Recent months have seen a host of important cardiology research breakthroughs related to new cardio devices and diagnostics, tissue engineering and the overall understanding of heart disease and its treatment. For example, a customizable robotic heart sleeve – developed at Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital – has demonstrated advantages over other heart assist devices […]
Boston Children's Hospital
Researchers tout preclinical results for one-shot vaccination method
Researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital said today that they achieved strong vaccine responses in preclinical models by adding adjuvants to boost the immune response. The team’s work was published the Journal of Clinical Investigation-Insight and the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Vaccines have the potential to drastically reduce infant mortality, the researchers said, but newborns often don’t […]
Fibrosis: How to prevent it in medical device implants
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Boston Children’s Hospital researchers have discovered a way to prevent fibrosis from forming around medical device implants by blocking certain cells. The body’s immune system usually attacks implanted medical devices that are used for drug delivery, sensing or tissue regeneration. Defense cells in the body try to isolate the […]
Hospital researchers explore MRI for drug delivery
Researchers have programmed an MRI scanner to simultaneously monitor magnetized particles while propelling them through blood vessels as a means to locally deliver drugs. Existing approaches combine the magnetic force from an MRI scanner with the force produced by particle collisions. But traditionally, it’s challenging to image using the MRI scanner and propel the particles […]
MIT Researchers convert MRI scans into precise 3D heart models
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Children’s Hospital said today they developed a system that can take convert an MRI scan of a heart into a 3-D printed model. The printed hearts can be used to give surgeons a hands-on, tangible model of the heart they will be operating on before they touch a […]
Improved graft shows hope in treating pediatric heart surgery
By Erin Horan Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is a rare but serious form of congenital heart disease that leaves the left pumping chamber (ventricle) of the heart severely underdeveloped. Children born with HLHS can’t pump enough oxygenated blood from their heart to the rest of their body and need surgery as soon as possible to […]
Risk mitigation: Digital apps enhance hospital’s safety
By David Altman Hospitals are among the most hazardous workplaces in the U.S. In 2011, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 253,700 accidents were reported, an average of 6.8 work-related injuries for every 100 full-time employees. Rates of injuries reported to OSHA are decreasing in all industries except for hospitals, whose rates are […]
MRI-powered millirobots for minimally invasive surgery
By Nancy Fliesler MRI is a staple of surgical imaging, but it has the potential to do much more than take pictures. In 2011, bioengineer Pierre Dupont, PhD, and colleagues demonstrated that an MRI machine’s magnetic field could power a motor strong enough to control a robotic instrument, in this case driving a needle into an organ […]
Gene therapy used to restore hearing in deaf mice
By Nancy Fliesler More than 70 different genes are known to cause deafness when mutated. Jeffrey Holt, PhD, envisions a day when patients with hearing loss have their genome sequenced and their hearing restored by gene therapy. A proof-of-principle study published today by the journal Science Translational Medicine takes a clear step in that direction, restoring hearing in […]
Gene therapy for deafness moves a few steps closer
(Reuters) — Gene therapy for deafness is moving closer to reality, with new research yesterday showing the technique for fixing faulty DNA can improve responses in mice with genetic hearing loss. Separately, a clinical trial backed by Novartis (NYSE:NVS) is under way to help a different group of people who have lost their hearing through […]
Fruit flies’ sexual behavior as a model of motivation in the brain
By Nancy Fliesler If you have children present, you might want to click out of this post. But if you want to understand motivation, you’ll want to know about the sexual behavior of fruit flies. In the brain, motivational states are nature’s way of matching our behaviors to our needs and priorities. But motivation can […]