Wednesday, March 04, 2020 2:08 p.m. EST by Thomson Reuters

By Linda Carroll

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Today's artificial limbs can look very natural, and now an innovative process makes prosthetic hands move more naturally as well.

In an innovative experiment, scientists have shown that the nerves in patients' arms can be trained to control the movements of prosthetic fingers and thumbs.

"This is the biggest advance in motor control for people with amputations in many years," said Paul Cederna, a professor of plastic surgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan.

A challenge to powering prosthetics has been the minute signals put out by an amputee's nerves. Cederna's team boosted the signal by wrapping tiny bits of muscle around nerve endings, according to their study published in Science Translational Medicine.

As the nerves grow into the muscle, the person's thoughts can create a muscle twitch that produces a signal big enough to be picked up by tiny wires connected to a nearby computer, which tells the prosthetic hand to move.

"Our ultimate goal is to have prosthetic limbs that the person views as a part of their body," Cederna said.

In an example of how well the system works, a woman who was nervously tapping her own fingers prompted the prosthetic to tap right along with it, Cederna said. "It was just doing what the other hand was doing, like it was a part of her," he noted.

"This worked the very first time we tried it. There's no learning for the participants. All of the learning happens in our algorithms. That's different from other approaches."

The procedure also worked for another amputee in the study who had lost not only his hand, but also part of his arm.

"It's the coolest part of what they've shown," said Lee Fisher, an assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh's department of physical medicine and rehabilitation and bioengineering.

Participants were able to pick up blocks with a pincer grasp, move their thumb in a continuous motion, lift spherical objects, and even play in a version of Rock, Paper, Scissors, according to the study.

The approach is an "exciting innovation," but no one can predict when it will be marketable, said David Putrino, co-director of the abilities research center at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York."Currently it takes 17 years to get something (from the lab) out into clinical practice," he said.

(Reporting by Linda Carroll; Editing by Richard Chang)

Go here to see the original:
Prosthetic innovation: 'It's like you have a hand again' - study - Midwest Communication

Courtesy of YouTube

The first annual conference of Please Try This at Home took place in September 2019. At the cross section of biotechnology, body autonomy and anarchy, the conference represents an inclusive group of scientists concerned with using and discussing biotechnology in the hopes of moving the field in a more progressive direction. That being said, it is indeed a solid step in the right direction, especially when one takes into consideration how misunderstood the bioengineering field has become.

To get a sense of the state of bioengineering, a biohacker by the name of Josiah Zayner livestreamed an attempt to splice his DNA to give himself bigger muscles. If it was inserted in the wrong place in his body, or in the wrong place for the code, his DNA could end up producing weakened or ineffective proteins that could affect his body functionality. While that attempt was misguided and Zayner later regretted the stunt, the implication was that this technology should be safe and easy, which is a dangerous and untrue belief to hold. As biotechnology continues to improve, more research and regulation will be needed to ensure the safety of its use.

Ensuring said safety requires a basic understanding of cellular biology, and at its core is the central dogma of molecular biology. Simply put, most genetic material is encoded in DNA, DNA transcribes to RNA and RNA translates to proteins and those proteins are responsible for most functions in the body. Generally, bioengineering works by taking a segment of foreign DNA and inserting it into the rest of the genetic code, resulting in a production of proteins that will carry out a function specific to that DNA code. The described process is extremely complex and delicate, but despite that, genetic engineering has been used to treat Parkinsons disease and sickle cell disease among others.

That said, genetic engineering has a promising future outside of simple disease treatment. To reaffirm the purpose of Please Try This at Home, genetic engineering could be used for a different form of hormone therapy for transgender individuals. In a mostly speculative procedure, a geneticist could activate the necessary genes responsible for production of a specific hormone. That being said, it is important to keep in mind that this is a hypothetical experiment, and could result in potentially greater health problems later in life. These potential problems necessitate the need for greater experimentation and regulation in order to work out the difficulties.

Experiments in gene editing on a larger scale have already been proposed to fight Lyme disease. Normally, the disease spreads when a tick bites a mouse, followed by that tick biting a human. On Nantucket Island and Marthas Vineyard, where Lyme disease is particularly virulent, a project called Mice Against Ticks is under consideration, in which mice would be genetically modified to be able to resist and prevent the spread of Lyme disease. Kevin Esvelt, the scientist spearheading this operation is also acutely aware of the potential ecological ramifications of this project, cautiously choosing an isolated island with a low human population and low chances of dispersal if the project goes awry.

Esvelts caution in choosing an experimental site calls to mind the dangers of genetic engineering: the long term effects are not yet fully known, and it is understandable to be afraid of something that is not entirely explored. The chances of cascading ecological effects from genetic engineering is as present as the possibility for abuse of genetic engineering via eugenics. Simultaneously, those possibilities are also matched by the potential to eradicate Lyme disease, malaria or leukemia.

The best way to ensure safer practices and better opportunities for the future of genetic engineering is to regulate its practice. Clear distinctions need to be made between biohackers, like Zayner and practical, controlled applications like Mice Against Ticks. Genetic engineering could have world changing effects; it just needs to be regulated and perfected.

See the article here:
As bioengineering progresses, regulation will need to follow - Highlander Newspaper

A small injury to a nerve outside the brain and spinal cord is relatively easy to repair just by stretching it, but a major gap in such a peripheral nerve poses problems. Usually, another nerve is taken from elsewhere in the body, and it causes an extra injury and returns only limited movement.

Now researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have found an effective way to bridge such a gapat least in mice and monkeysby inserting a biodegradable tube that releases a protein called a growth factor for several months. In a study published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, the team showed that the tube works as a guide for the nerve to grow along the proper path, and the naturally occurring protein induces the nerve to grow faster.

Kacey Marra, a professor at the universitys departments of plastic surgery and bioengineering, says shes been working for a dozen years on the device, which she particularly hopes will help soldiers injured in combat. More than half of injured soldiers suffer nerve injuries, she says. And as the daughter and granddaughter of military men, she considers it her mission to help their successors. Combat gear does a good job of protecting a soldiers chest and head, but arms and legs are often exposed, which is why peripheral nerve injuries are so common, Marra says. Car crashes and accidents involving machinery such as snowblowers can also damage nerves involved in hand, arm, leg and foot control.

In the U.S., there are about 600,000 nerve injuries every year, she says, though she is unsure how many are severe enough to require the relocation of a second nerve because that information is not tracked yet. When the injuries are severe, the only current treatment is to take a nerve from somewhere else on the body, Marra says. But patients recover just about 50 to 60 percent of function in the damaged nerve.

Longer nerve grafts are always more challenging, says Christine Schmidt, a professor and chair of the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida, who was not involved with the research. It would be great to be able to tackle long-term nerve damage. She notes that the nerve the Pittsburgh team tested is relatively small in macaques. It will still be a challenge to scale up to larger nerves, she says. It would be nice to see a little bit larger nerve, which would be more relevant to patients.

The new device restored nearly 80 percent of function, the study showed. It uses glial-cell-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), a protein that promotes nerve cell survival. Marra chose GDNF, she says, because if you get a nerve injury like a paper cut, the cells in your nerves are going to express this protein at high levels. And that recruits other cells to come in and repair the nerve. The tube is made of the same polymer as dissolvable stitches, which has already been federally approved for surgical use.

Other researchers are exploring the use of stem cells or other cells to help bridge the gap in the nerve, but Marra and her colleagues approach is likely to have an easier time receiving federal approval because it does not involve cells. If they were to go adding stem cells or too many complexities, it would be harder to win a regulatory green light, Schmidt says. It is better to make advances with small steps, as the Pittsburgh researchers have, she says. Theyre doing it in a very realistic way that can lead to a clinical outcome, and thats really what you want, Schmidt adds.

Nerves can regenerate at a rate of about one millimeter per day, and there are three months worth of GDNF in the tube, allowing for closing injuries of about 12 centimetersor 4.7 inches.

In the eight-year-long study, the researchers trained rhesus macaques to eat with their forefinger and thumbwhich they could only do if a repaired nerve was working properly. They used this finger maneuver rather than grabbing food with their fist, as they usually do when they eat. If they pinched the banana pellet, they got a second treat, Marra says. We were able to see the recovery, she adds. At that point, we knew we were ready to test in humans.

Marra says she and her colleagues have several pending proposals for the first clinical trials in humans, which are likely to start in 2021 and take at least three years. A start-up she launched, AxoMax Technologies, licensed the technology from the University of Pittsburgh to begin the experiments. Marra believes her device can be competitively priced, compared with moving a nerve from elsewhere in the bodyand, potentially, even compared with existing repair approaches for small nerve gaps.

Her team is also beginning to study whether its method will work for facial nerves, but she thinks it is unlikely to be effective for spinal cord injuries, which are far more complex and involve more nerves. The researchers are looking at regenerating the muscles affected by injured nerves as well. I think [this approach] really could revolutionize thinking about nerve repair and the different options a patient will have, Marra says.

