Organization, almost 800,000 people die from malaria every year, with 90 percent of the deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa. The beauty of the LifeLens app is that it doesn't require Internet access--just the phone, slide, and app. They're also building a case to hold it all.

Gibeau says the lens "is the last part of the puzzle," and that his team lost to first-place winners Team Note-Taker from Arizona State University because it's still buggy on Windows 7. They're currently working with UC Davis and the actual Windows phone team to get it running smoothly. (The prototype used version 6.5.)

The first-place team, by the way, developed Note-Taker, a camera and touch-screen tablet PC allowing users to simultaneously view live video and take typed or handwritten notes on a split-screen interface.

Study: Video games aid post-stroke motor skills

Researchers around the world have been studying whether interactive video games can improve motor skills since, well, the advent of video games. (For instance, this study on the effects of video games on hand-eye coordination in the elderly was published in 1985.)

But a team out of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto finds that after analyzing 12 studies looking at the effects of these games on upper arm strength and mobility, stroke patients who game are up to five times as likely to improve arm motor function than those undergoing standard physical therapy.

The meta analysis, published in the April issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, suggests that video games on systems such as the Wii and PlayStation help the brains of stroke victims recover by improving neuroplasticity--which is the brain's ability to create new nerve cell connections.

"Recovery of motor skill depends on neurological recovery, adaptation, and learning new strategies," said Gustavo Saposnik, the lead author of the study and the director of the Stroke Outcomes Research Unit at the hospital, in a news release. "Virtual-reality systems drive neuroplasticity and lead to benefits in motor function improvement after stroke."

Seven of the dozen studies monitored patient improvement before and after playing the games, and found a 14.7 percent improvement in patients' grip strength and a 20 percent improvement in standard task performance.

Because most of the studies had small sample sizes, Saposnik says the next step is to conduct a far larger trial; he hopes to randomly assign some 140 patients to either play virtual reality games or undergo standard therapy and dig even further into the results.… Read more

'Aquaris' lets you snorkel with your hearing aid

Siemens is unveiling a suite of new products at the American Academy of Audiology 2011 conference in Chicago this week, including what it claims is the world's first fully waterproof (and dustproof, and shock-resistant) digital hearing aid.

Called Aquaris, the aid's housing is made of one solid piece, so the only opening is to the battery compartment, which is fitted with a membrane designed to let air in but keep water out.

Siemens lists a whole range of activities that have until now been difficult for those wearing hearing aids that can be ruined by not just water but sweat and dust: sailing, swimming, kayaking, golfing, gardening, cycling, and jogging.

Because the device can be fully submerged in water up to 3 feet deep for 30 minutes (rendering it more than merely water-resistant), shallow snorkeling should be added to the list. Whether we will ever be able to scuba dive with hearing aids remains to be seen.

Aquaris also features a non-slip, textured surface that holds the Aquaris behind the ear; a "sport clip" to further secure the device during intense activities; and a water-resistant Aquapac for added protection.

Siemens has yet to release pricing or availability details.… Read more

Google prank + Kinect hack = useful health tech

Google's April Fools' Day prank Gmail Motion (above) was meant to be ridiculous (i.e., one puts more work into sending an e-mail with elaborate body language than by merely clicking "send"), but the tech is completely viable.

More than viable, actually. As in, it already exists.

Evan Suma, a postdoc research associate at the University of Southern California, unveiled his team's software, FAAST (for Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit), in late December. Using the Microsoft Kinect sensor, he employs the human body as a mouse and keyboard to operate various applications and video games. (His video playing World of Warcraft with body motions has 1.5 million views on YouTube, and includes a Royksopp track with the appropriate lyrics, "All that I want is keeping it easy.")

Suma tells me that when he went to work on Friday, April 1, and saw Google Motion, he thought, "Hey, I can already do that." So he put about 30 minutes into retooling FAAST for Gmail using body movements specific to the prank, and threw a video together in about two hours. Turning Google's joke on its head, he calls the program SLOOW, for Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving:… Read more

Free iPhone app improves docs' emergency response

An app developed by the UK Resuscitation Council may help doctors in emergency cardiac arrest situations, according to a study in the April issue of the journal Anaesthesia.

Researchers recruited 31 doctors (average age 27.5 years) who had taken advanced life-support training in the past four years to investigate whether the free app, called iResus, can improve test scores in simulated cardiac emergencies.

The doctors were divided into two groups--those who used iResus during the simulation and those who did not. Their knowledge and skills were evaluated using the CASTest scoring system during the simulated cardiac arrest emergency.

Those … Read more