Amazing Science

For 50 years, scientists searched for the secret to making tiny implantable devices that could travel through the bloodstream. Engineers at Stanford have demonstrated just such a device.

It may look like an ordinary USB memory stick, but a little gadget that can sequence DNA while plugged into your laptop could have far-reaching effects on medicine and genetic research.

The UK firm Oxford Nanopore built the device, called MinION, and claims it can sequence simple genomes – like those of some viruses and bacteria – in a matter of seconds. More complex genomes would take longer, but MinION could also be useful for obtaining quick results in sequencing DNA from cells in a biopsy to look for cancer, for example, or to determine the genetic identity of bone fragments at an archaeological dig.

The company demonstrated today at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) conference in Marco Island, Florida, that MinION has sequenced a simple virus called Phi X, which contains 5000 genetic base pairs.

MIT discovers yet another use for a simple webcam: measuring your pulse rate. It's desktop video-chatting and heart physician in one tiny unit. The work is the result of studies by graduate student Ming-Zher Poh, and it's all about a clever algorithm that looks at a webcam feed of your face and measures subtle brightness changes in your skin over time. 

Department of Nanoengineering, University of California, San Diego scientists have developed a “microrocket” that can propel itself through acidic environments, such as the human stomach, without any external energy source, opening new medical and industrial applications.

Since the 1950s, researchers have been trying to mimic the abilities of red blood cells. These flexible discs carry oxygen throughout the body, squeezing through the smallest capillaries to do so. But the physical characteristics of red blood cells, including their doubly concave shape, have made them difficult to copy with precision.

A group specializing in drug delivery has found a way to create biodegradable, biocompatible particles with the size, shape, and flexibility of red blood cells. Made of biodegradable and biocompatible polymers and proteins, these particles have the same size, shape, and flexibility as real red blood cells.

Surgeon Anthony Atala demonstrates an early-stage experiment that could someday solve the organ-donor problem: a 3D printer that uses living cells to output a transplantable kidney. Using similar technology, Dr. Atala's young patient Luke Massella received an engineered bladder 10 years ago; we meet him onstage.

It's exciting to see the development of 3D printing move from little objects to human organs. This advancement illustrates soon many objects will be printable from home - with a printer we drop resources into, or even a sorter that breaks apart other objects to salvage resources for new products.

Are you depressed, checking e-mail and Facebook, or home alone ruminating for hours? Cheer up. Scientists are inventing web-based, mobile and virtual technologies to treat depression and other mood disorders at a new National Institutes of Health-funded Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine center.

In the works: a virtual human therapist to prevent depression, a medicine bottle that reminds you to take antidepressant medication and tells your doctor if the dosage needs adjusting, and a web-based social network to help cancer survivors relieve sadness and stress.

How can you mend a broken heart? Cardiologists have been wrestling with this question for years. The difficulty is that when one suffers a myocardial infarction (heart attack), the lack of blood supply to certain parts of the heart can eventually cause myocardial scarring. Myocardial scarring can lead to potentially life-threatening arrhythmias and increase the risk of a ventricular aneurism. Moreover, the loss of this healthy heart tissue is essentially permanent. Part of the heart literally dies.

Researchers with the UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology report that radiation treatment — despite killing half of all tumor cells during every treatment — transforms other cancer cells into treatment-resistant breast cancer stem cells.The generation of these breast cancer stem cells counteracts the otherwise highly efficient radiation treatment. If scientists can uncover the mechanisms and prevent this transformation from occurring, radiation treatment for breast cancer could become even more effective

The International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) is to decode the genomes from 25 000 cancer samples and create a resource of freely available data that will help cancer researchers around the world.

"The International Cancer Genome Consortium initiative will profoundly alter our understanding of the development of human cancer, across the spectrum of tumour types," said Sir Paul Nurse, cancer scientist and 2001 Nobel Laureate for Physiology or Medicine.

Nanopore analysis is an emerging technique that involves using a voltage to drive molecules through a nanoscale pore in a membrane between two electrolytes, and monitoring how the ionic current through the nanopore changes as single molecules pass through it. This approach allows charged polymers (including single-stranded DNA, double-stranded DNA and RNA) to be analysed with subnanometre resolution and without the need for labels or amplification. Recent advances suggest that nanopore-based sensors could be competitive with other third-generation DNA sequencing technologies, and may be able to rapidly and reliably sequence the human genome for under $1,000. In this article we review the use of nanopore technology in DNA sequencing, genetics and medical diagnostics.

Children’s Hospital Boston recently announced a $25,000 competition for the development of an interpretation and communication system that can deliver genomic information from the lab to physicians and patients. As the cost of genome sequencing continues to fall and may break the $1,000 barrier soon, the issue is no longer about acquiring genetic data but about what all the data means. Scientists around the world have been making progress interpreting the molecular language of DNA but, as the Human Genome Project revealed, the human genome contains at least 25,000 genes, so research can be slow going. Furthermore, what information is obtained and published in journals has a hard time finding its way into practices for physicians to understand and apply toward patient care.

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a gene that tells cells to develop multiple cilia, tiny hair-like structures that move fluids through the lungs and brain. The finding may help scientists generate new therapies that use stem cells to replace damaged tissues in the lung and other organs.

In its three-year pilot phase, the Norwegian Cancer Genomics Consortium will sequence the tumour genomes of 1,000 patients in the hope of influencing their treatments. It will also look at another 3,000 previously obtained tumour biopsies to get a better idea of the mutations in different cancers, and how they influence a patient's response to a drug. In a second phase, the project will build the laboratory, clinical and computing infrastructure needed to bring such care to the 25,000 Norwegians who are diagnosed with cancer each year.