Go here to see the original:
New Nerve-Growing Method Could Help Injured Soldiers and Others - Scientific American

UC San Diego researcher Y.C. Bert Fung, who blended biology, medicine and engineering into a field that has given rise to everything from heart valves to wireless health monitors to automobile crash bags, died on Dec. 15, the university said. He was 100.

Fung, the so-called father of biomechanics, passed away of natural causes at UCSDs Jacobs Medical Center, his family said.

Scholars described him as a seminal figure in 20th century science who got his contemporaries to think of human health in more precise and practical ways by combining medicine with the principles and rigors of engineering and biology bioengineering, for short.

When you went to the doctor 50 years ago the treatment usually involved drugs because scientists mainly thought of the human body in terms of chemistry, said Shu Chien, a UCSD bioengineer who was recruited by Fung.

But we breathe, which is mechanical. Our heart pumps blood, which is mechanical. So is our digestive system. You also need to think about biology and engineering.

Fung got scientists to do it, especially as it applies to the mechanics of blood flow, leading others to invent an array of lifesaving valves and cardiac assist devices.

It happened against all odds, said Geert Schmid-Schonbein, a UCSD bioengineer. He joined the faculty in 1966, before bioengineering had become an academic discipline on university campuses. The textbooks in the field had yet to be written. The courses had yet to be created.

People would say to him, Youre not a biologist. And youre not an engineer. What are you?

Fung was actually well-grounded in both of those fields, and he would soon write the textbooks and create the courses that would help establish bioengineering as an important discipline.

His collective contributions were considered to be so important he was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2000. Fung was the first bioengineer to earn that honor.

Scholars say Fung also succeeded because he was a remarkably resilient person a characteristic that appears to have developed during a difficult childhood in China.

Yuan-Cheng Fung was born on September 15, 1919 in Changzhou, a part of Jiangsu Province. His father was an educator and a respected painter, and his mother was a housewife. Y.C. Fung had six siblings.

In the fall of 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, setting off armed conflict. That led to mandatory military training in local schools, a harrowing disruption that Fung survived.

He went on to earn a bachelors and a masters degree from National Central University. Then, in 1946, he traveled to the US and enrolled at Caltech, where he excelled in aeronautics.

That might have been his lifes work if his mother had not develop glaucoma.

Historians say he devoted all of his energy to helping her and was frustrated to learn that comparatively little was known about the physical and mechanical forces that affect living tissue.

I turned to bioengineering, with a focus on people, because I felt that although we know so much about airplanes, we dont know much about ourselves, Fung said during a talk he gave in 2007, campus officials say.

Fung ended up leaving Caltech for UCSD, partly because it has a medical school, and partly because it was a new university where people could explore cutting edge ideas with a lot of campus support.

He published one landmark paper after another, helping define bioengineering, Chien said.

Fung also became known as an extraordinary teacher.

I was an undergraduate in chemical engineering who took a class from him because I needed a technical elective, said Ghassan Kassab, president of the California Medical Innovations Institute in Sorrento Valley.

Without any notes in hand, he went to the chalk board and starting writing equations about how blood flows through arteries and how the heart contracts. And he did it in a poetic way. I remember being mesmerized. I soon changed my major to bioengineering.

Kassab and Chien remember something else distinguishing about Fung his laugh.

You could hear it halfway across campus, Kassab said. It came from his heart. He so enjoyed science and teaching.

That love didnt come at the expense of being a relaxed, happy, somewhat poetic soul.

He would always tell us to Work hard, and take it easy, said Conrad Fung, his son. Id tell him, Thats easy for you to say. He was able to be relaxed because of his great talent in science.

Fung is survived by his son Conrad, and Conrads two sons, Anthony and Michael, and by his daughter Brenda Fung and her son, Nicholas Manos, and Manos wife, Claire Bazley.

Pioneering UCSD engineer Joanna McKittrick dies at 65

Follow this link:
UC San Diego's Y.C. Fung, the lifesaving 'father of biomechanics', dies at 100 - The San Diego Union-Tribune

A $106 million Weill Family Foundationinitiative will bring together interdisciplinary researchers and clinicians at three West Coast universities in hopes of finding new treatments for brain and nervous system disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

The University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley), the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the University of Washington (UW) have launched the Weill Neurohub, a cutting-edge research network that seeks to promote collaborations among investigators from an array of fields, including artificial intelligence, engineering and data science.

The gains in knowledge amassed by neuroscientists over the past few decades can now be brought to the next level with supercomputers, electronic brain-computer interfaces, nanotechnology, robotics and powerful imaging tools, Sanford I. Weill, the foundations chairman, said in a press release.

The Neurohub will seize this opportunity by building bridges between people with diverse talents and training and bringing them together in a common cause: discovering new treatments to help the millions of patients with such conditions as Alzheimers diseaseand mental illness, he said.

The initiative will support collaborative projects with near-term transformational prospects, as well as pioneering investigators novel project ideas. It also intends to recruit new talent to fill knowledge gaps, and train the next generation of clinicians and scientists. In addition, the UCSF-based Neurohubwill host symposiums and other meetings in order to share knowledge, promote new alliances and motivate scientists.

To fuel development of high-impact new approaches, the Neurohub will begin by funding projects built upon at least one of these four fields: imaging, engineering, genomics and molecular therapies, and computation and data analytics. For their computational and device manufacturing expertise, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will provide support for the initiative. Other labs overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy that specialize in bioengineering, imaging and data science, also will contribute.

The announcement cites a 2016 study by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundationthat found the economic burden of psychiatric and neurological diseases, such as ALS, Parkinsons and Alzheimers,.exceeds $1.5 trillion annually in the U.S nearly 9% of the gross national product.

Each year, more than 5,600 U.S. residents are diagnosed with ALS.With one in five residents turning 65 or older in the next decade, California has the nations largest aging population. That presents significant challenges that extend beyond the state, said Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Every day, millions of people in California, the nation and the world are facing the uncertainty of neuro-related diseases, mental illness and brain injuries, and collaboration between different disciplines in science, academia, government and philanthropy is critical to meet this challenge, Newsom said while thanking the Weill Family Foundation.

Together, we must accelerate the development and use cutting-edge technology, innovation and tools that will advance research and practical application that will benefit people across the world and for generations to come. California is at the forefront of this innovation, Gavin said.

The gift expands on the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established in 2016 with $185 million from the foundation.

Now, with the Weill Neurohub, were going even further: eliminating institutional boundaries between three great public research universities, and also other disciplinary walls between traditional neuroscience and non-traditional approaches to understanding the brain, said Stephen Hauser, MD. Hauser is Weill Institute director and a Neurohub co-director along with Berkeleys Ehud Isacoff, PhD, the Evan Rauch Chair of Neuroscience.

By embracing engineering, data analysis and imaging science at this dramatically higher level areas in which both Berkeley and the UW are among the best in the world neuroscientists on all three campuses will gain crucial tools and insights that will bring us closer to our shared goal of reducing suffering from brain diseases.

Tom Daniel, PhD, is the UW Joan and Richard Komen Endowed Chair and a member of the initiatives leadership committee. He said the Neurohub is unlike any other effort.

To my knowledge, this is a nationally unique enterprise drawing on diverse approaches to accomplish goals no single institution could reach alone, as well as seeding and accelerating research and discovery, Daniel said.

Mary M. Chapman began her professional career at United Press International, running both print and broadcast desks. She then became a Michigan correspondent for what is now Bloomberg BNA, where she mainly covered the automotive industry plus legal, tax and regulatory issues. A member of the Automotive Press Association and one of a relatively small number of women on the car beat, Chapman has discussed the automotive industry multiple times of National Public Radio, and in 2014 was selected as an honorary judge at the prestigious Cobble Beach Concours dElegance. She has written for numerous national outlets including Time, People, Al-Jazeera America, Fortune, Daily Beast, MSN.com, Newsweek, The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. The winner of the Society of Professional Journalists award for outstanding reporting, Chapman has had dozens of articles in The New York Times, including two on the coveted front page. She has completed a manuscript about centenarian car enthusiast Margaret Dunning, titled Belle of the Concours.

Total Posts: 279

Margarida graduated with a BS in Health Sciences from the University of Lisbon and a MSc in Biotechnology from Instituto Superior Tcnico (IST-UL). She worked as a molecular biologist research associate at a Cambridge UK-based biotech company that discovers and develops therapeutic, fully human monoclonal antibodies.

Link:
$106M Weill Family Foundation Gift Opens Neurohub Research Network - ALS News Today

A computerized strike zone could be on the way to Major League Baseball. The umpires union struck a deal with MLB officials last weekend to cooperate and assist with the implementation of a digitally governed strike zone as part of a larger contract, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

Players, coaches and fans have clamored for such a reform after a heartily scrutinized postseason of officiating that saw baseball fans and observers calling their own balls and strikes, often at odds with umpires decisions.

