Introduction
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News
Pennsylvania’s WellSpan Health Announces New Medical Drone Delivery Service
Drone company Zipline delivers medical supplies and clinical laboratory specimens on four continents and is used in the US by several major healthcare networks and retail organizations.
AI in Action: Locating brain bleeds faster
Throughout history advancements in technology have played a significant role in how we live our lives. It has continuously aided in healthcare breakthroughs and holds significant potential for the future. Researchers at Sunnybrook are using emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to advance the diagnosis, treatments and outcomes of some of the world’s most debilitating diseases, like stroke.
How robots are helping personalize knee replacement surgery
For Arthritis Awareness Month, learn the latest about this common procedure and how Johnson & Johnson MedTech is innovating to improve patient outcomes.
Wiley Launches Paper Mill Detection Tool after Losing Millions Due to Fraudulent Journal Submissions
Clinical laboratory professionals rely on peer-reviewed research to keep up with the latest findings in pathology, laboratory medicine, and other medical fields. They should thus be interested in new efforts to combat the presence of “research paper mills,” defined as “profit oriented, unofficial, and potentially illegal organizations that produce and sell fraudulent manuscripts that seem to resemble genuine research,” according to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), a non-profit organization representing stakeholders in academic publishing.
Menthol-derived molecules: promising candidates for anti-inflammatory and anti-obesity therapy
Modified derivatives of natural products have led to significant therapeutic advances and commercial success in recent times. Menthol is a naturally occurring cyclic monoterpene alcohol found in various plants, particularly in members of the mint family such as peppermint and spearmint. It is a common ingredient found in a wide range of confectionaries, chewing gums and oral care products. Interestingly, menthol also has high medicinal value due to its analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer effects.
Zika virus-specific synthetic molecule can differentiate between prior infections with different flaviviruses
A newly discovered Zika virus-specific synthetic molecule is capable of differentiating Zika-immune patient samples from samples of patients previously infected with the related dengue virus. The technology may lead to the development of better diagnostics and vaccine candidates.
Repurposing human-approved drugs for prion disease treatment
Prions are the abnormal, pathogenic agents that are transmissible and are able to induce abnormal folding of specific normal cellular proteins. Prion disease is an umbrella term for a group of fatal and currently untreatable neurodegenerative diseases that not only affect humans, but also wild and captive animals. These diseases include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow disease"), and chronic wasting disease (CWD) affecting deer, elk and moose.
New Models for Eye Disease
A research team at UHN's Donald K. Johnson Eye Institute in collaboration with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto (U of T) has discovered that transplanted retinal cells can share essential materials with host cells in the lab, offering a promising avenue for delivering therapies directly to damaged areas of the eye.
First-Of-Its-Kind Image Shows Single Lithium Atoms Turning Into Quantum Waves
The wave nature of matter remains one of the most striking aspects of quantum mechanics. Since its inception, a wealth of experiments has demonstrated the interference, diffraction or scattering of massive particles. More recently, experiments with ever increasing control and resolution have allowed imaging the wavefunction of individual atoms. Here, we use quantum gas microscopy to image the in-situ spatial distribution of deterministically prepared single-atom wave packets as they expand in a plane.
Prescription for plastic medical waste: How hospitals, medical suppliers are aiming to be greener
While lots of resources go into medical procedures to improve or save lives, those efforts also produce lots of plastic waste. Eric Sorensen looks at how some Canadian hospitals and medical suppliers are taking steps to cure long-standing sustainability issues.