All posts tagged: injectable

Injectable nanorobots may help heal spinal injuries

Injectable nanorobots may help heal spinal injuries

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Despite significant medical advances, spinal cord damage remains one of the most difficult physical injuries to treat. Scarring frequently gets in the way of nerve fiber regrowth, while nerve cells usually cannot regenerate on their own. A possible solution? A fleet of stem cell-infused, injectable nanorobots that can help nerve cells regenerate. The tiny bots are detailed in a study recently published in the journal Nature Materials. To build their new tools, a team at ETH Zurich in Switzerland engineered microscopic machines that combine living neural progenitor cells (NPCs)—specialized stem cells developed for the spine—with customized nanoparticles. These customized nanoparticles feature two layers—one that is sensitive to magnetic fields and another that translates them into electrical signals. “We place a reservoir in the …

New injectable clotting gel can make infant surgery less dangerous

New injectable clotting gel can make infant surgery less dangerous

Published by Jenni Sidey

When a newborn requires surgery, the question of how to manage bleeding becomes more complicated than it is for adults or older children. Infant blood clots differently. The fibrin network that forms when blood coagulates in newborns is looser and more porous than in adults. It also breaks down faster, and relies on different molecular interactions to form at all. This biological immaturity creates a dangerous mismatch when infants receive blood products from adult donors. This is the standard approach when surgical blood loss must be replaced. Adult fibrinogen, a key clotting protein, can make infant clots stiffer and more resistant to natural breakdown than they should be. As a result, this raises the risk of thrombosis, where clots form in unintended locations like the lungs. Infants undergoing surgery face roughly four times higher post-surgical mortality than older patients. The limitations of current blood product options also contribute to that disparity. Researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have now developed an injectable synthetic material designed to …

Injectable peptides are touted online as a ‘glow up potion’. Here’s why experts warn against unapproved use | Natasha May

Injectable peptides are touted online as a ‘glow up potion’. Here’s why experts warn against unapproved use | Natasha May

Published by Sam Flores

Influencers are telling their audiences that injectable peptides are the “glow up potion” they need for everything from clearing up hormonal acne, thickening hair, relieving back pain and even treating chronic UTIs. These peptides, intended for research purposes (as some influencers do point out) and not approved for human use, are being increasingly sold through unregulated online channels. Despite experts warning against the potential dangers of these highly variable substances, claims of supposed benefits have been amplified by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who recently said that he will approve the sale of “about 14” injectable peptide drugs to the public. What should we make of all the hype? Firstly, what are peptides? Peptides are short combinations of amino acids that occur naturally but can also be manufactured. They either act as “something that our body uses” (like collagen peptides for example) or they’re cell signalling like hormones that “tell our body to do really important things,” Dr Michael Bonning from the Australian Medical Association says. Many will be familiar with the …

New injectable system reprograms cancer-fighting T cells inside the body

New injectable system reprograms cancer-fighting T cells inside the body

Published by Jenni Sidey

The current path to CAR-T cell therapy is, by any measure, a logistical ordeal. A patient’s immune cells must be drawn out of the body, shipped to a specialized facility, genetically reprogrammed, quality-checked, shipped back, and then infused, all while the cancer continues. The process takes weeks. It costs between $400,000 and $500,000. Some patients don’t survive the wait. Many never get access at all. Scientists at UC San Francisco have now demonstrated something that could change that calculus entirely: a method to reprogram cancer-fighting immune cells while they remain inside the body, using a single injection. The research, published in Nature, describes the first time researchers have successfully inserted a large DNA sequence at a precise location in human T cells that were never removed from a living organism. In mouse models engineered with human immune systems, a single dose cleared aggressive leukemia in 18 out of 20 animals. It also worked against multiple myeloma and, in a result the researchers call particularly significant, against a solid sarcoma tumor. “I think this is just …

What’s behind the injectable peptide craze? – podcast | Science

What’s behind the injectable peptide craze? – podcast | Science

Published by Sam Flores

Grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimisers. To understand how these unregulated substances have become mainstream and what they could be doing in our bodies, Madeleine Finlay hears from journalist Adrienne Matei and from Dr Anna Barnard, an associate professor at Imperial College London who researches peptides Source link

MIT engineers built injectable ‘satellite livers’ as an alternative to liver transplants

MIT engineers built injectable ‘satellite livers’ as an alternative to liver transplants

Published by Jenni Sidey

More than 10,000 Americans are waiting for a liver transplant. Many more never make the list, because they are too sick to handle a major surgery. That gap is why an idea that sounds a little strange at first keeps coming up in liver research: What if you could add liver function without replacing the liver? MIT engineers are pushing that concept with what they call “satellite livers,” small pockets of liver tissue that can be injected and left to do some of the liver’s work while the damaged organ stays in place. “We think of these as satellite livers. If we could deliver these cells into the body, while leaving the sick organ in place, that would provide booster function,” says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. She is also a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES). In a mouse study, Bhatia’s team showed that injected …

‘People are turning themselves into lab rats’: the injectable peptides craze sweeping the US | Well actually

‘People are turning themselves into lab rats’: the injectable peptides craze sweeping the US | Well actually

Published by Sam Flores

Here’s a new trend that sounds unwise: buying unregulated substances from dealers in foreign countries and injecting them into your body. And yet, grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names like BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimizers. Across platforms like Discord and Telegram, users are claiming these peptides help with everything from injury recovery, athletic performance, weight loss, mental function, better sleep and younger-looking skin. Among the risk-tolerant tech workers of the Bay Area, peptides have become akin to a status symbol. The founders of the startup Superpower store vials of peptides in their office fridge for convenient, lunchtime backside injections, and at least one San Francisco “peptide rave” has seen partygoers entertained by a lab-coated man demonstrating how to inject liquid peptides. What are injectable peptides, exactly? Peptides are short chains of amino acids – smaller versions of proteins – that play a role in regulating hormones, releasing neurotransmitters and repairing tissue, explains Adam Taylor, director of the Clinical Anatomy …