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In One Hour, For Less Than a Buck, a Sensor Made of Jell-O and Foil Detects Acute Pancreatitis


If there were a distinction one could earn for practicing smart medicine on a shoestring, a UT grad student would be high in the running. Using a aluminum foil, gelatin, milk protein, and a cheap LED light--items that collectively sell for under a buck--he’s created a fast, one-hour test for acute pancreatitis.

http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/jellosensor.jpg
 
SaintPeter, it is indeed. :)


A house to keep the zombies out. ;)

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/04/transforming-sa.php

"Every year, the Michelin Design Challenge gives the design community the opportunity to go completely nuts and create vehicles with little, if any, basis in reality. By the look of things, this year was no exception, and we've got a gallery of the 13 weirdest concept cars from the competition."

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/04/michelin-concep.php

http://www.michelinchallengedesign.com/MCD_2011/mcd_participants_2011.php
 
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aKUpA_2LWQ3A


Vertex Wins U.S. FDA Panel’s Backing for Hepatitis C Drug
By Molly Peterson

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s experimental hepatitis C treatment won unanimous support from a U.S. panel that yesterday backed a similar drug from Merck & Co.

Telaprevir, Vertex’s drug, works sufficiently to outweigh risks of skin rash and anemia, outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration said today in an 18-0 vote in Silver Spring, Maryland. The agency usually follows its advisory panels’ recommendations.

Vertex, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck are vying to win the first FDA clearance in almost a decade for a medicine to treat the bloodborne liver disease. The companies are among about a dozen seeking to sell hepatitis C drugs with higher cure rates and fewer side effects than standard therapy.

“This is a long-awaited, landmark day for our patients with hepatitis C,” panelist Barbara McGovern, an associate professor of medicine at Tufts University in Boston, said after the vote.

Sales of telaprevir may surpass $2.1 billion in 2013, according to the average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Spread Worldwide
About 170 million people worldwide, and 3.2 million in the U.S., have chronic hepatitis C, a disease that can lead to liver cirrhosis and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. No vaccine exists for the virus, which is commonly spread through needle-sharing and can be transmitted sexually in rare cases.

The current standard therapy for the most common strain of hepatitis C requires 48 weeks of treatment and fails in about half of patients, Debra Birnkrant, director of the FDA’s Division of Antiviral Products, told the panel at yesterday’s meeting on Merck’s drug.

Standard treatments combine the antiviral drug ribavirin with peginterferon, an immune-boosting protein sold by Merck as PegIntron and Basel, Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG as Pegasys. The FDA approved PegIntron in 2001 and Pegasys in 2002.

Protease Inhibitors
Vertex’s telaprevir and Merck’s boceprevir are so-called protease inhibitors that work by blocking an enzyme used by the hepatitis C virus to copy itself.

Both medicines are likely to win agency approval and may reach the market in May or June, said Geoffrey Porges, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York.

Separate clinical trials on boceprevir and telaprevir showed both drugs cured more patients when used with approved treatments. There haven’t been clinical studies that compare whether one drug is safer or more effective than the other.

Vertex’s drug cured 84 percent of patients in a company- funded trial who had previously relapsed after standard therapy, compared with 24 percent who only took peginterferon and ribavirin, FDA staff reviewers said April 26 in a preliminary review of a company-funded study.

Another Vertex study found the drug cured 79 percent of patients who were new to treatment, compared with 46 percent of those on standard therapy alone, the agency said. Most patients were cured after 24 weeks of treatment, company executives told the advisory committee today.

‘It’s Unbelievable’
“I’m sort of pinching myself and saying, ‘Am I really looking at numbers like this?’ Because it’s unbelievable,” said Victoria Cargill, who headed the panel and is the director of minority research at the National Institutes of Health’s Office of AIDS Research in Bethesda, Maryland.

A Merck study found that boceprevir, combined with standard therapy, cured 63 percent of chronic hepatitis C patients who had failed previous treatments, compared with 23 percent of those who took peginterferon and ribavirin alone, FDA staff said April 25 in a report.

About 69 percent of patients who relapsed after prior treatments were cured with boceprevir after 32 weeks, and 75 percent cleared the virus after 48 weeks, Merck told the FDA in a briefing document released by the agency on April 25. Standard therapy alone, taken for 48 weeks, cured 29 percent of people who previously relapsed.

Among hepatitis C patients who were new to treatment, 65 percent of those who took boceprevir, and 38 percent on standard therapy alone, were cured in the Merck study.

“A nice head-to-head study may be warranted” if both medicines win FDA clearance, panelist Elizabeth Connick, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado, said at yesterday’s meeting on Merck’s drug.