With game telecasts now routinely including a strike zone projected on the screen, fans can decide for themselves after each pitch whether an umpire was correct, with controversial rulings casting a shadow over a game thats already grappling with other structural issues, including pace of play and rising strikeout and home run numbers.

The five-year agreement between umpires and MLB, part of a new labor deal first reported by The Associated Press, provides umpires significant increases in compensation and retirement benefits designed to let older umpires retire sooner. In exchange, the umpires will advise Commissioner Rob Manfred on the development and implementation of ABS, the leagues proprietary automated balls and strikes system developed by sports data firm TrackMan.

The independent Atlantic League, an eight-team minor league unaffiliated with MLB franchises, piloted ABS in 2019, judging the experiment a great success. MLB deployed the system in the Arizona Fall League in September and October, and will test it again this spring and summer in the Class A advanced Florida State League.

A source with knowledge of the systems rollout said Manfred is eyeing activating the digital strike zone in the big leagues in as soon as three seasons.

The agreement with umpires, if all goes according to plan, will help push baseballs officiating into the 21st century. Where every other aspect of baseball has been quantified down to a science there are bioengineering labs designed specifically to calibrate pitchers form and batters swings the strike zone, the games very foundation, has always been subject to human biases.

Umpiring a professional baseball game is staggeringly difficult, and major- and minor-league umpires are the best in the world at their jobs. But they still get a great number of ball and strike calls wrong. A 2019 study from Boston University that examined 11 years worth of MLB ball/strike calls found umpires get approximately one in every five calls wrong. (That sounds like a lot, and it is, but remember that umpires dont make a call on every pitch. There are foul balls, balls put in play, check swings, and so on, leaving far fewer ball/strike calls than total pitches.)

Umpires have especial blind spots in some areas of the strike zone, the study found. They miss calls at the bottom left and bottom right portions of the strike zone, the most important parts of the zone, 14.3 percent and 18.3 percent of the time, respectively.

Simply put, ABS and get used to saying that wont miss those calls. But it will reconfigure the modern conception of the strike zone. For one, its zone is larger than the one imagined by most players and fans. The K zone projected on television is one dimensional. It looks like a narrow window through which a pitcher must fit the ball. But the real strike zone is three dimensional. All a pitch must do is skim a piece of that zone to be called a strike. ABS doesnt have blind spots.

That means the high fastball or looping curveball most umpires considered out of the zone may very well be strikes, according to ABS. Advantage, pitcher.

However, the fastball that tries to paint the inside corner of the plate, or the slider that tries to sweep outside and misses by half an inch wont be strikes in an ABS zone no matter how well a catcher presents the offering. Advantage, hitter.

Beyond the technological improvements, paying umpires more and allowing them to retire earlier should improve the standard of the officiating workforce. The BU study found the best umpires on balls and strikes are younger and average fewer years of big league experience. Of the top 10 umpires between 2008 and 2018, all of them were younger than 40. The most experienced had only been in the major leagues for five years. The worst umpires were all 50 or older and had spent an average of 20.6 years in the majors.

MLBs umpiring corps must get younger. The average age of a major league umpire is 46, around the age when performance behind the plate starts peaking. The umpiring corps is entirely male and almost entirely white, too. Increased compensation could be a strong motivator for more diverse candidates to pursue the profession, though MLB and the umpires union also need to increase their diversity outreach. Professional baseball is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse sports in the world. Its officials dont reflect that diversity.

Opponents of the digital strike zone need not worry too much: This is not the end of umpiring as we know it. ABS still requires a home-plate umpire to administer the game. The software is not nearly advanced enough to make complex safe or out calls on the bases. MLB wont be cutting any umpiring jobs.

When the ABS system is implemented, home-plate umpires wear an earpiece connected to an iPhone in their pocket. That connects via WiFi to TrackMan radar systems installed in the ballpark. The software announces Ball or Strike to the umpire, who announces the call to the players and crowd. It feels and looks like a normal baseball game.

But this would be arguably technologys largest integration into the officiating of major American sports, which have lagged behind the rest of the world in that category. European soccer employs goal line technology to determine indisputably whether a shot has scored. Tennis has the Hawk-Eye instant-replay system which tracks whether balls are in or out. Cricket uses Hawk-Eye for a complex and controversial call, leg before wicket, which is considerably more advanced than a digital strike zone.

ABSs successful rollout could lead American sports fans and executives to consider the merit of even more officiating technology. Perhaps technology could help determine if a batted ball was fair or foul, a home run or in play? In basketball, whether a ball was out of bounds? In football, whether a runner achieved a first down or a touchdown?

For Major League Baseball, ABS is a far less intrusive technology than opponents of robo umps once feared. But it would reshape the game and its officiating.

Go here to read the rest:
'Robo umps' will help bring baseball into the 21st century - The Keene Sentinel

FSM eDigest | November 19. 2019

By By Cori Annapolen Goldberg and Sung W. Park

As food regulatory attorneys, we become somewhat excited when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issues a new law or policy; we think about how it affects our clients and whether the new law or policy truly promotes the public good. What we often notice, however, is that implementation of such rule or policies often becomes delayed, or an extra grace period is provided for the companies to comply. For example, FDA recently announced that it will not require compliance with the new 2016 nutrition labeling rule until July 1, 2020 for certain companies.[1] Similarly, USDA is also providing a buffer period for enforcement for the bioengineering disclosure rule until January 1, 2022, although the official effective date of the rule is January 1, 2020. Such enforcement discretion or buffer periods can be helpful in ensuring that the changes in laws do not affect business negatively. We have been receiving many questions about these laws and regulations recently. Although the agencies may delay enforcement again, we wanted to take this opportunity (and the extra time) to address a few questions regarding the new upcoming FDA and USDA labeling regulations.

First, the question that we probably receive the most often is: which party is ultimately responsible for ensuring compliance with the new regulations? The modern food supply chain is complex. The majority of food and food ingredients are imported from overseas, sometimes processed in the United States (oftentimes by contract manufacturers), at times repackaged by third-party distributors, and only then finally marketed to the public. This complex supply chain means that deciding who is responsible for regulatory compliance can be difficult because so many parties are involved in the process. The short answer to this question is that theoretically, any party that is responsible for introducing the food into interstate commerce is responsible for correct labeling. This is because federal law[2] prohibits sales, marketing, or distribution of any products that violate the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act or its implementing regulations.

In practice, however, FDA is likely to consider certain parties to be more responsible for compliance than others. In fact, FDA mentions some of these examples in its guidance.[3] For example, FDA may consider a private label distributor to be more responsible than the contract manufacturer for labeling compliance because the private label distributor is directly responsible for introducing the product to consumers. On the other hand, FDA states that the supplier of a food ingredient is responsible for the accuracy of the information it provides to the processor if there is no suitable way for the processor to determine nutrient values; this is because here, the supplier is the one that can ensure compliance. While the answer to the question of who is responsible will differ in every case, a good way of solving this issue in advance is to delineate in the contract the regulatory obligations of each party (e.g., label review before the final release of the product). This will help ensure regulatory compliance and in the unfortunate event that any noncompliance is found, the parties will able to resolve the disputes more effectively, hopefully without resorting to costly and lengthy dispute resolution mechanisms.

In addition, we often hear about what exact changes were made to the nutrition labeling rule. FDA made several key changes to nutrition labeling. Importantly, FDA instituted a new requirement for Added Sugarssugars that are added during processing of the food. This is applicable to many types of sugars, including syrups and honey, certain concentrated fruit or vegetable juices, and free-, mono-, or disaccharide forms of sugars (for general changes to the format, please refer to the graphic below graphic from FDA; on the left is the old panel, and on the right is the new panel). Importantly, what many industry members overlook is that the new rule includes record-keeping requirements. For example, records must be kept for 2 years to support the declaration of dietary fiber in the product. Similarly, manufacturers must keep a record of the amount of added sugars in foods that may go through nonenzymatic browning or fermentation, because it may not be technologically possible to distinguish between naturally occurring sugars and added sugars in such circumstances. This may be a particularly important change both from regulatory and consumer litigation perspectives, given that plaintiffs attorneys regularly scrutinize the food labels for any potential sources of lawsuits.

Lastly, although not an FDA requirement, while were on the subject of labeling changes, we would like to note that a new USDA bioengineering labeling requirement will become effective on January 1, 2020,[4] although the agency will not enforce until January 1, 2022. While this might seem far away, the bioengineering disclosure rule may require changes to the product formulations or the supply chain. In short, the USDAs bioengineering labeling rule requires disclosure on whether a product contains detectable genetic materials that have been modified in labs and not found in the nature (i.e., genetic engineering). While certain exemptions exist (e.g., foods subject to the USDA labeling jurisdiction with the predominant ingredient also regulated by the USDA; incidental additives), generally speaking, food containing genetically engineered ingredients will need to disclose such inclusion through graphic or textual messages (e.g., bioengineered food, contains a bioengineered food ingredient, or a symbol). Interestingly, the USDA stated that although the implementation date is January 1, 2020, the agency will begin enforcement on January 1, 2022. While some time remains, companies will want to review this quickly to determine the proper marketing and regulatory strategy given that this may result in formulation changes.

