By Kim Bellard
One of my frequent lamentations is that here we are, a quarter of the path in the 21stst century, but too much of our health care system is still like 20th century, and not enough like on the 22ndND century. It is too slow, too reactive, too imprecise and uses too much brute strength. I want a health care system that seems more futuristic, which does things more elegantly.
Here are three examples of the types of things that give me hope, in the difficult order of the date on which they could be ready for prime time:
Silk sensor: You know you are supposed to treat every day, right? And you know that your oral health is linked to your overall health, in several respects, right? So some smart people at Tufts University thought, HMM, we may help connect these points.
“It started in a collaboration with several departments through tuffs, examining how stress and other cognitive states affect the solving and learning problems,” said Sameer Sonkusale, professor of electrical and computer engineering. “We didn’t want the measure to create an additional source of stress, so we thought, can we make a detection device that is part of your daily routine?” Cortisol is a stress marker found in saliva, so dental silk seemed to be a natural adjustment to take a daily sample. ”
The result: “A dental -awareness of saliva awareness is like a common thread choice, the stretched chain on two teeth extending from a flat plastic handle, all on the size of your index.”
It uses technology called polymers with electropolymerized molecular print (EMIP) to detect cortisol. “The EMIP approach changes the game,” said teacher Sonkusale. “Biosappters have generally been developed using antibodies or other receptors that collect the molecule of interest. Once a marker is found, a lot of work must go to the bio-engineering of the receiver molecule attached to the sensor. EMIP does not depend on a lot of investment in the manufacture of antibodies or receivers. time.”
The sensor is designed to monitor the diagnosis instead, but scientists are optimistic that the approach can be used to follow other conditions, such as estrogens for fertility monitoring, glucose for diabetes monitoring or cancer markers. They also hope to have a sensor which can follow several conditions, “for more precise surveillance of stress, cardiovascular diseases, cancer and other conditions”.
They believe that their sensor has a precision comparable to the most efficient sensors currently available and works on a start-up to market their approach.
Nano-scale biosper: Dental silk is good, but many of us are not as diligent as we should be, then, hey, what about the sensors in us who follow up without our having to do anything? This is what a Stanford team suggests A biochemical sensor with continuous prolonged stability in vivo,, published in Nature.
Researchers say:
The development of biocapters who can detect specific analysts in continuous, in vivo, in real time have been difficult due to biofoux, the degradation of probes and the drift of the signal which often occur in vivo. By drawing inspiration from the intestinal mucosa which can protect the receptors of the host cells in the presence of the intestinal microbiome, we develop a synthetic biocoverter which can continuously detect specific in vivo target molecules.
“We needed a material system that could detect the target while protecting molecular switches, and that’s when I thought, wait, how does biology solve this problem?” said Yihang Chen, the first author of the newspaper. Their modular biospapter, called stable electrochemical nanostructured sensor for the in situ blood monitoring system (sensit), can survive more than a week in living rats and a month in human serum.
“This work started over a dozen years ago and we regularly advance this technology,” said Tom Soh, the main author of the newspaper. “This improvement in the order of magnitude of the longevity of the whole blood sensor on existing technologies is a huge progression to new generation biocatters.”
Researchers believe that their approach can lead to a new medical paradigm – “that where we can not only detect the disease earlier, but also potentially adapting treatments in real time.” Amen to that!
CAR-T in vivo therapies: If you follow cancer treatments, you know CAR-T therapies, which conceived immune cells to combat cancer cells. They are very promising, but very expensive and who take time to do. “This whole process is just ineffective,” said Saar Gill, hematologist and oncologist at the Perelman School of Medicine Nature. “If I have a patient with cancer, I can prescribe chemotherapy and they will get it tomorrow.”
Ms. Willyard Profile The approach to Car-T in Vivo cell engineering. The potential, it reports, is enormous: “The treatments that provide a gene for the protein of the car to blood cells can be produced in mass and available on demand-theoretically, at a much lower price than current car-T therapies. A single dose of CAR-T commercial therapy costs around $ 500,000. In vivo Treatment can cost less than an order of magnitude. »»
“If it is effective and safe, it could really question the current paradigm,” said Joseph McGuirk, hematologist and oncologist who studies cell therapies at the University of Kansas Medical Center. And “we must question the current paradigm”.
Obviously, it is not simple. “The stumbling block is, how to do it with the right cell, the right place, the right time?” said Michel Sadelain, genetic engineer and director of the Columbia initiative in cellular engineering and therapy at Columbia University. Ms. Willard describes different approaches that different companies are trying to achieve it. Some companies, for example, use viral vectors, while others use nanoparticles to deliver RNA in T cells. Other companies jump T cells and insert RNA into macrophages and other immune cells.
Human tests are underway, although with a small number of participants. “I think that 2025 and 2026 will be two very busy years in this area,” a CEO told Ms. Willyard. Hopefully yes.
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Each of them is promising, and certainly in the right direction. Add them to, let’s say, in 3D printing in vivo using intelligent cell or programming cells and forgive me if I am excited. We see glimpse of the future.
So the next time someone wants to stick a needle in you for a blood test, put yourself through a colonoscopy or start on an exhausting chemotherapy diet, ask yourself: I would do this in the 22ndND century?
Kim is a former Emarketing leader in a major blues plan, editor Dye.ioand now a regular THCB contributor