Both drugs also are under review by the European Medicines Agency. Telaprevir would be marketed in Europe by Vertex and New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson, the world’s second-biggest seller of health products.


http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aKUpA_2LWQ3A
Click to expand...
 
Peregrinator said:
In One Hour, For Less Than a Buck, a Sensor Made of Jell-O and Foil Detects Acute Pancreatitis


If there were a distinction one could earn for practicing smart medicine on a shoestring, a UT grad student would be high in the running. Using a aluminum foil, gelatin, milk protein, and a cheap LED light--items that collectively sell for under a buck--he’s created a fast, one-hour test for acute pancreatitis.

http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/jellosensor.jpg
Click to expand...


Link? It sounds ingenious, I'd like to know how it works.
 
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIXoTIad_N24


Einstein’s Theory Proven Right by Stanford-NASA Space Probe
By Rob Waters

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. space probe carrying four gyroscopes has confirmed two key elements of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity about 95 years after he postulated it and 56 years after he died.

Gravity Probe B, built by Lockheed Martin Corp. and designed by scientists from Stanford University near Palo Alto, California, measured how space and time are warped by gravitational bodies, a phenomenon called the geodetic effect. The probe launched in 2004 also analyzed frame-dragging, the way spinning objects pull space and time around them.

The effects were demonstrated by having Gravity Probe B point at a star, IM Pegasi, while orbiting Earth. If gravity didn’t affect space and time, the gyroscopes aboard the probe would point in the same direction forever during their orbit, as Isaac Newton had theorized. Instead, they showed tiny, measurable changes in the direction of their spin as Earth’s gravity tugged at them, as Einstein had predicted.

“Imagine the Earth as if it were immersed in honey,” Stanford physicist Francis Everitt, who led the project funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said in a statement. “As the planet rotates, the honey around it would swirl, and it’s the same with space and time.”

The project was one of the longest-running efforts in the U.S. space agency’s history, beginning in 1963, and cost about $750 million, NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto said today in a telephone interview. The findings were the culmination of 49 years of work by Everitt, who came to Stanford in 1962 to help build the most precise gyroscope ever designed and produced, according to NASA.

“The mission results will have a long-term impact on the work of theoretical physicists,” said Bill Danchi, senior astrophysicist and program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, in a statement. “Every future challenge to Einstein’s theories of general relativity will have to seek more precise measurements than the remarkable work Gravity Probe B accomplished.”

The findings were published today in the journal Physical Review Letters ( http://prl.aps.org/ ).
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The Great May Planet Gathering

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/pao/skyreport/may11.html

Sky observers this month are being offered a rare opportunity. If we are fortunate enough to have some clear skies in the hour or so just before sunrise - and can find a location with a unobstructed view of the eastern horizon - we will be treated to what astronomy writer Fred Schaaf refers to as "one of the tightest four-planet gatherings of a lifetime," as well as two overlapping "trios" - groups of planets fitting within a circle less than 5° wide.

For northern-hemisphere observers, unfortunately, these events happen with all the planets low and not far from the rising Sun. In some cases, optical aid (i.e., binoculars or a telescope) will be necessary to see all participants. Venus will be the brightest and easiest to spot, so let's begin there.

At the beginning of May, Venus shines low in the dawn before sunrise. Though low, it should be readily visible to the naked eye at magnitude -3.8. On the 1st a thin crescent Moon lies about 10° to its left.

Mercury begins the month about 3° to Venus' lower left. It's not only lower, however, but also dimmer; at magnitude +0.8, it may take optical aid to find it. Venus will serve as a ready guide; from April 29 to May 28, the two will be within 5° of each other without having a conjunction in right ascension - a "quasi-conjunction." By the end of the month, Mercury will have dropped out of sight.

Jupiter joins the action with a "true" conjunction with Venus on May 11; on that date the centers of the two planets are only 36.7 arc-minutes apart - barely the width of the Full Moon. The Venus-Mercury-Jupiter trio is also then at its tightest - with all three within 2.1° - and lasts until May 15. Jupiter leaves the grouping but continues to climb higher every day.

Mars, refusing to be left out, also gets into the act. On May 12, all four planets - Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, and Mars - fit within a circle just 6° wide. By the 15th, Jupiter moves away, but a Venus-Mercury-Mars trio then begins. The trio is at its most compact - 2° wide - on the 21st, and lasts until the 25th.
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http://www.npr.org/2011/05/04/135988561/intel-redesigns-transistors-for-faster-computers


Intel Redesigns Transistors For Faster Computers
by The Associated Press

May 4, 2011

Intel Corp. said Wednesday that it has redesigned the electronic switches on its chips so that computers can keep getting cheaper and more powerful.

