clinical trials
Latest
Implanting pancreatic cells in your gut could cure diabetes
About 30,000 adults and children are diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) each year. As many as 1.25 million Americans have the disease, according to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, with up to 5 million expected to have the disease by 2050. T1D is an autoimmune disease where your body stops producing insulin, which can lead to a lifetime of dependence on injected or pumped insulin as well as a host of health complications. New clinical trials, however, show some promising results in "curing" the disease by implanting pancreatic islet cells to the omentum, the tissue that covers abdominal organs.
MIT duo successfully tests wireless drug-delivery microchips, more consistent than injections
Despise those daily injections of essential medication? Well folks, relief could be on the way. Over a decade ago, two MIT professors, Robert Langer and Michael Cima, first considered developing a drug-delivery microchip that could be wirelessly controlled. This past week, researchers in Cambridge -- alongside scientists from MicroCHIPS, Inc. -- announced that they have successfully used the aforementioned chip to give osteoporosis patients their daily allotment of teriparatide. "You can do remote control delivery, you can do pulsatile drug delivery, and you can deliver multiple drugs," Langer noted. Chips used in this particular study housed 20 doses each and results indicated that the delivery showed less variation than administered injections. In theory, microchips like these could be used alongside sensors that monitor glucose levels -- creating tech that could adapt to changes in a patient's condition. More info on the trial awaits in the source link below.[Thanks, Lydia]
Breast cancer vaccine proves successful in tests on mice, moves on to human subjects
Here's a cause for optimism, albeit the cautious kind. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute have managed to isolate a human protein that plays part in the development of breast cancer, and have produced a vaccine against its creation that has delivered an impressive success rate in testing on mice. In a test group of genetically cancer-prone rodents, none of those injected with á-lactalbumin developed the potentially deadly disease. The progress of this drug trial to testing on humans has been met with reservation by cancer research groups, who remind us that we're years away from knowing if it will actually work on our species. Still, this is quite the little breakthrough and we hope all goes according to plan.
Subretinal implant successfully tested on humans, makes blind narrowly see
How many scientists does it take to properly install a lightbulb? When that lightbulb is an implant that stimulates retinal photoreceptors to restore one's sight, quite a few -- even if they disagree whether said implant should be placed on top of the retina (requiring glasses to supply power and video feed) or underneath, using photocells to channel natural sunlight. Now, a German firm dubbed Retina Implant has scored a big win for the subretinal solution with a three-millimeter, 1,500 pixel microchip that gives patients a 12 degree field of view. Conducting human trials with 11 patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, the company successfully performed operations on seven, with one even managing to distinguish between similar objects (knife, fork, spoon) and perform very basic reading. Though usual disclaimers apply -- the tech is still a long way off, it only works on folks who've slowly lost their vision, etc. -- this seems like a step in the right direction, and at least one man now knows which direction that is.
