You Gotta Have Heart
So a team of Israeli scientists decided to make one, using a 3-D printer. Before you slap yourself on the knee and collapse in laughter, they actually did it—a stunning achievement which could alter the world of medicine by eventually ending the reliance on donated organs.
The world’s first “printed heart” was made with actual human biological material and was much smaller than the average human heart, but the accomplishment demonstrates the potential to print full-sized organs in the near future. “This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers,” the team’s lead researcher, professor Tal Dvir of Tel Aviv University, told the Jerusalem Post. “People have managed to 3-D print the structure of the heart in the past, but not with cells or with blood vessels. Our results demonstrate the potential of our approach for engineering personalized tissue and organ replacement in the future.”
The team took fatty tissue from patients and reprogrammed some of it into stem cells. Those cells were then differentiated into cardiac and endothelial cells, which make up the lining of blood vessels, initiating the process. The inspiration for the study was both Israel’s and the United States’ issue with heart disease, the leading cause of death for men and women in the U.S. and the second leading cause in Israel.
The research team said the next step will be to train the printed heart to act like an organic human heart by transplanting the printed versions into animals and eventually, humans. Within 10 years, they expect organ printers will be in hospitals around the world and the procedures will be routine practice.
“YO! In the kitchen! Crank me out one beater for a 40-year-old male, a couple of kidneys for 10-year-old Siamese twins, a double breather for a 70-year-old grandma and a nice liver for Jack, my ex-alcoholic brother-in-law. He’s been sober one full year and he showed me his token.”
“Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport….”
“I have big-time lab work to do.” Scientists in Queensland, Australia are being hailed for their major breakthrough in cervical cancer research using gene-editing technology.
“This is the first cure for any cancer using this technology,” alleges Nigel McMillan, lead researcher and director of immunology at the Menzies Health Institute at Griffith University, where a team used the CRISPR-Cas9 system to target cervical cancers in mice. As a result, 100% of their mice subjects were cured.
During the five-year project, scientists injected specialized nanoparticles into mice bearing tumors caused by the gene E7, which can be found in cancers caused by the human papilloma virus according to McMillan, whose work has been published in the journal Molecular Therapy.
“We would then edit it by introducing some extra DNA that causes the gene to be misread and cease being made,” McMillan said. “This is like adding a few extra letters into a word so the spellchecker doesn’t recognize it any more. Because the cancer must have this gene to produce, once edited the cancer dies.”
CRISPR technology is already being studied as a potential treatment for HIV, inherited diseases such as Huntington’s and progeria, as well as other forms of cancer. Cancer genes are “foreign” to the human genome, avers McMillan, making them even harder to pinpoint. Of their discovery, he concluded, “This is the missing tool kit we have in our gene therapy toolbox.”
We here at The Flying Pie think Nigel and the boys deserve a big American salute, so let’s belt out one chorus of the unofficial national anthem of Australia:
“Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree;
He sang as he watched and waited til his billy boiled,
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”
Okay, so everybody can’t have The Marseillaise.
The Melanoma Blues
Melanoma is a dirty little critter which can eat your insides out without your even knowing about it. Get it once and your dermatologist will want to see you every six months til the twelfth of never. Siobhan had a suspicious brown spot just above her wrist which seemed to linger forever, so she went out to Jonesville to see ace skin doctor Christina Mitchell. Christina pulled out her magic flashlight and discerned the source of the problem. “I think you have a thorn in there,” she said. It was more likely a tiny piece of hay which penetrated her skin and hid, and the doc removed it with nothing more than an arcane chant. Melanoma, schmelanoma. Siobhan left with a new lease on life. But now dermatologists have an even better tool than Dr. Mitchell’s magic flashlight.
Melanoma skin cancers are not easily identifiable by sight and even highly trained clinicians sometimes get it wrong. Artificial Intelligence to the rescue. Recently, a computer trained using images of skin cancer achieved a 95% detection rate test score, putting it at the head of its class for melanoma diagnosis, well ahead of the 87% success rate for human doctors. You can read all about it in the Annals of Oncology, if you can find one.
Between 2 and 3 million non-melanoma and 132,000 melanoma skin cancers occur globally each year, according to the World Health Organization. “One in every three cancers diagnosed is a skin cancer and one in every five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime,” says the WHO. But due to its ability to quickly sift through large amounts of information, AI can help health professionals with complex decision-making and point out nuances that they might have missed.
We’re still going with Dr. Mitchell til she messes up.
