UCSF study offers insight into human circadian rhythms
...tic mutation on circadian activity, the scientists inserted the mutated human gene into the nerve cells of the circadian clock in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the mouse. Scientists have learned much about human gene function by studying animals, given the many genes that have been conserved throu...Acupuncture found to lower elevations in blood pressure
...They have found that when an acupuncture needle is inserted at specific sites on the wrist, inside of the forearm or leg, this triggers the release of opioid chemicals in the brain that reduce excitatory responses in the cardiovascular system. This decreases the heart's activity and its need for oxygen, which...Cryoablation is effective in treating cancer patients' pain
...ed percutaneous cryoablation. Cryoapplicators were inserted into the tumor area, and the tumor and adjacent areas were frozen. The freezing process kills cancer cells, small sensory nerves cells and inflammatory tissue, thus easing the patient's pain, Dr. Dupuy said. "We can watch the ice ball form on CT as ...Least protection offered to those most at risk of sudden cardiac death
...overter defibrillators (ICDs), a type of pacemaker inserted into the heart, can prevent sudden cardiac deaths. Yet in those regions with the highest death rates from heart disease, rates of ICD use are conversely the lowest. 100,000 people die each year from sudden cardiac death in the UK. Most of these dea...Yale researcher studying acupuncture to reduce back pain in pregnancy
...ed if I could do anything to help," said Wang, who inserted three, two-millimeter needles into her colleague's...eted. The treatment consists of three tiny needles inserted on one side of the ear. The women will be asked to remove the needles after one week and the results...Vaginal hysterectomy leads to better outcomes than abdominal surgery
...ialized instruments and a small fiber optic camera inserted through a small incision in the abdomen. Some laparoscopic hysterectomies also include a vaginal surgical component. Johnson and colleagues concluded that the laparoscopic procedure had some of the same advantages as vaginal hysterectomies, such as s...New method to fix cleft palate shows promise in Mayo Clinic lab study
...l body piece, four plates and screws is surgically inserted with the patient under anesthesia. After a rest period of 10 days, a key in the appliance is turned slightly each day for four weeks to slowly lengthen the bone and soft tissue. Finally, the device is surgically removed. "This method of repairing a ...University of Manchester makes made-to-measure skin and bones a reality using inkjet printers
... reason for this is the way in which the cells are inserted into the structures. Before being fed into the pri...ally stick to the sides of whatever they are being inserted into. If they stick to the sides then this limits the number of cells which can grow into tissues, a...Gene vaccine protects mice against development of Her2/neu breast cancer
...he target protein. For this study, the researchers inserted the gene for the HER2/neu protein in place of the deleted viral genes and then packaged the virus vector into virus-like replicon particles, referred to as "VRP-neu." When these non-propagating particles are injected into an animal, the vector direct...Animal studies show stem cells might make biological pacemaker
..., a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Medicine, inserted a gene (for green fluorescence protein) so that the human cells would be easily distinguished from animal cells in the experiments. Since the engineered cells survived and worked properly, other more clinically important genetic engineering of the ce...Acupuncture relieves pain and improves function in knee osteoarthritis
... from being able to detect if needles are actually inserted at treatment points. In both the sham and true acupuncture procedures, a screen prevented patients from seeing the knee treatment area and learning which treatment they received. In the education control group, 189 participants attended six, 2-hour...Selective coatings create biological sensors from carbon nanotubes
... sensor that detects glucose. The sensor could be inserted into tissue, excited with a laser pointer, and pro... the nanotubes but allowed glucose to enter. When inserted into human tissue, the fluorescent emission of the sensor corresponded to the local glucose concentr...Simple intervention nearly eliminates catheter-related bloodstream infections
...equire catheters - tubular medical devices usually inserted into a blood vessel -- for delivering fluids and medications during treatment, according to Berenholtz. The ICU researchers partnered with hospital epidemiologists to study catheter-related infection rates from 1998 through 2002 at two Johns Hopki...New biopsy technique helps assess breast cancer's spread
... If they look abnormal, a small 22-gauge needle is inserted into the node to extract cells that can be evaluated for cancer. It requires only local anesthesia and involves no surgical incisions. Both sentinel lymph node sampling and axillary node dissection are full surgical procedures. The researchers used u...Rutgers-developed biomaterial drives a technology transfer story toward success
... Stents are tiny tubular-shaped scaffolds that are inserted into diseased arteries to keep them open. The market for such devices currently exceeds $5 billion per year. Scientists at REVA Medical and at Kohn's Rutgers Laboratory collaborated to choose polymer compositions that would be ideally suited for ...New protein 'stop sign' alters blood vessel growth
...s indeed Sema3E's binding partner, the researchers inserted the plexin-D1 protein into cultured monkey cells that don't naturally contain it. They discovered that the Sema3E protein bound tightly to the monkey cells and created a signal. Surprisingly, the two proteins didn't need a third that is known to work...Drug-eluting stents adopted quickly, with early disparities
...the procedure. Stents are tiny mesh tubes that are inserted into the site of a blockage in a coronary artery that has been opened during balloon angioplasty. However, a principal complication of the procedure has been the high rate of treated arteries becoming blocked again, a process known as restenosis. In ...Stem cell therapy effectively treats heart attacks in animals
...into the heart muscle using a specialized catheter inserted through a tiny puncture in an artery, a procedure similar to other cardiac catheterization techniques. Use of this catheterization technique was shown to be safe and effective. Its use increases the options for delivering stem cell therapy in the f...No increase in deaths for heart failure patients with pulmonary artery catheter
...ailure. The PAC is a thin catheter that is inserted via a neck vein and passed through the right side of the heart into the pulmonary artery. Once the catheter is in place, pressures and flows can be measured from the right side of the heart and the lungs. A tiny balloon is inflated to allow measurem......cardiac catheterization, where a tubelike probe is inserted into a vein in the neck that links to the heart, the Hopkins team removed a small sample (15 mg or less) of heart tissue, from the right ventricle in 23 patients already undergoing treatment for heart failure. Earlier studies in pigs found that adul...