by Susan Young Rojahn  Elias Konstantopoulos gets spotty glimpses of the world each day for about four hours, or for however long he leaves his Argus II retina prosthesis turned on. The 74-year-old Maryland resident lost his sight from a progressive retinal disease over 30 years ago, but is able to perceive some things when he turns on the bio...

London, UK | AP Television A new material is being used to make organs, which allows patients to grow stem cells inside their bodies rather than in a laboratory - according to scientists. The team at University College London say it'll be clinically trialled this year in operations to create ears for teenagers and stents and valves for people with ...

By Mary Bates ​ Far from science fiction, brain-machine interfaces present a glimpse of the future of technologies powered by thought. Devices that convert brain activity from algorithm to action are giving those who are unable to speak or use their limbs independence once again. 'The Woman Who Drank the Coffee' In 2012, Cathy Hutchinson became kno...

US Department of Veteran Affairs,   Center for Limb Loss and MoBility  Our aim is to improve prosthetic prescription by investigating the efficacy of prosthetic components used in current clinical practice and by developing novel approaches to improve the current standard of care. Our amputee-centric research encompasses improving pa...

By Ian Birrell - The Guardian John Nhial was barely a teenager when he was grabbed by a Sudanese guerrilla army and forced to become a child soldier. He spent four years fighting, blasting away on guns almost too heavy to hold, until one day the inevitable happened: he was seriously injured, treading on a landmine while he was on morning patrol. "I...

INAL Center, Italy  This hand comes from the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, in collaboration with the INAIL Prosthetics Center in Budrio.  It's a new robotic hand prosthesis that will allow patients to recover 90% of the functionality of a natural hand. The device does not need implants or surgical operations, as it is controll...

US National Cancer Institute,  BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing, April 1, 2015  BRCA1 and BRCA2 are human genes that produce tumor suppressor proteins. These proteins help repair damaged DNA and, therefore, play a role in ensuring the stability of the cell's genetic material. When either of these genes is mutated...

HGP  The Human Genome Project (HGP) was one of the great feats of exploration in history - an inward voyage of discovery rather than an outward exploration of the planet or the cosmos; an international research effort to sequence and map all of the genes - together known as the genome - of members of our species, Homo sapiens. Completed in Apr...

NHS UK   MRSA is a type of bacteria that's resistant to several widely used antibiotics. This means infections with MRSA can be harder to treat than other bacterial infections. The full name of MRSA is meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. You might have heard it called a "superbug". MRSA infections mainly affect people who are stay...

Nature  Chromosomal translocations that generate in-frame oncogenic gene fusions are notable examples of the success of targeted cancer therapies1,2,3. We have previously described gene fusions of FGFR3-TACC3 (F3–T3) in 3% of human glioblastoma cases4. Subsequent studies have reported similar frequencies of F3–T3 in many other cancers, indicat...

Genetics Home Reference  Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that give scientists the ability to change an organism's DNA. These technologies allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome. Several approaches to genome editing have been developed. A recent one is k...

Cancer Research UK The immune system protects the body against illness and infection caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites. It is a collection of reactions and responses that the body makes to damaged cells or infection. So it is sometimes called the immune response. The immune system is important to cancer patients in many ways because: ...

NHS | UK HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that damages the cells in your immune system and weakens your ability to fight everyday infections and disease. AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is the name used to describe a number of potentially life-threatening infections and illnesses that happen when your immune system has been ...

Department of Radiology, MGH Martinos Center , Harvard Medical School ​ Diffusion spectrum imaging ( DSI ) is a variant of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in which a magnetic field maps the water contained in neuron fibers, thus mapping their criss-crossing patterns. A similar technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is also used to explore...

Foot Education  The Five Primary Goals of Walking The first goal of walking is to move the body forward toward a desired location and at a desired speed. The second goal of walking is to use the least amount of energy possible to achieve the first goal. The body does this by moving in as straight a line as possible while moving forward. During...

NHS, UK ​   Acupuncture is a treatment derived from ancient Chinese medicine. Fine needles are inserted at certain sites in the body for therapeutic or preventative purposes. It is used in many NHS general practices, as well as the majority of pain clinics and hospices in the UK. Acupuncture is often seen as a form of complementary or alt...

NHS, UK ​   Chelation therapy is considered an alternative medicine that has the purpose of removing "toxic metals" (also called "heavy metals") and toxins from the body. Why would someone experience heavy metal toxicity in the first place? Although it might sound like something only tied to rare circumstances of accidental pois...

By Susan Scutti  In 2018, playing video games obsessively might lead to a diagnosis of a mental health disorder. In the beta draft of its forthcoming 11th International Classification of Diseases , the World Health Organization includes "gaming disorder" in its list of mental health conditions. The WHO defines the disorder as a "persistent or ...

Yves A. DeClerck ​ In this issue of Cancer Research , a seminal article from Lavick and Baumann published in the Journal in 1943 is highlighted in celebration of the Journal's 75th anniversary. In this article, the authors, following an earlier observation made in 1939 that diet restriction inhibited the formation of ultraviolet-induced tumors in m...

Like drugs, dietary supplements have risks and side effects. But sellers aren't required to do research studies in people to prove that a dietary supplement is safe. And unlike drugs, dietary supplements are mostly self-prescribed with no input from informed medical sources like doctors, nurses, or pharmacists. There's a lot of wrong information ou...