In sum, there is likely to be a sea change in the regulatory environment for food manufacturers, distributors, and marketers because of the new FDA labeling regulations and USDA disclosure rules coming into effect beginning in 2020 through 2022. We understand first-hand from working with our clients how much time, money, and effort it can take to update the labels. While such changes may be challenging at first, manufacturers, distributors, or marketers that embrace and prepare for the changes in advance will be able to minimize the risk of regulatory enforcement and focus their energy on building their business. We would like to invite you to review these rules closely, and begin the preparation. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Cori Annapolen Goldberg, a partner in the ReedSmith Life Sciences Health Industry Group, focuses her practice on FDA regulatory issues for the food, drug, medical device and cosmetic industries across the supply chain, including companies investing in these industries.Sung W. Park is an associate in the Life Sciences Health Industry Group in the Washington D.C. office. His practice focuses on providing regulatory counsel to companies developing, distributing, and marketing FDA-regulated products, and responding to regulatory and administrative enforcement actions by federal and state agencies such as FDA, USDA, and state Attorneys General offices.

References1. http://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/industry-resources-changes-nutrition-facts-label#Compliance&nbsp.2. The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. 21 U.S.C. 301(a).3. FDA Guidance to the Industry, Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels: Questions and Answers Related to the Compliance Date, Added Sugars, and Declaration of Quantitative Amounts of Vitamins and Minerals: Guidance for Industry (November 2018).4. For certain small food manufacturers, the effective date is January 1, 2021.

The rest is here:
FDA's and USDA's Upcoming New Regulations and the Delays - Food Safety Magazine

Researchers at UCLA have developed an improved method to detect the presence of DNA biomarkers of disease that is compatible with use outside of a hospital or lab setting. The new technique leverages the sensors and optics of cellphones to read light produced by a new detector dye mixture that reports the presence of DNA molecules with a signal that is more than 10-times brighter.

Nucleic acids, such as DNA or RNA, are used in tests for infectious diseases, genetic disorders, cancer mutations that can be targeted by specific drugs, and fetal abnormality tests. The samples used in standard diagnostic tests typically contain only tiny amounts of a diseases related nucleic acids. To assist optical detection, clinicians amplify the number of nucleic acids making them easier to find with the fluorescent dyes.

Both the amplification and the optical detection steps have in the past required costly and bulky equipment, largely limiting their use to laboratories.

In a study published onlinein the journal ACS Nano, researchers from three UCLA entities the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the California NanoSystems Institute, and the David Geffen School of Medicine showed how to take detection out of the lab and for a fraction of the cost.

The collaborative team of researchers included lead author Janay Kong, a UCLA Ph.D. student in bioengineering; Qingshan Wei, a post-doctoral researcher in electrical engineering; Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellors Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering; Dino Di Carlo, professor of bioengineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering; andOmai Garner, assistant professor of pathology and medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

The UCLA researchers focused on the challenges with low-cost optical detection. Small changes in light emitted from molecules that associate with DNA, called intercalator dyes, are used to identify DNA amplification, but these dyes are unstable and their changes are too dim for standard cellphone camera sensors.

But the team discovered an additive that stabilized the intercalator dyes and generated a large increase in fluorescent signal above the background light level, enabling the test to be integrated with inexpensive cellphone based detection methods. The combined novel dye/cellphone reader system achieved comparable results to equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars more.

To adapt a cellphone to detect the light produced from dyes associated with amplified DNA while those samples are in standard laboratory containers, such as well plates, the team developed a cost-effective, field-portable fiber optic bundle. The fibers in the bundle routed the signal from each well in the plate to a unique location of the camera sensor area. This handheld reader is able to provide comparable results to standard benchtop readers, but at a fraction of the cost, which the authors suggest is a promising sign that the reader could be applied to other fluorescence-based diagnostic tests.

Currently nucleic acid amplification tests have issues generating a stable and high signal, which often necessitates the use of calibration dyes and samples which can be limiting for point-of-care use, Di Carlo said. The unique dye combination overcomes these issues and is able to generate a thermally stable signal, with a much higher signal to noise ratio. The DNA amplification curves we see look beautiful without any of the normalization and calibration, which is usually performed, to get to the point that we start at.

Additionally, the authors emphasized that the dye combinations discovered should be able to be used universally to detect any nucleic acid amplification, allowing for their use in a multitude of other amplification approaches and tests.

The team demonstrated the approach using a process called loop-mediated isothermal amplification, or LAMP, with DNA from lambda phage as the target molecule, as a proof of concept, and now plan to adapt the assay to complex clinical samples and nucleic acids associated with pathogens such as influenza.

The newest demonstration is part of a suite of technologies aimed at democratizing disease diagnosis developed by the UCLA team. Including low-cost optical readout and diagnostics based on consumer-electronic devices,microfluidic-based automation andmolecular assays leveraging DNA nanotechnology.

This interdisciplinary work was supported through a team science grant from the National Science Foundation Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program.

Go here to see the original:
UCLA researchers make DNA detection portable, affordable using cellphones - UCLA Newsroom

Newswise WASHINGTON, D.C., June 5, 2017 -- The American Institute of Physics (AIP) and AIP Publishing are pleased to announce the launch of a new online magazine, Bioengineering Today. Bioengineering Today offers news and information about the intersection of biology, chemistry and physics with medicine. The articles cover everything from biomedical discoveries, research, new devices, new imaging technologies, engineering and applications of physics to bioengineering as well as disease detection, prevention and treatment.

This web-only publication represents an innovative and interactive destination with the goal of highlighting the cutting-edge research discoveries of today with an eye toward illuminating the path toward a brighter future. With articles focused on a variety of topics such as carbon ion therapy and the neurology of dreams, Bioengineering Today reveals the science and opportunities offered by the advancing field of bioengineering.

As people are living longer and healthier lives despite disease, disability and injury, today's research promise is tomorrow's hope. Hope that researchers will continue to uncover human genetics and physiology to better understand all the normal and pathological processes that shape our bodies and our minds. Hope that scientists and engineers can use that knowledge to develop new technologies and devices, new drugs or biologicals, or new policies and preventative practices. Hope that medical researchers will help bring about new, precision medicine approaches to treating diseases and improving human health. Hope that new strides in fundamental physics will be translated unto medicine. And hope that all this will lead to a brighter, healthier future for humanity.

"Your hope is our hope -- that as we move into the future, discoveries that touch humanity, helping make better lives, will touch and help you," said Jason Socrates Bardi, AIP News Director and Editor of Bioengineering Today.

Bioengineering Today is written for professional and enthusiastic general audiences. For professional audiences, the journal offers news briefs and long-form reporting on interdisciplinary research in the biomedical research field. For general audiences, the magazine offers news, investigative analysis and useful information that can be applied to daily life. There are also opportunities for more interaction through Bioengineering Today's Facebook page and Twitter account to engage in further discussions about the topics that interest and inspire readers.

Please visit the Bioengineering Today homepage at https://bioengineeringtoday.org to learn more.

###

ABOUT BIOENGINEERING TODAY

Bioengineering Today is a nonprofit journalism venture owned and operated by the scholarly nonprofit publisher AIP Publishing in Melville, New York. AIP Publishing is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) in College Park, Maryland, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. See: http://www.aip.org

ABOUT AIP PUBLISHING

AIP Publishing is a wholly owned not-for-profit subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics (AIP). AIP Publishings mission is to support the charitable, scientific and educational purposes of AIP through scholarly publishing activities in the fields of the physical and related sciences on its own behalf and on behalf of our publishing partners to help them proactively advance their missions. https://publishing.aip.org/

###

Excerpt from:
Announcement: A New Publication from the American Institute of ... - Newswise (press release)

The Eel River Recovery Project is sponsoring two events this weekend to celebrate Eel River fish, aquatic life and restoration.

On Saturday, there will be a field trip to the upper Eel River to look for spawning steelhead. On Sunday, there will be a series of presentations at the Willits Hub at 630 South Main St.

The Saturday field trip will depart from the Willits Hub at 9 a.m. and will travel to the upper Eel River, Soda Creek and Lake Pillsbury via Upper Lake. Soda Creek is the largest tributary to join the Eel River within the Potter Valley Project, and it does so just one mile downstream of Scott Dam, which forms Lake Pillsbury.

The creek is on Mendocino National Forest and the group will visit a restoration site that resulted from a cooperative effort funded by Trout Unlimited and implemented by BioEngineering Associates of Laytonville.

