Today the Guardian newspaper has a fascinating report on how a woman named Jan Scheuermann, quadraplegic for over a decade due to a spinal degenerative disease, was able to feed herself with the help of two intracortical microelectrode arrays that monitored her motor neuron activity and allowed her to manipulate a robotic arm and hand with unprecedented fluency and accuracy. … Continue reading Brain-machine interface success allows paralysed woman to feed herself for first time in a decade.
Author: Editor
Introducing Pro-Test Italia!
Italy is not a happy place to be a scientist these days, in recent months we have witnessed the unjust conviction of six Italian seismologists who were made scapegoats for the failures of government officials, budget cuts that threaten Italian participation in groundbreaking physics research programs, and botched efforts to reform the administration of state … Continue reading Introducing Pro-Test Italia!
Defeating Leukemia: A smile that says “Thank the mice”
A couple of days ago the New York times published a heart warming story about a young girl named Emma Whitehead whose acute lymphoblastic leukemia - which had previously defied all therapies - has gone into full remission following treatment with a novel gene therapy that programmed her immune system to target the cancer cells. … Continue reading Defeating Leukemia: A smile that says “Thank the mice”
Don’t let medical progress go over the cliff, contact your representative today!
In this blog we frequently discuss threats to medical research, ranging from harassment of individual scientists by animal right extremists, to spurious complaints by animal rights groups, to legislative proposals that may harm medical research. The threat we wish to draw your attention to today is somewhat different, as it impacts not only on medical … Continue reading Don’t let medical progress go over the cliff, contact your representative today!
Moving from rats to patients: swift progress for electrical simulation in treating paralysis
Sometimes the pace of medical progress takes even us by surprise. Last month a paper was published in the Lancet by a team of clinicians and scientists at the University of Louisville that we certainly were not expecting to see so soon, reporting that electrical stimulation of the lower spinal cord had restored voluntary movement … Continue reading Moving from rats to patients: swift progress for electrical simulation in treating paralysis
Regenerative Medicine: Prof. Anthony Atala discusses its past, present and future
Regenerative medicine is an exciting field that has really begun to mature and deliver on its promise over the past decade, though the clinical achievements to date only represent a fraction of what will be achieved in years to come. One of the leading scientists working in this field is Professor Anthony Atala, who leads a team … Continue reading Regenerative Medicine: Prof. Anthony Atala discusses its past, present and future
The Portrait of a Superstar of Science – Drosophila melanogaster
Regular readers of this blog will no doubt have heard of Drosophila melanogaster, the fly that has played a key role in important discoveries about skin cancer, the innate immune system and the development of tissues, but we’ve never really given this tiny superstar of science enough prominence on this blog. To help correct this … Continue reading The Portrait of a Superstar of Science – Drosophila melanogaster
Universal Meningitis B vaccine nears approval by European regulators – thank the mice (and the scientists)!
Bacterial meningitis is an infection of the fluid that is found in the spinal cord and surrounding the brain that affects thousands of people – usually children or young people – every year and can result in brain damage, hearing loss, or learning disability. In about 10% of cases the infection is fatal. One of … Continue reading Universal Meningitis B vaccine nears approval by European regulators – thank the mice (and the scientists)!
Speaking of Research 