By Kim Bellard
One of my frequent lamentations is that we are here a quarter of the 21star Century, but too much of our health care system still seems to be 20one century, and not enough like the 22ND century. It is too slow, too reactive, too inaccurate and uses too much brutal power. I want a health care system that seems more futuristic that things do more elegant.
So here are three examples of the kind of things that give me hope, in rough order when they are ready for prime time:
Floss Sensor: You know that you should floss every day, right? And you know your oral health is connected To your overall health, in a number of ways, right? So some smart people from Tufts University thought, hmm, maybe we can help connect those dots.
“It started in a collaboration with different departments on Tufts, and investigated how Stress and other cognitive situations influence problem solving and learning“ said Same Sonkusale, professor of electric and computer technology. “We did not want measurements to create an extra source of stress, so we thought we could make a detection device that is part of your daily routine? Cortisol is a stress marker in saliva, so flossing seemed like a natural fit to take a daily sample.”
The result: “A saliva-sensing dental floss looks like an ordinary floss pick, with the rope over two teeth that extend from a flat plastic handle, all over the size of your forefinger.”
It uses a technology called electropulated molecularly raised polymers (EMIPs) to detect the cortisol. “The Emip approach is a game change party,” said Professor Sonkusale. “Biosensors are usually developed with the help of antibodies or other receptors that pick up the molecule of interest. Once a marker has been found, a lot of work must go in bio -engineering of the receiving molecule that is linked to the sensor. Emip cannot be created in a very short period.
The sensor is designed to keep track of diagnosing, but the scientists are optimistic that the approach can be used to follow other disorders, such as estrogen for following fertility, glucose for diabetes monitoring or markers for cancer. They also hope to have a sensor that can follow multiple disorders, “for more accurate monitoring of stress, cardiovascular disease, cancer and other disorders.”
They believe that their sensor has similar accuracy with the best performing sensors currently available, and are working on a start-up to commercialize their approach.
Nano scale Biosensor: Flossing is all good and good, but many of us are not as diligent as we should be, so, hey, what about sensors in us who follow without having to do anything? That is what a team suggests at Stanford A biochemical sensor with continuous extensive stability in Vivo” Published in Nature.
The researchers say:
The development of biose sensors that can constantly detect specific analytes, in VIVO, has proven to be difficult in real time due to biofouling, probe and signal deviation that often occur in VIVO. By getting inspiration from intestinal mucosa that can protect host cell receptors in the presence of the intestinal microbiome, we develop a synthetic biose sensor that can constantly detect specific target molecules in VIVO.
“We needed a material system that could feel the target while we protect the molecular switches, and that is when I thought, wait, how does biology solve this problem?” said Yihang Chen, the first author of the newspaper. Their modular biose sensor, the stable electrochaemic nanostructured sensor for blood in situ tracking (Sensbit) system called, can survive more than a week in living rats and a month in human serum.
“This work started more than a dozen years ago and we steadily improved this technology,” said Tom SohSenior author of the newspaper. “This Order-of-Magnitude improvement in the lifetime of the entire blood sensor compared to existing technologies is a huge progress to biose sensors of the next generation.”
The researchers believe that their approach can lead to a new medical paradigm – “one where we can not only detect diseases earlier, but can also adjust in real -time treatments.” Amen on that!
In Vivo Car-T therapies: If you follow cancer treatments, you are familiar with Car-T therapies, the immune cell engineer to combat cancer cells. They are promising, but very expensive and time -consuming to make. “This whole process, it’s just inefficient,” Saar Gill, a hematologist and oncologist also at the Perelman School of Medicine, told Cassandra Willyard in Nature. “If I have a patient with cancer, I can prescribe chemotherapy and they will get it tomorrow.”
Mrs. Willyard profiles the approach to engineering of the Car-T cells in Vivo. The potential, she reports, is huge: “Treatments that supply a gene for the car protein to cells in the blood can be produced and available on request-theoretically, at a much lower price than current Car-T therapies. A single dose of commercial Car-T-therapy costs around $ 500,000. A bottle in Vivo The treatment can cost a order of size less. “
“If it is effective and safe, it could really challenge the current paradigm,” said Joseph McGuirk, a hematologist and oncologist who studies cellular therapies at the University of Kansas Medical Center, her. And “we have to challenge the current paradigm”.
It is clear that this is not easy. “The stumbling block is, how do you get it to the right cell, the right place, the right time?” said Michel Sadelain, a genetic engineer and director of the Columbia Initiative in Cell Engineering and Therapy at Columbia University. Mrs. Willard describes different approaches that try to achieve this different companies. For example, some companies use viral vectors, while others use nanoparticles to deliver RNA in T cells. Other companies skip T cells and insert the RNA in macrophages and other immune cells.
Human tests are underway, although with a small number of participants. “I think 2025 and 2026 will be two very busy years in this area,” a CEO told Mrs. Willyard. Let’s hope.
———
Each of these is promising, and certainly in the right direction. Add this to for example 3D -Printing in Vivo with sound Or programming smart cells, and forgive me when I get excited. We see a glimpse of the future.
So the next time someone wants to put a needle in you for a blood test, you want to take a colonoscopy or you want to start on a debilitating chemotherapy regime, ask yourself: I would do this in the 22ND century?
Kim is a former emarketing -exec at a large blue plan, editor of the late & complains Tinctuur.ioand now regular THCB employee
#feel #future #health #care #blog