The switches, known as transistors, have typically been flat. By adding a third dimension "fins" that jut up from the base Intel will be able to make the transistors and chips smaller. Think of how skyscrapers address the need for more office space when land is scarce.

The company said the new structure will let chips run on less power. That gives Intel its best shot yet at cracking the growing markets for chips used in smartphones and tablet computers. Intel has been weak there because its current chips use too much power.

Chips with the 3-D transistors will be in full production this year and appear in computers in 2012.

Intel has been talking about 3-D, or "tri-gate," transistors for nearly a decade, and other companies are experimenting with similar technology. The announcement is noteworthy because Intel has figured out how to manufacture the transistors cheaply in mass quantities.

Transistors are at the center of the digital universe. They're the workhorses of modern electronics, tiny on/off switches that regulate electric current. They're to computers what synapses are to the human nervous system.

Transistors operate in the shadows, but they're integral to daily life. And they need to shrink, so that computers can get smaller and smarter.

A chip can have a billion transistors, all laid out side by side in a single layer, as if they were the streets of a city. Chips have no "depth" until now. On Intel's chips, the fins will jut up from that streetscape, sort of like bridges or overpasses.

However, Intel's advance doesn't mean it can add a whole second layer of transistors to the chip, or start stacking layers into a cube. That remains a distant but hotly pursued goal of the industry, as cubic chips could be much faster that flat ones while consuming less power.

The demand is there for smartphones that deliver the Internet in our pockets, supercomputers that beat human champions at "Jeopardy!," and other feats of computer wizardry that would have been impossible in the 1970s. Processors then could only hold several thousand transistors. Today they hold billions.

The latest change isn't something that consumers will be able to see because it happens at a microscopic level. But analysts call it one of the most significant shifts in silicon transistor design since the integrated circuit was invented more than half a century ago.

"When I looked at it, I did a big, 'Wow.' What we've seen for decades now have been evolutionary changes to the technology. This is definitely a revolutionary change," said Dan Hutcheson, a longtime semiconductor industry watcher and CEO of VLSI Research Inc., who was briefed ahead of time on Intel's announcement.

For consumers, the fact that Intel's transistors will have a third dimension means that they can expect a continuation of Moore's Law. The famous axiom, pronounced in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, has guided the computer industry's effort and given us decade after decade of cheaper and more powerful computers.

The core of Moore's prediction is that computer performance will double every two years as the number of transistors on the chips roughly doubles as well. The progress has been threatened as transistors have been shrunken down to absurd proportions, and engineers have confronted physical limitations on how much smaller they can go. Controlling power leakage is a central concern.

For Intel, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., the change is a reminder of its leadership in advanced semiconductor technology and its incentive to keep Moore's Law alive.

Previous major changes have focused on new materials that can be used for transistors, not entire redesigns of the transistors themselves.

"People have been trying to avoid changing the structure," Hutcheson said.

Other semiconductor companies argue that there's still life to be squeezed from the current design of transistors. Hutcheson agrees, but said Intel's approach should allow it to advance at least a generation ahead of its rivals, which include IBM Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The reduced power consumption addresses a key need for Intel. The performance expectations and power requirements for PCs are much higher than they are for phones and tablet computers, so Intel's dominance in PC chips doesn't necessarily lead to success in mobile devices. Even Intel's Atom-based chips, which are designed for mobile devices, have been criticized as too power hungry.

The new technology will be used for Intel's PC chips and its Atom line.

Technological leadership alone won't guarantee success, however, as Intel has learned in repeated attempts at cracking the mobile market.

Other chip makers such as Qualcomm Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. have entrenched partnerships with cellphone makers, and there is suspicion about the performance of Intel's chips in mobile devices.

"When it comes to the mobile market, they have their work cut out for them," Hutcheson said of Intel. But "this gives you the transistors to build the next great system."
Click to expand...
 
http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/jellosensor.jpg


“We’ve turned Reynold’s Wrap, Jell-O and milk into a way to look for organ failure, (acute pancreatitis)” Brian Zaccheo, the UT grad student behind the sensor, told Texas Science

"The sensor is basically a battery with a two-tiered, enzyme selective switch. To test for acute pancreatitis, a bit of blood extract is dropped on a layer of gelatin and milk protein. If there’s enough trypsin--an enzyme that exists in elevated levels in patients with the condition--it eats right through the gelatin/protein mix."


A neat bit of quick and dirty engineering, but instead of a gadget that looks for acute pancreatitis, what he has is a device that tests for the presence of elevated levels of trypsin and I'm not even sure about that.