After touring the restoration site, the walk will go further up Soda Creek to see spawning steelhead, if they are present. Just 15 minutes from Soda Creek is the grassy plain above Lake Pillsbury for lunch and to likely see several hundred Tule elk.

On Sunday, doors will open at the Willits Hub at 9:30 a.m. for coffee, bagels and fresh fruit, and presentations will begin at 10. The event will allow people from Willits and residents of nearby areas to drop in throughout the day to listen to experts on fisheries, aquatic life and restoration in an intimate setting.

The ERRP collects data all over the Eel River basin and fisheries. Biologist Pat Higgins, ERRPs managing director, will give presentations at different times. Topics will include fall Chinook salmon, Sacramento pikeminnow dive results, basinwide temperature patterns and using aquatic insects to understand stream health.

Longtime Mendocino County fisheries biologist Park Steiner will summarize findings of his 30 years of work on the upper Eel River and provide results of recent salmon surveys within and below the Potter Valley Project and in Tomki Creek.

Dr. Mary Power is a faculty member at UC Berkeley in the Department of Integrative Biology and the faculty director of the Angelo Reserve on the upper South Fork Eel River near Branscomb. Power will talk in the late morning about UC research in the Eel River basin, which includes assisting the ERRP with toxic cyanobacteria monitoring. Her husband, UC Berkeley professor of geology Bill Dietrich, will also present a summary of findings from the National Science Foundation Critical Observatory Zone project that has been going on for several years.

Advertisement

In the afternoon, two accomplished restoration practitioners will share photos that show very successful Mendocino County stream-side or riparian restoration projects. Evan Engber of BioEngineering Associates will talk about restoring river banks and stream channels using large amounts of live willow and strategic amounts of large rock, including projects within the Eel River watershed. Former watershed coordinator and retired river guide Craig Bell will follow with a slide show demonstrating riparian restoration, using bioengineering, of seven miles of the lower Garcia River, a southern Mendocino coastal river.

Also in the afternoon, film maker Shane Anderson will show a clip of A Rivers Last Chance, a movie about the Eel River he is releasing soon, and talk about his craft. There will be wild caught rock fish served for dinner from 4 to 6 p.m. to celebrate the wild Eel River and the reinvigoration of the Willits Hub. There is no charge for admission to either of the ERRP weekend events, but donations will be accepted.

More events are planned to help support crowdfunding, which continues through April 15, to raise one years rent for the Willits Hub building. Several Willits based groups will be located there, and the ERRP also intends to establish an office. Follow ERRP on Facebook, or go to eelriverrecovery.org for agenda details and to learn about other activities. Donate at everribbon.com/ribbon/view/64018. For more information, call Robin at (707) 459-0155.

Read the original:
Willits goes wild for Eel River fish and aquatic life - The Willits News

Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) image of individual nanowires and groups of nanowires. Each wire can produce an electric current when hit by light.

A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego and La Jolla-based startup Nanovision Biosciences Inc. have developed the nanotechnology and wireless electronics for a new type of retinal prosthesis that brings research a step closer to restoring the ability of neurons in the retina to respond to light. The researchers demonstrated this response to light in a rat retina interfacing with a prototype of the device in vitro.

They detail their work in a recent issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering. The technology could help tens of millions of people worldwide suffering from neurodegenerative diseases that affect eyesight, including macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa and loss of vision due to diabetes.

Despite tremendous advances in the development of retinal prostheses over the past two decades, the performance of devices currently on the market to help the blind regain functional vision is still severely limited -well under the acuity threshold of 20/200 that defines legal blindness.

Read howstem cell transplants have restored vision

We want to create a new class of devices with drastically improved capabilities to help people with impaired vision, said Gabriel A. Silva, one of the senior authors of the work and professor in bioengineering and ophthalmology at UC San Diego. Silva also is one of the original founders of Nanovision.

The new prosthesis relies on two groundbreaking technologies. One consists of arrays of silicon nanowires that simultaneously sense light and electrically stimulate the retina accordingly. The nanowires give the prosthesis higher resolution than anything achieved by other devicescloser to the dense spacing of photoreceptors in the human retina. The other breakthrough is a wireless device that can transmit power and data to the nanowires over the same wireless link at record speed and energy efficiency.

One of the main differences between the researchers prototype and existing retinal prostheses is that the new system does not require a vision sensor outside of the eye to capture a visual scene and then transform it into alternating signals to sequentially stimulate retinal neurons. Instead, the silicon nanowires mimic the retinas light-sensing cones and rods to directly stimulate retinal cells. Nanowires are bundled into a grid of electrodes, directly activated by light and powered by a single wireless electrical signal. This direct and local translation of incident light into electrical stimulation makes for a much simplerand scalablearchitecture for the prosthesis.

The power provided to the nanowires from the single wireless electrical signal gives the light-activated electrodes their high sensitivity while also controlling the timing of stimulation.

To restore functional vision, it is critical that the neural interface matches the resolution and sensitivity of the human retina, said Gert Cauwenberghs, a professor of bioengineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the papers senior author.

Wireless telemetry system

Power is delivered wirelessly, from outside the body to the implant, through an inductive powering telemetry system developed by a team led by Cauwenberghs.

The device is highly energy efficient because it minimizes energy losses in wireless power and data transmission and in the stimulation process, recycling electrostatic energy circulating within the inductive resonant tank, and between capacitance on the electrodes and the resonant tank. Up to 90 percent of the energy transmitted is actually delivered and used for stimulation, which means less RF wireless power emitting radiation in the transmission, and less heating of the surrounding tissue from dissipated power.

The telemetry system is capable of transmitting both power and data over a single pair of inductive coils, one emitting from outside the body, and another on the receiving side in the eye. The link can send and receive one bit of data for every two cycles of the 13.56 megahertz RF signal; other two-coil systems need at least 5 cycles for every bit transmitted.

Proof-of-concept test Primary cortical neurons cultured on the surface of an array of optoelectronic nanowires. Here a neuron is pulling the nanowires, indicating the the cell is doing well on this material.

For proof-of-concept, the researchers inserted the wirelessly powered nanowire array beneath a transgenic rat retina with rhodopsin P23H knock-in retinal degeneration. The degenerated retina interfaced in vitro with a microelectrode array for recording extracellular neural action potentials (electrical spikes from neural activity).

The horizontal and bipolar neurons fired action potentials preferentially when the prosthesis was exposed to a combination of light and electrical potentialand were silent when either light or electrical bias was absent, confirming the light-activated and voltage-controlled responsivity of the nanowire array.

The wireless nanowire array device is the result of a collaboration between a multidisciplinary team led by Cauwenberghs, Silva and William R. Freeman, director of the Jacobs Retina Center at UC San Diego, UC San Diego electrical engineering professor Yu-Hwa Lo and Nanovision Biosciences.

A path to clinical translationPrimary cortical neurons cultured on the surface of an array of optoelectronic nanowires. Note the extensive neurite outgrowth and network formation. Freeman, Silva and Scott Thorogood, have co-founded La Jolla-based Nanovision Biosciences, a partner in this study, to further develop and translate the technology into clinical use, with the goal of restoring functional vision in patients with severe retinal degeneration. Animal tests with the device are in progress, with clinical trials following.

We have made rapid progress with the development of the world's first nanoengineered retinal prosthesis as a result of the unique partnership we have developed with the team at UC San Diego, said Thorogood, who is the CEO of Nanovision Biosciences.

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided byUC San Diego. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Reference:

Ha, S., Khraiche, M., Akinin, A., Jing, Y., Damle, S., Kuang, Y., Bauchner, S., Lo, Y., Freeman, W., Silva, G. and Cauwenberghs, G. (2016). Towards high-resolution retinal prostheses with direct optical addressing and inductive telemetry. Journal of Neural Engineering, 13(5), p.056008.

More:
Bioengineering to Restore Sight - Technology Networks

At just 12 years old, the graduate programs at the University of California, Merced, are already among the best in the nation, according to the U.S. News & World Reports 2018 Best Graduate Schoolsrankings.

UC Merceds School of Engineering made its second appearance in the graduate school rankings, released today (March 14), rising to No. 127 in the nation after debuting at No. 140 in 2015.

The school made an impressive debut in the environmental engineering rankings, placing No. 70 in the nation in that discipline. UC Merced also made a major jump in the psychology rankings, appearing at No. 90 in the nation after debuting at No. 158 in2015.

In addition to the environmental engineering ranking, the campus was also ranked No. 135 in electrical engineering and was recognized for bioengineering and mechanical engineering. Only the top 75 in bioengineering and top 115 in mechanical engineering received numericalrankings.

Dean Mark Matsumoto said the School of Engineerings ranking reflects the perception of a university that is quickly coming into itsown.

This ranking is an indication of a maturing School of Engineering with an improving reputation, Matsumoto said. This milestone is due to the quality of the faculty and students we are recruiting. I am proud of the achievements of ourschool.

