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Neural codes of diseases studied to discover potential “electroceutical” treatments

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/10/us-glaxosmithkline-electroceuticals-idUSBRE9390VM20130410

The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT and GlaxoSmithKline are collaborating on research which aims to discover medicines that use electrical impulses to regulate the body’s organs and functions.

Nearly all organs and functions in the body are regulated through circuits of neurons that communicate through electrical impulses. There already exist devices that use electrical impulses to treat disease (i.e., pacemakers, defibrillators, deep-brain stimulation), but these devices do not target specific cells in the body. Researchers now believe it is possible to create devices that control action potentials in individual neurons, a critical step in developing technologies to use neural circuits to control specific cells. It may be possible to intervene in a broad spectrum of diseases, like inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, because these conditions can be controlled by neurons.

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3-D printer builds synthetic tissues

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-d-printer-synthetic-tissues.html

Oxford University scientists have created a custom-built programmable 3D printer that can create materials with several of the properties of living tissues.

The new type of material consists of thousands of connected water droplets, encapsulated within lipid films, which can perform some of the functions of the cells inside our bodies. These printed ‘droplet networks’ could be the building blocks of a new kind of technology for delivering drugs to places where they are needed and potentially one day replacing or interfacing with damaged human tissues. Because droplet networks are entirely synthetic, have no genome and do not replicate, they avoid some of the problems associated with other approaches to creating artificial tissues – such as those that use stem cells.

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IBM 5 focuses on human senses

http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibm_predictions_for_future/ideas/index.html

IBM published its annual report, this year focusing on the five basic senses.  Highlighted future abilities of computers include:

-the ability to identify distinctive image features, foregoing the need for tags

-the development a sense of taste

-smelling computers that detect explosives in the public and cancer in our bodies

-touch sensitivity, allowing us to feel textures

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Conference

4 top trends in digital healthcare

http://blogs.computerworld.com/healthcare-it/21405/top-four-trends-will-shape-digital-health

As we approach 2013, the following trends continue to spawn companies, investment, and technologies:

  1. The proliferation of personalized mobile health technologies. 
  2. The maturation of the Big Data ecosystem in health care.
  3. The rise of health startup accelerators.
  4. The emergence of health care exchange and alternative care delivery platforms.