We’re Sick To Our Stomachs! (of being sick to our stomachs)
Do you have gastrointestinal issues? Welcome to the club. Approximately 70% of U.S. citizens over sixty are dues-paying members. And it’s a frustrated group since often the precise source of the discomfort is unidentifiable. Not that the G-docs won’t try. I, for one, have been ultrasounded, x-rayed while drinking water and forced to suffer the slings and arrows of endoscopy, all to no avail. Food charts don’t work, nor do exotic diets, digestive enzymes, acupuncture, omeprazole, kefir or any one of a dozen other treatments. I once even digested a radioactive egg at the crack of dawn, then laid under a scanning machine for an hour so an Ocala specialist could find nothing. And no, I don’t have an ulcer, even after 33 months of the Trump pseudopresidency.
Now, however, a team of scientists from MIT has unveiled an ingestible sensor pill equipped with genetically engineered bacteria capable of diagnosing bleeding in the stomach or other gastrointestinal problems. What would we do without good old MIT, always poking around finding solutions to man’s greatest dilemmas?
Taking a “bacteria-on-a-chip“ approach, the team designed this little beauty to combine its living cells with ultra-low power electronics that convert bacterial response into a wireless signal which can be read by a smartphone. In its findings published in the journal Science, the team stated that the altered cells are designed to respond to heme, a component of blood, as well as sensors that can respond to a molecule, a marker of inflammation. The technology has been a decade in the making, following the work of synthetic biologists to engineer bacteria to respond to pollutants or markers of disease by emitting light. Until now, though, specialized equipment has been needed to see it. So, to make it more applicable in the real world, the MIT crew decided to combine the bacteria with an electronic chip, which could then use the natural response as energy for the wireless signal. The device has so far been tested in pigs and found to be viable. The researchers anticipate that this type of sensor could either be deployed for one-time use or designed to remain in the digestive tract for several days or weeks, sending continuous signals.
Sounds good to this patient. Even better than that tasty radioactive egg.
Oh, And Before We Forget….
There are two new medications for Alzheimer’s Disease worth mentioning, both already developed and approved by the FDA. This permits expedited clinical trials and hopefully fast-tracking us closer to a cure.
The first treatment is an unnamed drug now used to treat HIV. Scientists discovered that the genetic blueprint in Alzheimer’s patients is altered as the disease progresses, similar to the genetic shuffling experienced in individuals with HIV. The idea is that placing a halt to the movement of those specific genes can prevent the development of the disease. According to lead scientist Jerold Chun, “For the first time, we can see what might cause the disease. We also uncovered a potential near-term treatment.” Give that man a big cigar.
Next, researchers at Mount Sinai have found that medications used to lower blood glucose in diabetics, such as metformin, may have a direct effect on the decrease in the plaques and tangles connected with Alzheimer’s. Although this can be helpful now for diabetics with Alzheimer’s (that’s called hitting the daily double) who are already taking the medication, further research is necessary before testing on Alzheimer’s patients without diabetes due to the potential for dangerously low blood sugar levels along with other side effects. Optimistically, the research outcomes add another piece to the dementia puzzle. “Hopefully, now we can find drugs that would have similar effects on the brain without changing the blood sugar levels,” said Vahram Haroutunian, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Time’s a-wastin’, Vahram. There are currently six million Americans afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease and a predicted increase to fourteen million diagnoses over the next 40 years. Pretty soon, nobody will be able to tie his own shoes or remember the words to “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” Everybody will stand up for the bottom of the seventh, look around, scratch their heads and sit down again. If that doesn’t scare the hell out of you, nothing will.
Calling All Cars
“This is your morning low-dose aspirin calling to remind you that you have not ingested me yet. I hate to be pushy, but you know what the doctor said.”
Patients could be getting this message soon from one or another of their medications. A new pill has been created that contains a tiny sensor that records when it is taken. Information transmitted to a patch worn by the patient is then sent to a smartphone. If you can’t remember whether you took your pill, just check with your phone. This stroke of brilliance helps avoid double-dosing and those super-expensive tips to the ER via ambulance. Or no-dosing and those even more expensive trips to the cemetery via ambulance-with-frills.
It’s encouraging for us members of The Geezerhood to know that the miracle of modern medicine is rushing to the fore to save us from the abyss, even repainting the finish line a couple miles further down the road in some cases. Even as we speak, there are body-parts farms somewhere in the bowels of Oklahoma churning out faux gall bladders, islets of Langerhans and sections of small bowel to replace the insufficient worn-out originals. You already know people with completely new hips and knees, pretty soon you won’t recognize them with their replacement eyes, ears and noses. There’ll be auctions, of course, for the higher-level brains and bustlines, and all body parts will receive several-years guarantees. In short order, repair shops will open to service the legions of new customers. Make sure to wear a bathing suit to your service provider since many will offer a free wash with each visit.
Cheer up, it’s a whole new world out there and anything might happen. Right now, as a matter of fact, scientists at Johns-Hopkins are rumored to be on the verge of constructing a pill which immediately reverses the damage done by maple-frosted donuts, an incredible feat which will reverberate throughout society. Next up: healthy chewing tobacco.
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
