This gene could reduce brain swelling after stroke

Researchers have found that a dose of the TRIM9 gene could facilitate the brain-healing after a stroke Also, the gene could reduce the damage caused in concussion and encephalitis as well.

The study published described a key gene, TRIM9, involved with compressing inflammation in the brain, as well as what happens when the injured brain gets an added boost of that gene.

When a person has a stroke, the brain responds with inflammation, which expands the area of injury and leads to more disability.

The gene, TRIM9, is abundant in the youthful brain but grows scarce with age, just when people become more at risk from stroke.

In a lab model of stroke, researchers found that older brains with low TRIM9 levels, or engineered brains missing the TRIM9 gene entirely, were prone to extensive swelling following a stroke.

But when the scientists used a harmless a virus to carry a dose of the gene directly into TRIM9-deficient brains, the swelling decreased dramatically and recovery improved.

The lead author of the study said, it's unlikely that genetherapy delivered by viruses will become the go-to treatment for strokes, head injuries or encephalitis. It's too slow and the best shot at treating stroke is within the first 30 minutes to one hour.

The author informed that the nest step will be indentifying what exactly flips on the switch for TRIM9 expression.

Maybe there will be a way to chemically activate TRIM( right after a stroke. Or may be a football player can take a medication that turns on TRIM9 gene expression right after they get a blow to the head, the author added.

Not all information in the brain is bad, the author added. Inflammation plays a role in fighting infection and helps clear away dead tissue.

But when it goes on too long, neurons die, inflammation causes the brain's blood vessels to become permeable, allowing white blood cells to enter tissue where they don't belong.

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'Pied Piper' Device That Lures Tumors From The Brain Awarded Breakthrough Status By FDA

Brain tumors are notoriously difficult to treat, often growing quickly and spreading through the brain. But what if we could trick the cancerous cells to proliferate in a new direction, essentially luring them out of the brain and outside the skull? Well, researchers are attempting to do just that, and their work has been awarded “ breakthrough status” by the government.

Called the Tumor Monorail, the device has been described as a “pied piper”, thanks to its ability to trick and lure cells away from a tumor, just as the Pied Piper lured rats, and then children, away from the town of Hamelin in the well-known fairy tale.

The Tumor Monorail is essentially a long, thin tube with a small reservoir at one end. The reservoir sits on top of the skull, just under the scalp, and tricks tumor cells into migrating up the tube and out of the brain where they can be removed by a surgeon. It does this by mimicking the brain’s white matter, where the tumor would normally grow. The cancerous cells spread up the tube, thinking they are growing further into the brain and expanding the tumor. Gotcha.

So far, the Tumor Monorail has only been tested successfully in rats. The researchers now need to work on testing its safety and efficacy in humans. That’s why its new breakthrough status is so important. Developing new treatments and proving they are fit for clinical use is a long, ardous process, but the FDA breakthrough initiative helps to fast-track the development and review of new treatments for serious or life-threatening illnesses.

Glioblastoma – an aggressive type of brain tumor with a poor survival rate – is one of these conditions. Innovative new ways to tackle it, like the Tumor Monorail, could have a hugely positive impact, so speeding up its development is key. Still, it’s important to note that the new allocation doesn’t mean the device has been approved for clinical use by the FDA. The researchers behind it will have to prove it's both safe and effective in people first.

“The tumor monorail device is a true game-changer in how we think about treating brain tumors,” said  a neurosurgeon in a statement. “There are many tumors that are considered inoperable due to the location of the tumor or the frailty of the patient. This device affords clinicians the ability to surgically treat these tumors with a minimal approach.”

Back in 2014, the researchers successfully managed to get their device to work in rats. The rats’ brain tumors shrank by more than 90 percent and spread more slowly. Since then, the researchers have tweaked the device, and repeatedly shown its effectiveness in rats.

“This was the first demonstration that you can engineer migration inside the body and move a tumor from point A to point B by design,” explained  one of the researcher. “It was also the first demonstration of bringing the tumor to your drug rather than your drug going into the brain and killing valuable cells.”

Five years on and the device has breakthrough status. “The most exciting part about this designation is that it gives us the opportunity to look at the FDA as a partner rather than a reviewer,” said project leader. “With direct access to the FDA reviewers, we can get more efficient, faster feedback on our experimental ideas to make sure we’re addressing all of their concerns from the very start.”

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Neurons integrate better with muscle grown on grooved platforms

Growing muscle tissue on grooved platforms helps neurons more effectively integrate with the muscle, a requirement for engineering muscle in the lab that responds and functions like muscle in the body, researchers found in a new study. 