The sine qua non of acute pancreatitisis is massively elevated levels of amylase, not trypsin.

And what this gadget doesn't do is differentiate between the many proteolytic enzymes, much less give an actual measure of the levels. As such, it can't help in the differential diagnosis between any of causes of elevated proteolytic enzymes, much less the myriad of causes of abdominal pain.

This gadget couldn't tell the difference between acute pancreatitis and a gallstone ileus. Mistake the second as being the first and in a week, your patient will be dead, even if you realize your mistake after a day or two. And if you wait an hour on a dissecting triple A (abdominal aortic aneurysm), instead of going in, you might as well call your lawyer.

There's a very good reason why hospital blood analyzers cost a fortune, and be very glad of it.
 
stephen55 said:
http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/jellosensor.jpg


“We’ve turned Reynold’s Wrap, Jell-O and milk into a way to look for organ failure, (acute pancreatitis)” Brian Zaccheo, the UT grad student behind the sensor, told Texas Science

"The sensor is basically a battery with a two-tiered, enzyme selective switch. To test for acute pancreatitis, a bit of blood extract is dropped on a layer of gelatin and milk protein. If there’s enough trypsin--an enzyme that exists in elevated levels in patients with the condition--it eats right through the gelatin/protein mix."


A neat bit of quick and dirty engineering, but instead of a gadget that looks for acute pancreatitis, what he has is a device that tests for the presence of elevated levels of trypsin and I'm not even sure about that.

The sine qua non of acute pancreatitisis is massively elevated levels of amylase, not trypsin.

And what this gadget doesn't do is differentiate between the many proteolytic enzymes, much less give an actual measure of the levels. As such, it can't help in the differential diagnosis between any of causes of elevated proteolytic enzymes, much less the myriad of causes of abdominal pain.

This gadget couldn't tell the difference between acute pancreatitis and a gallstone ileus. Mistake the second as being the first and in a week, your patient will be dead, even if you realize your mistake after a day or two. And if you wait an hour on a dissecting triple A (abdominal aortic aneurysm), instead of going in, you might as well call your lawyer.

There's a very good reason why hospital blood analyzers cost a fortune, and be very glad of it.
Click to expand...

That's great info, doc. Thank you. Obviously, I don't know enough about these lab things in medicine. I wonder if there's backlash on the popsci site.
 
Peregrinator said:
That's great info, doc. Thank you. Obviously, I don't know enough about these lab things in medicine. I wonder if there's backlash on the popsci site.
Click to expand...

Back in med school I recall a lecture given by a pathologist on the proper use and interpretation of lab tests. The gist of it was that you can't properly interpret a lab result unless you know just what the lab test is doing. The pathologist recounted a case in British law that went on to be used in an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey.

A man was accused of murder. The suspect claimed complete innocence. The police case was highly circumstantial until a test was done on a spot on the suspect's necktie. It tested positive for blood. With that test, the case went to court.

Of importance is that the case occurred back in (I think) the 1950's, when lab tests were not quite what they are today.

The defense lawyer could have easily gotten his client off, but for the very incriminating necktie. Why was there blood on the necktie?

There wasn't. The lawyer found out that the test was actually a test for the enzyme peroxidase, which is found in blood. Hence, all the test showed was peroxidase, which is also found in saliva and a variety of non-human sources...such as horseradish.

Before being arrested, the suspect had lunch at a local pub and had a roast beef sandwich...with horseradish. The pub owner testified to that. The only thing the man was guilty of was being a bit sloppy with his lunch!!
 
stephen55 said:
Back in med school I recall a lecture given by a pathologist on the proper use and interpretation of lab tests. The gist of it was that you can't properly interpret a lab result unless you know just what the lab test is doing. The pathologist recounted a case in British law that went on to be used in an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey.

A man was accused of murder. The suspect claimed complete innocence. The police case was highly circumstantial until a test was done on a spot on the suspect's necktie. It tested positive for blood. With that test, the case went to court.

Of importance is that the case occurred back in (I think) the 1950's, when lab tests were not quite what they are today.

The defense lawyer could have easily gotten his client off, but for the very incriminating necktie. Why was there blood on the necktie?

There wasn't. The lawyer found out that the test was actually a test for the enzyme peroxidase, which is found in blood. Hence, all the test showed was peroxidase, which is also found in saliva and a variety of non-human sources...such as horseradish.

Before being arrested, the suspect had lunch at a local pub and had a roast beef sandwich...with horseradish. The pub owner testified to that. The only thing the man was guilty of was being a bit sloppy with his lunch!!
Click to expand...

This is almost a goddam parable. I love it.
 
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