U.S. News surveyed graduate programs at more than 200 schools that grant doctoral degrees, and the rankings are based on a variety of criteria. For the engineering designation, the criteria included mean GRE quantitative scores, acceptance rate, student-to-faculty ratio and researchactivity.

Matsumoto said the engineering rankings, particularly environmental engineering, were bolstered by a number of important research initiatives being led or supported by UC Merced, including the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, UC Water, UC Solar and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). The campus offers graduate degrees through interdisciplinary groups such as Environmental Systems, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Biological Engineering and Small-Scale Technologies, and Mechanical Engineering.

The U.S. News rankings in psychology, as with all doctoral programs in the social sciences and humanities, are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to academics in each discipline. UC Merced has developed particular strengths in areas such as developmental psychology, health psychology and quantitative psychology.

UC Merceds inclusion in prominent national rankings adds to a growing reputation and global profile for the newest UC campus. Since opening in 2005 as the first research university built in the 21st century, UC Merced has grown from 875 students to more than 7,000, with plans to enroll up to 10,000 students upon completion of the Merced 2020 Project.

UC Merced made its debut on the U.S. News overall Best Colleges list last year, ranking No. 78 among public universities and No. 152 overall. Also last year, UC Merced made its first appearance on the industry-leading Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, earning designation as a doctoral-granting university with higher research activity or R2, the second-highest classification for American research universities. It is the youngest campus on that list, aswell.

The campus also ranked No. 8 in Washington Monthlys Best Bang for the Buck: Western Colleges list and No. 41 in the magazines national rankings, with the fifth-best mark among all schools in the area of social mobility. It also placed in the top 100 for the fourth time in five years on the Sierra Clubs Cool Schools list, which honors the nations most environmentally sustainable colleges anduniversities.

I am very pleased that our graduate programs continue to rise in the rankings of national organizations such as U.S. News & World Report, especially because we are still such a young institution, Vice Provost and Graduate Dean Marjorie Zatz said. This is due in large part to the dedication of our excellent faculty and the shared values of diversity, interdisciplinarity and research excellence that support and inform our graduate training programs. It is an exciting time to be a part of UCMerced.

Read more:
Graduate Programs on the Rise, US News Rankings Show - UC Merced University News

Big news in biotech: Scientists created what appeared to be a mouse embryo using stem cells. From the Telegraph story:

Artificial human life could soon be grown from scratch in the lab, after scientists successfully created a mammal embryo using only stem cells.

Cambridge University mixed two kinds of mouse stem cells and placed them on a 3D scaffold. After four days of growth in a tank of chemicals designed to mimic conditions inside the womb, the cells formed the structure of a living mouse embryo.

The breakthrough has been described as a masterpiece in bioengineering, which could eventually allow scientists to grow artificial human embryos in the lab without the need for a sperm or an egg.

First, this wouldnt be from scratch, as if they scientists brewed DNA from raw chemicals. It involved existing cells.

Second, we already know that mammalian life can be created without egg and sperm, for example, as in cloning, of which this is a variant technique that fuses different cells into a new organism.

Third, IF they ever create a human organism in this way, it would not be an artificial life but a real and fully human being thatshould be treated as such in ethics and in law.

More here:
Bioengineered Human Life Would Not Be Artificial - National Review

Local students have been named to the Dean's List at Clemson University for the fall 2016 semester.

They are:

Deidra M. Ward of Charleston, who is majoring in chemical engineering

Antonio J. Ayala of Ladson, who is majoring in bioengineering

Austin Ryal Bowen of Ladson, who is majoring in computer engineering

Austin M. Greenwood of Ladson, who is majoring in electrical engineering

Sarahlyn E. Hill of Ladson, who is majoring in biological sciences

Ricki E. Hughes of Ladson, who is majoring in animal and veterinary science

Kylie M. Johnson of Ladson, who is majoring in general engineering

Jocelyn M. Mcgill of Ladson, who is majoring in animal and veterinary science

Charles R. Ritter III of Ladson, who is majoring in computer science

Kerry Marissa Wilt of Ladson, who is majoring in women's leadership

Taylor Marie Abendroth of North Charleston, who is majoring in biochemistry

Kimberly Bui of North Charleston, who is majoring in biological sciences

Michael Chavez of North Charleston, who is majoring in general engineering

Nicole Shilah Mcalister of North Charleston, who is majoring in College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities

Cameron James Weathers of North Charleston, who is majoring in civil engineering

Benjamin M. O'Cain of St. George, who is majoring in general engineering

Hannah Shuler of St. George, who is majoring in English

Katelyn E. Adkins of Summerville, who is majoring in environmental and natural resources

Alicia Oluwakemi Amon of Summerville, who is majoring in nursing

Cameron W. Arnold of Summerville, who is majoring in mathematical sciences

Kinsey Suzanne Baughman of Summerville, who is majoring in psychology

Ryan A. Becwar of Summerville, who is majoring in computer science

Mackenzie William Binns of Summerville, who is majoring in computer information systems

Mackenzie G. Bowen of Summerville, who is majoring in parks, recreation and tourism management

Madison L. Buddin of Summerville, who is majoring in biological sciences

Collin A. Burchette of Summerville, who is majoring in chemical engineering

Grant A. Byrum of Summerville, who is majoring in computer science

Meghan A. Carter of Summerville, who is majoring in pre-business

Hannah E. Collins of Summerville, who is majoring in history

Alexis P. Cone of Summerville, who is majoring in financial management

Victoria Jade Cooper of Summerville, who is majoring in communication

Tristan M. Cromer of Summerville, who is majoring in general engineering

Caleb A. Dorrity of Summerville, who is majoring in industrial engineering

Connor Hoke Egbert of Summerville, who is majoring in civil engineering

Taylor R. Esch of Summerville, who is majoring in materials science and engineering

Rachel E. Fate of Summerville, who is majoring in psychology

Daniel M. Finley Jr. of Summerville, who is majoring in electrical engineering

Jacob E. Fladd of Summerville, who is majoring in bioengineering

Patrick Kyle Flanagan of Summerville, who is majoring in physics

Thomas M. Fleury of Summerville, who is majoring in biological sciences

Jennifer A. Gabriel of Summerville, who is majoring in accounting

Matthew R. Hagan of Summerville, who is majoring in philosophy

Brooke Spencer Haile of Summerville, who is majoring in psychology

Amanda Maria Hazell of Summerville, who is majoring in visual arts

Hayes S. Hoover of Summerville, who is majoring in biological sciences

Haley W. Jones of Summerville, who is majoring in materials science and engineering

Jason Michael Kinard of Summerville, who is majoring in computer science

Connor W. Lee of Summerville, who is majoring in mechanical engineering

Emily R. Leiendecker of Summerville, who is majoring in economics

Michael A. Lemelin of Summerville, who is majoring in chemistry

Christopher Michael Logan of Summerville, who is majoring in computer science

Rebecca A. Long of Summerville, who is majoring in psychology

Logan V. Mann of Summerville, who is majoring in biological sciences

Carlan A. May of Summerville, who is majoring in biological sciences

Amanda N. Pietrofeso of Summerville, who is majoring in industrial engineering

Rebecca B. Provost of Summerville, who is majoring in bioengineering

Thomas J. Purcell of Summerville, who is majoring in civil engineering

Andrew D. Purcell of Summerville, who is majoring in forest resource management

Cole David Reber of Summerville, who is majoring in packaging science

Andrew B. Samuels of Summerville, who is majoring in computer science

Rachel C. Sanner of Summerville, who is majoring in biological sciences

Aaron P. Schmitt of Summerville, who is majoring in civil engineering

Samuel W. Seigler of Summerville, who is majoring in biochemistry

Mollie C. Smith of Summerville, who is majoring in nursing

Charlotte A. Snook of Summerville, who is majoring in biological sciences

Alan D. Stack of Summerville, who is majoring in wildlife and fisheries biology

Kara S. Stem of Summerville, who is majoring in animal and veterinary science

Ashley L. Tant of Summerville, who is majoring in psychology

Matthew D. Thompson of Summerville, who is majoring in political science

Michael Alan Tibbs of Summerville, who is majoring in electrical engineering

Alexandra Nicole Tomlinson of Summerville, who is majoring in architecture

Rachel Ann Van der Meyden of Summerville, who is majoring in communication

Ryan T. West of Summerville, who is majoring in bioengineering

Caitlin E. Willan of Summerville, who is majoring in biological sciences

Rhiannon Catherine Williams of Summerville, who is majoring in animal and veterinary science

To be named to the Dean's List, a student achieved a grade-point average between 3.50 and 3.99 on a 4.0 scale.

Ranked No. 23 among national public universities, Clemson University is a major, land-grant, science- and engineering-oriented research university that maintains a strong commitment to teaching and student success. Clemson is an inclusive, student-centered community characterized by high academic standards, a culture of collaboration, school spirit, and a competitive drive to excel.

