AN ILMINSTER man who suffered a life-changing brain injury after a tragic car crash has thanked the public after they raised more than 10,000 to help him get treatment. Will Mieville-Hawkins NHS treatment was stopped in March and members of the public have since rallied round to raise thousands of pounds to help, including a stranger who ran in the Taunton Marathon for him. Will, 26, of Station Road, was involved in a car crash on A303 in April 2016 in which he sustained a life-changing brain injury. He said: I suffered a big brain injury but I am not sure of the actual details. It left me unable to walk and unable to use one of my arms. Will was in a coma for a month and also lost his memory from the crash until July. The latest fundraiser to support Will is Bonnie Bow-Thompson of Bradford on Tone, who ran the Taunton Half-Marathon on April 2, raising more than 500 to help Will pay for his latest treatment. I didnt know her at all and I had never met her before, Will said. I felt incredibly overwhelmed when I found out. I met her for the first time … Continue reading →

Researchers at Texas A&M University's Health Science Center are working to develop new ways to minimize brain damage in seizure patients using a nasally administered compound to decrease potentially harmful swelling. The team's research was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, where the researchers explained the principles being used in the study. Texas A&M College of Medicine and Associate Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine Ashok K. Shetty, who served as a co-senior author of the study, said the work specifically looked at the effects of a nasal compound using vesicles, isolated from adult stem cells, on preventing brain damage caused by the seizure disorder status epilepticus -- a condition that can causes single seizures of more than 30 seconds or a series of seizures during which consciousness is lost. "Clinically [status epilepticus] is a medical emergency," Shetty said. "Typically, neurologists give a combination of anti-epileptic drugs to stop the seizures, but whatever damage the seizures are doing leads to inflammation in the brain -- which those drugs do not typically treat...In this case, we nasally injected [the compound] and it resulted in suppression of the inflammation which caused multiple beneficial effects on the … Continue reading →

NEW YORK It was rebellion against parental expectations that led Indian American teen Indrani Das to embark on the brain research project that eventually won her the $250,000 Regeneron Science Talent Search award for high school students. Most Indian parents want their children to become doctors, but not her parents. Das, who calls herself a rebel, told IANS that her parents had said to her, "Whatever you do, don't be a doctor. Don't become a doctor, it's long and expensive." "So I decided I wanted to be a doctor," she said. That rebellion led her to her medical-oriented science project. Her parents Bidyut and Tanima Das, who are from Kolkata and now live in Oradell, New Jersey, are bankers by profession. The 17-year-old, who is in her final year of high school at the Academy for Medical Science Technology in Hackensack, New Jersey, said she wants to work both as a doctor and scientific researcher. "I want to be physician-scientist," she said. "I would like to see patients, but I would also like to do research." Her project, which explored ways to treat damage to the brain from injuries or disease, won her the top prize last month at the … Continue reading →