How a California father made an end run around medicine to decode his sons DNA. An infant delivered last week in California appears to be the first healthy person ever born in the U.S. with his entire genetic makeup deciphered in advance. His father, Razib Khan, is a graduate student and professional blogger on genetics who says he worked out a rough draft of his sons genome early this year in a do-it-yourself fashion after managing to obtain a tissue sample from the placenta of the unborn baby during the second trimester. We did a work-around, says Khan, 37, who is now finishing a PhD in feline population genetics at the University of California, Davis. There is no map for doing this, and theres no checklist. The idea of sequencing fetuses is extremely new and sensitive. Khan, who had no real medical reason to learn his sons DNA code, says sequencing his son in utero was more cool than practical. He did it to show where technology is headed and because he likes pushing the envelope. Khan is already well known in genetics circles as a conservative blogger who publishes provocative views on genetics, race, and reproduction, most recently at … Continue reading →

Adipose vs Haemopoietic and Bone Marrow Sources Fat vs other sources of stem cells? Fat is the foremost source of stem cells from practical, cost and clinical outcome perspective. Years of clinical practice and research show that treatment... By: Global Medical Training Network [GMTN] … Continue reading →

Hatfield, England (ots/PRNewswire) - PRESS RELEASE FOR EU MEDIA ONLY: NOT FOR SWISS/U.S JOURNALISTS Primary endpoint met for Fycompa(R)(perampanel) as adjunctive therapy for refractory generalised tonic-clonic seizures Phase III data announced today demonstrate control of primary generalised tonic-clonic seizures (PGTC) with adjunctive Fycompa(R) (perampanel), Eisai's first-in-class epilepsy.[1] Perampanel is indicated for the adjunctive treatment of partial onset seizures, with or without secondarily generalised seizures, in patients with epilepsy aged 12 years and older.[2] Study 332 is a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, multicentre, parallel-group trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of adjunctive perampanel for refractory PGTC seizures. 164 people (>12 years old) with PGTC seizures, despite treatment with one to three concomitant anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs), were randomised to receive perampanel or placebo in a 1:1 ratio. Results demonstrate that perampanel significantly reduces PGTC seizure frequency and improved responder rates (greater than or equal to50% reduction in seizure frequency per 28 days in the maintenance period, relative to baseline), the study's two primary outcome measures, when compared to placebo.[1] The most frequently observed adverse events (10% in the perampanel arm and greater than placebo) were dizziness, fatigue and headache, irritability and somnolence. The adverse event profile observed in this study was similar … Continue reading →

Scientists say they have devised a helmet that can quickly determine whether a patient has had a stroke. It could speed diagnosis and treatment of stroke to boost chances of recovery, the scientists say. The wearable cap bounces microwaves off the brain to determine whether there has been a bleed or clot deep inside. The Swedish scientists who made the device plan to give it to ambulance crews to test after successful results in early studies with 45 patients. Race against time When a person has a stroke, doctors must work quickly to limit any brain damage. If it takes more than four hours to get to hospital and start treatment, parts of their brain tissue may already be dying. But to give the best treatment, doctors first need to find out if the stroke is caused by a leaky blood vessel or one blocked by a clot. A computerised tomography (CT) scan will show this, but it can take some time to organise one for a patient, even if they have been admitted as an emergency to a hospital that has one of these scanners. Any delay in this "golden hour" of treatment opportunity could hamper recovery. Read the … Continue reading →

Andreas Fhager, a biomedical engineer at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, adjusts the Strokefinder device on a test subject's head. But to pick the right treatment, doctors must find the underlying cause of the stroke fast. Most strokes occur when a clot blocks blood flow in the brain. For the best results, treatment of those strokes with clotbusting drugs should start less than 90 minutes after onset. But a significant fraction of strokes around 1 in 5 are caused by burst blood vessels. In these cases, clotbusting drugs cause catastrophic bleeding. In part because of the high risk, fewer than 8 percent of stroke patients receive treatment with clotbusters. But an odd-looking device under development in Sweden may one day help doctors diagnose the cause of stroke more rapidly. The device, which researchers dubbed "Strokefinder," was inspired by computerized simulations devised to investigate the effect of cellphone radiation on the brain. "We realized that when you change the brain it changes the wave patterns from mobile phones going through the brain, and we looked into the possibility that these wave patterns could detect brain trauma," biomedical engineer and Strokefinder designer Mikael Persson tells Shots. The Strokefinder prototype consists … Continue reading →