Read this article:
Clemson names local students to fall 2016 Dean's List - Journalscene.com

Expanding biomedical engineering programs could boost state's life ... MiBiz As Michigan life sciences companies grow and seek to commercialize their innovations, the firms often face key constraints when it comes to access to capital in ... and more »

The rest is here:
Expanding biomedical engineering programs could boost state's life ... - MiBiz

The human species is about to change dramatically. That's the argument Yuval Noah Harari makes in his new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.

Harari is a history professor at Hebrew University in Israel. He tells NPR's Ari Shapiro that he expects we will soon engineer our bodies and minds in the same way we now design products.

On how we will begin to engineer bodies

The three main ways of doing that, first of all, is to take our organic body and start tinkering with it with things like genetic engineering, speeding up natural selection and actually replacing it with intelligent design not the intelligent design of some God above the clouds, but our intelligent design.

The other way is to start combining organic with inorganic parts and creating cyborgs. For four billion years all of evolution not just of humans but of all beings was confined to the organic realm, but very soon we might be able to break out of the organic realm using things like brain-computer interfaces, which combine organic parts like an organic brain with inorganic parts like bionic hands or eyes or ears.

And then the third and most extreme path is to create completely inorganic beings not even needing an organic brain, but using instead artificial intelligence.

On one way a future medical breakthrough could be used to upgrade a healthy person

I think in general medicine in the 21st century will switch from healing the sick to upgrading the healthy. ... If you find ways to repair the memory damaged by Alzheimer's disease or dementia and so forth, it is very likely that the same methods could be used to upgrade the memory of completely healthy people. And if you find ways to connect brains and computers, you can rely on memory's immense databases outside your own brain. We are starting to do it, in a way, with our smart phones and computers, but what we may see in coming decades is humans actually merging completely with their smart phones and computers.

On biological inequality

It's likely that all the upgrades, at least at first, will cost a lot and will be available only to a small elite. So for the first time in human history we might see economic inequality being translated into biological inequality. And once such a gate opens, it becomes almost impossible to close it because then the rich will really be far more capable than everybody else.

On what can be done to control the growth of bioengineering and artificial intelligence

One thing that we need to do is start thinking far more seriously about global governance because the only solution to such problems will be on a global level, not on a national level.

Actually, of course, in the last year or two we are seeing a retrograde movement away from globalist thinking and into more nationalist and isolationist thinking, and this is very dangerous. I mean, traditionally, people said that nationalism is dangerous because it leads to war. But now nationalism is far more dangerous because not only it leads to war, it also may prevent us from having any effective answer that can help us cope with dangers like the rise of artificial intelligence or the implications of bioengineering.

Visit link:
Are Cyborgs In Our Future? 'Homo Deus' Author Thinks So - NPR

The National Institutes of Health is enrolling up to 10,000 healthy people in a study that seeks to determine how many people have immunity to the novel coronavirus.

Investigators will take blood from participants and test it for antibodies the body produces to fight off infection. The idea is to figure out the true number of people who've been exposed to the virus, whether or not they had symptoms.

The study is one of many public and private efforts to expand "serology" or immunity tests in the US. Since the tests can measure a response to the virus long after it's occurred, they've been called the next frontier of coronavirus screening and should help the NIH understand the extent of its spread.

Read more: Tests that can tell if you're immune to the coronavirus are on the way. Here are the companies racing to bring them to the US healthcare system.

Led by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the rollout is one of the biggest serology efforts at the federal level thus far.

"This study will give us a clearer picture of the true magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States by telling us how many people in different communities have been infected without knowing it, because they had a very mild, undocumented illness or did not access testing while they were sick," said Anthony S. Fauci, a key member of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force and the director of NIAID, in a press release.

Whereas reporting of confirmed cases in the US has mostly relied on molecular tests that determine the active presence of the virus in a person's airways, NIH investigators will analyze the blood for two kinds of antibodies indicating prior exposure, proteins called IgM and IgG.

The former develops quickly and typically lasts for a week or two. The latter has a longer life and is involved in the body's secondary immune response, according to the NIH.

"An antibody test is looking back into the immune system's history with a rearview mirror," said Matthew J. Memoli, the study's principal investigator.

Volunteers near Washington, DC will give blood in-person at the NIH campus in Maryland. The NIH will ship kits made by medical device company Neoteryx to other participants for at-home use.

Never miss out on healthcare news. Subscribe to Dispensed, Business Insider's weekly newsletter on pharma, biotech, and healthcare.

The study is not open to people with current coronavirus symptoms or those with laboratory-confirmed histories of the virus. People who suspect they recovered without tests or never had symptoms consistent with the virus in the first place are encouraged to enroll, however.

People interested in joining can contact the NIH at clinicalstudiesunit@nih.gov and will be asked to consent over the phone. Enrollees can request their results after a prolonged waiting period of weeks or months, according to the NIH.

Visit link:
Coronavirus: Antibody study on 10,000 people, how many were infected - Business Insider - Business Insider

It gets harder every year to get into some of the University of Washingtons most in-demand majors, creating a cutthroat system of competition at the flagship university.

By the end of his freshman year at the University of Washington, Jack Kussick believed there was no point in even applying to get into the UWs bioengineering program.

Kussick had sailed through Seattles Roosevelt High with top grades. When he entered the UW, the Seattle native was thinking about a career designing cutting-edge rehabilitation tools that could help wounded veterans get back on their feet, or athletes devastated by injury return to their sports.

But college required an entirely different type of studying. As a freshman, Kussick stumbled in a few classes before he figured out a system that worked for him.

By then, he believed, it was already too late.

In order to be competitive for bioengineering, a counselor told him, hed need to begin making As in nearly every class. Even then, his chances of being admitted were slim.

At a time when students are encouraged to go into careers in science and technology, as well as business, its becoming harder and harder to do so in some majors at the states largest flagship university.

Of the roughly 2,000 students in each class who say they want to major in one of the engineering disciplines, fewer than half will get in. And for the business administration major at the Foster School of Business, the admission rate is 40 percent.

Some faculty say thats created a cutthroat system that forces students to compete against one another at a time when they should be learning how to work together.

In high-demand majors, the university is having to select from a group of students who are amazing, and bright, and capable, and could do well, said Patricia Kramer, an anthropology professor who heads a faculty committee trying to solve the problem.

This isnt weeding out students who are not good, she added.

The pressure to build a perfect transcript also means students sacrifice many other experiences that make up the fabric of a good college experience, said Brian Fabien, the associate dean of academic affairs for the College of Engineering.

Theyre not participating in student organizations, in clubs theyre not doing the things wed like them to do, Fabien said. This is not a good environment for learning.

Theres no easy solution. But the UW will be asking more questions about a students area of interest on its freshman and transfer admissions applications. At some point, that information might be used to decide who becomes a Husky, and who does not.

On the third floor of Loew Hall one day last week, a half-dozen pre-engineering students waited in line for appointments with academic counselors to fine-tune their schedules, or ask for advice. Most were upbeat about their chances of being accepted into engineerings disciplines mechanical, civil and computer engineering, to name a few.

But the reality is that fewer than half will be admitted, Fabien said. Students get several chances to apply, but in the meantime they are in limbo about their major, and some wont know for certain until their third year, which is actually pretty cruel, he said.

Taylor Ishida, a sophomore who wants to major in bioengineering, stays in the library studying until 10 or 11 p.m. every night. Its definitely stressful, knowing the level of competition, she said.

Ishida, who grew up in Oregon, says her academic record is strong, but shes an anxious test-taker, and often wakes up at night worrying about how she did on her last exam. If she doesnt get into the program, shell transfer to another university.

Allen Putich, a first-quarter transfer student who earned his associate degree from Skagit Valley College, knows its hard to get into his intended major, computer science; he spent an entire week studying for his first midterm. He thinks his chances are good, but hes got a backup plan: electrical engineering.

Khanh Le, a sophomore, has been turned down once already trying to get into either industrial or civil engineering, and says shes under a lot of pressure now to get in. Le, who graduated from Mariner High School in Everett, said if she doesnt get in on her second attempt, she may take a year off or transfer elsewhere.

No major is more competitive than computer science only about a third of the students who apply get in. For those students, some help is on the way; the UW has gotten millions from private industry and the state Legislature to construct a new computer science building, which will allow it to double the number of students it can handle in the coming years.

Students who cant get into engineering often choose math, chemistry or physics and that puts stress on those majors, too, Fabien said. Those who dont get into the Foster School, for example, often choose economics as a backup. That major is no shoo-in, either it only admits about two-thirds of applicants.

Engineers are trained to be collaborative, so they can solve problems together. But the hypercompetitive environment at the UW means students are in a race to beat one another. Its exactly the opposite of the skills theyll need in the workplace, Fabien said.

Why cant the UW simply eliminate majors that are falling out of favor, and use the money to hire more engineering professors?

Its not that easy.

Engineers need to learn on expensive and space-consuming equipment, Fabien said. For example, mechanical engineers at the UW work with machining equipment similar to whats used in a Boeing facility.