Such engineered muscle with integrated nerves has applications in reconstructive and rehabilitative medicine, as well as for engineered biological machines or robots.

"With this approach, we can engineer muscle outside of the body so it can respond like muscle in the body," said study leader, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. 

"Usually people just culture muscle cells without neurons. It's quite straightforward to do that. But it's very difficult for neurons to integrate and communicate with the muscle so that it's functional and responsive."


The researchers' goal is to create muscle that responds to neurotransmitters as it responds in the body, rather than relying on added electrical or chemical stimulation. While other groups have demonstrated engineered muscle with some nerve integration, called innervation, the function and response of the muscle has been limited, the researchers say.

The Illinois group altered the surface on which they incubated the muscle to see if topology affected muscle growth, function or innervation. The researchers grew mouse muscle tissue on increasingly grooved surfaces, then seeded the muscle with stem cells primed to become neurons and watched how the nerves formed and integrated with the muscle.

They found that on a flat surface, the muscle tissue lacked organization and nerves did not penetrate efficiently. However, the more grooved the surface, the more ordered the muscle fibers grew and the more successfully the neurons integrated with the muscle, said the first author of the study.

"If you think about the physiological properties of muscle, it's very aligned. There are a lot of fibers bundled together. The grooved substrate provides a similar environment to our natural skeletal muscle, so it can help the cells to align and form bundles like a real muscle," the author said. "These aligned bundles also guide the neurons as they extend along and into the muscle tissue. It gives them a path to grow."

The researchers then tested the innervated muscle's response to two neurotransmitters, natural chemicals that signal nerve cells—one that stimulates activity and one that inhibits it. The tissues grown on the grooved surfaces were the most responsive.

"If the muscle and neurons are functioning together, the muscles should contract when exposed to the chemical that stimulates neurons, and stop when exposed to the inhibitors. Ours did that," the author said. "We are the first ones to demonstrate that our muscle is functional and responding to these chemicals much better than others."

The researchers plan to refine their grooved substrates in experiments with human muscle and nerve cells. They hope to develop their approach as a platform for drug screening and for tissue engineering for patients with muscle damage or injury.

"When there is damage to the muscle, there often is a gap in the nerves as well. This can cause the muscle to become weaker and smaller. So for injury treatment, it's important to let the neurons re-innervate the muscle," the author said. "We could use a patient's own cells to engineer muscle samples to screen which drugs could enhance the reintroduction of neurons to the muscle. We could test a variety of growth factors or proteins and see which would be good for regeneration of the muscle with the neurons together."

The researchers also plan to use the innervated muscle to power miniature biological machines, or bio-bots. The group has developed bio-bots powered by muscle tissue that responds to electricity and light, and integration with neurons would provide the machines with sensing capability that could provide direction—for example, moving toward an environmental toxin to neutralize it, the Prof. said.

"Our goal is to build a little neuronal circuit that could sense chemical concentration and translate that to motion," the Prof. said. 

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‘Ingestible sensor to help diagnose stomach disease’

The sensor can be designed to remain in the digestive tract for several weeks, sending continuous signals

Scientists have developed an ingestible sensor equipped with genetically engineered bacteria, that can diagnose bleeding in the stomach or other gastrointestinal problems.

 

This “bacteria-on-a-chip” approach combines sensors made from living cells with ultra-low-power electronics that convert the bacterial response into a wireless signal that can be read by a smartphone.
“By combining engineered biological sensors together with low-power wireless electronics, we can detect biological signals in the body in near real-time, enabling new diagnostic capabilities for human health applications,” said  an associate professor.

In the study, the researchers created sensors that respond to heme, a component of blood, and showed that they work in pigs. They also designed sensors that can respond to a molecule that is a marker of inflammation.

In the past decade, synthetic biologists have made great strides in engineering bacteria to respond to stimuli such as environmental pollutants or markers of disease.

Signals from the stomach
To make these bacteria more useful for real-world applications, the research team decided to combine them with an electronic chip that could translate the bacterial response into a wireless signal. “Our idea was to package bacterial cells inside a device. The cells would be trapped and go along for the ride as the device passes through the stomach,” the researcher said.

The sensor, which is a cylinder about 1.5 inches long, requires about 13 microwatt of power. The researchers equipped the sensor with a 2.7-volt battery, which they estimate could power the device for about 1.5 months of continuous use.

They tested the ingestible sensor in pigs and showed that it could correctly determine whether any blood was present in the stomach. The researchers anticipate that this type of sensor could be either deployed for one-time use or designed to remain in the digestive tract for several days or weeks, sending continuous signals. 

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