The engineering college also needs students who can write, and have an understanding of history, political science and the humanities not just good grades in math and science. You cant be a good engineer if you cant communicate, he said.

Kramer said the slowness with which the university builds up, or cuts back, on majors is an important check on chasing the latest fad.

Ten years ago, for example, the university resisted pressure to reduce instruction in Eastern European languages. Now, because of unrest in Ukraine, an understanding of those languages and cultures is in demand, she said.

Before the university starts considering a students area of academic interest in deciding who is admitted, all three campuses would have to approve that change. Kramer expects there will be changes in the way the university makes its choice on offering admission to out-of-state and international students.

For in-state students, in contrast, she thinks the changes will be minor.

Our obligation to Washington state students is really different from the universitys commitment to out-of-state and international students, she said.

But she emphasized that no decisions have been made yet, and that the intent is not to decrease overall chances of admission into the UW for any student, but rather to give students the best chances of being able to gain entry into, and to complete, majors in the field of their interest.

For transfer students, an applicants intended major already has a bearing on whether he or she is admitted. A transfer student who selects only one major on the application, and is not admitted into that major, also is not admitted into the university, she said.

Meanwhile, the College of Engineering has proposed a system in which about 50 percent of engineering-major prospects would be directly admitted to the college at the same time they are admitted to the UW as freshmen or transfer students, although they would still need to apply for their specific major. No decision has been made, but Fabien noted that its a practice already in use at most other major engineering schools. And last year, the UW Student Senate passed a resolution calling for that change.

The trouble with direct admission, Kramer said, is that it can deprive students of the chance to explore different subjects, or pursue careers they might never have heard of in high school.

That can be especially hard on those who come from rural or low-income schools students who may have never met an engineer, or explored a great science lab, she said.

Computer science professor Ed Lazowska said theres no right way to handle the overcrowded-majors issue.

Elite private universities allow students to choose any major they want, Lazowska said, but getting admitted to those universities in the first place is like winning the lottery.

On the other hand, some major public universities give students a relatively free choice of their major, but use weed-out courses extremely difficult prerequisites to reduce the number of students going into certain majors, he said.

Meanwhile, just up the road in Everett, Washington State Universitys new North Puget Sound campus is adding more slots in electrical, mechanical and software engineering. The mechanical engineering program, which can accommodate 40 new students each year, had twice that number of applicants this January.

Kussick, the UW student who thought he would never get into bioengineering, solved his dilemma by transferring to Oregon State University at the start of his sophomore year. He is making As in all his classes Im doing better than Ive ever done at school and was admitted to the pre-bioengineering program. His interests have expanded into robotics, and hes also thinking about medical school or earning a Ph.D.

Kussick is 250 miles from home, and because hes an out-of-state-student, his familys paying about $13,000 more a year in tuition and living expenses than they did while he was at the UW.

But hes happy with his decision to move to Corvallis. Im loving it down here, he said.

View original post here:
Students frustrated trying to get into UW's strict engineering program - The Seattle Times

For the past several years, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been developing a class of walking "bio-bots" powered by muscle cells and controlled with electrical and optical pulses. Now, Bioengineering Professor Rashid Bashirs research group is sharing the recipe for the current generation of bio-bots. Their how-to paper is the cover article in Nature Protocols.

The protocol teaches every step of building a bio-bot, from 3D printing the skeleton to tissue engineering the skeletal muscle actuator, including manufacturers and part numbers for every single thing we use in the lab, explained Ritu Raman, now a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Bioengineering and first author of the paper

This protocol is essentially intended to be a one-stop reference for any scientist around the world who wants to replicate the results we showed in our PNAS 2016 and PNAS 2014 papers, and give them a framework for building their own bio-bots for a variety of applications, Raman said.

Nature Protocols - A modular approach to the design, fabrication, and characterization of muscle-powered biological machines

As stated in the paper, "Biological machines consisting of cells and biomaterials have the potential to dynamically sense, process, respond, and adapt to environmental signals in real time." This can result in exciting possibilities where these "systems could one day demonstrate complex behaviors including self-assembly, self-organization, self-healing, and adaptation of composition and functionality to best suit their environment." Bashir's group has been a pioneer in designing and building bio-bots, less than a centimeter in size, made of flexible 3D printed hydrogels and living cells. In 2012, the group demonstrated bio-bots that could "walk" on their own, powered by beating heart cells from rats. However, heart cells constantly contract, denying researchers control over the bot's motion.

The purpose of the paper was to provide the detailed recipes and protocols so that others can easily duplicate the work and help to further permeate the idea of 'building with biology--so that other researchers and educators can have the tools and the knowledge to build these bio-hybrid systems and attempt to address challenges in health, medicine, and environment that we face as a society, stated Rashid Bashir, a Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering and head of the Department of Bioengineering.

The 3D printing revolution has given us the tools required to build with biology in this way. Raman said. We re-designed the 3D-printed injection mold to produce skeletal muscle rings that could be manually transferred to any of a wide variety of bio-bot skeletons. These rings were shown to produce passive and active tension forces similar to those generated by muscle strips.

"Using optogenetics techniques, we worked with collaborators at MIT to genetically engineer a light-responsive skeletal muscle cell line that could be stimulated to contract by pulses of 470-nm blue light," Raman added. "The resultant optogenetic muscle rings were coupled to multi-legged bio-bot skeletons with symmetric geometric designs. Localized stimulation of contraction, rendered possible by the greater spatiotemporal control of light stimuli over electrical stimuli, was used to drive directional locomotion and 2D rotational steering.

Abstract

Biological machines consisting of cells and biomaterials have the potential to dynamically sense, process, respond, and adapt to environmental signals in real time. As a first step toward the realization of such machines, which will require biological actuators that can generate force and perform mechanical work, we have developed a method of manufacturing modular skeletal muscle actuators that can generate up to 1.7 mN (3.2 kPa) of passive tension force and 300 N (0.56 kPa) of active tension force in response to external stimulation. Such millimeter-scale biological actuators can be coupled to a wide variety of 3D-printed skeletons to power complex output behaviors such as controllable locomotion. This article provides a comprehensive protocol for forward engineering of biological actuators and 3D-printed skeletons for any design application. 3D printing of the injection molds and skeletons requires 3 hours, seeding the muscle actuators takes 2 hours, and differentiating the muscle takes 7 days.

Continue reading here:
Framework for building bio-bots - Next Big Future

The IIT Guwahati team| Pic: IIT-G

Researchers at The Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati are working to develop a vaccine for the Coronavirus and stem the pandemic. They are also developing rapid detection and portable diagnostic kits for various viruses and microorganisms. The team of researchers is led by Professor Sachin Kumar, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering.

Explaining that they are currently analysing data, Professor Sachin says, "We haven't started the work on the vaccine yet. We are analysing the data. We are analysing the sequence of Coronavirus from samples from Kerala and China. It is also difficult to say how much time the vaccine will take to be fully functional. However, the diagnostic could be done fast. Currently, what we have is a realtime PCR based-diagnostic for CoV-2 detection."

Adding how they are taking the research forward he says, "We are working on a virus that causes Newcastle Disease. It is a poultry pathogen. It is a very important pathogen in the poultry industry as a lot of modalities related to poultry is going on. We are trying to develop some kind of vaccine and diagnostics for this poultry disease. In addition to the development of vaccine and diagnostic, we have developed this virus as a vector. Now, what is done is that this virus can express some foreign protein which can be useful in protection from other diseases as well. Though we are working on poultry, we can use this tool as a marker for the development of some kind of a vaccine."

How far away is the cure? Quite a bit.

The team comprises of PhD students, MTech students, Junior Research Fellows and Post Doctoral Fellows. "The viral immunology laboratory at IIT Guwahati works primarily on the avian paramyxovirus. The lab is actively involved in the development of vaccines and diagnostics against avian paramyxovirus. Besides, the lab has developed a viral vector system to deliver foreign antigens. Recently, the research group led by Prof Sachin Kumar, Department of BSBE has developed recombinant vaccines against Japanese encephalitis and classical swine fever virus which got published in the journal Vaccine and Archives of virology, respectively. The lab could substantially contribute to the research and development towards severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus -2 (SARS-CoV-2). The lab at IIT Guwahati is exploring the possibilities to clone the immunogenic proteins of SARS-CoV-2 to be used as diagnostics and possible vaccine candidates," the institute said in their statement.

What these researchers are looking forward to is that their research output, which will suggest if they can use the same tool, as they had developed for Japanese encephalitis virus and classical swine fever. Then they will use the same to extract the foreign protein of COVID-19. "We can use this tool which is there in our lab for generating a fast diagnostics against Coronavirus so that it can be used in the field condition as of what we have," he concludes.

Read more:
Meet the team of IIT Guwahati students, researchers who are developing a COVID-19 vaccine - EdexLive