ILSI-Biomed Israel

A Novel Artificial Pancreas System

An aritifical pancreas system that maintains near-normal glucose levels by injecting both insulin and glucagon was succesfully demonstrated on a small number of patients An artificial pancreas system that closely mimics the body's blood sugar control mechanism was able to maintain near-normal glucose levels without causing hypoglycemia in a small group of patients. The system, combining a blood glucose monitor and insulin pump technology with software that directs administration of insulin an...

Antioxidants Cause Genetic Abnormalities?

A new research reveals that high doses of antioxidants cause stem cells to develop genetic abnormalities, paving the way for cancer When people look back on the beginning of the 21st century, they might think this was the time of the antioxidants. Antioxidants supplements are being sold everywhere, usually without a doctor prescription, as a way to halt aging, heart diseases and whatever else is promised on the label. But current research, published online in the medical journal Stem Cells, r...

The Power Solution: Thermoelectric Generators to Sustain Implanted Medical Devices

Efficient thermoelectric generators were recently published as a possibly efficient way to sustain implanted medical devices Let's face it: we're dealing with an aging population. There's no way around this fact, and the obvious implication is that in the future we're going to need better heart pacemakers and better systems for insulin injection. The future seems to be heading towards more sophisticated implantable machinery, be it pacemakers or sustainable drug-release devices inside the bod...

Plastics that Distort DNA Readings

A new research reveals that polypropylene tubes can contaminate solutions in the PCR and distort the DNA spectrometer readings. One year ago, a group of researchers at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem reported a sharp rise in the diagnoses of a certain metabolic disorder. To those of us who live in Jerusalem, fear not. Other than the Holyland story, nothing really happened in the Israeli capital in the last year. The only change is that the lab at Hadassah changed th...

Meet the Speakers: The Future of siRNA

siRNA is one of the molecules of future medicine, with some success at early clinical trials. How will this molecule affect the future of therapeutics? Twelve years ago, a novel mechanism for shutting down genes has been described in a nature paper. The mechanism described made use of molecules called siRNA – Small Inhibitory RNA – whose potential for the development of new therapies for diseases like cancer has been recognized immediately. Last year, Dr. Dan Peer managed to create lip...

Meet the Speakers: How will the U.S. Healthcare Reform Affect Medical Innovation?

How will president Obama's up-and-coming healthcare reform affect medical innovation? A panel of experts will focus on the problem in ILSI-BioMed 2010 week If you ask a Israeli what U.S. president Barack Obama most burning aspiration is, he’ll probably say it’s the resolution of the dispute in the Middle East. Put the same question to an American citizen, though, and he’ll immediately answer that Obama wants to reform the healthcare system, and for a good reason too. At the moment, health...

Meet the Speakers: Prof. Mauro Ferrari on Individualized Medicine

Prof. Mauro Ferrari will give a keynote lecture in the up-and-coming ILSI-BioMed week, regarding the ways in which Nanotechnology Enables Individualized Medicine A friend of mine came to me recently with an interesting question. Both he and his wife suffer from headaches, and while he can take a single tablet of acamol to make the pain go away, his wife is almost unaffected by the tablets, which makes her quite grouchy – and leads in turn to him having an headache again. Why is that? A...

Meet the Speakers: A Seminar about Vaccines in ILSI-BioMed 2010 Week

How will the panel of vaccine experts handle the recent developments in vaccine situations, such as Wakefield's article rennouncement by The Lancet, or the Swine Influenza vaccine? Greetings, dear readers! I'm happy to present a new section of this blog, termed Meet the Speakers. Every week, we'll introduce another of the lecturers and panelists in the up-and-coming ILSI-BioMed 2010 week. I hope it makes for an interesting reading! The last year, as well as the current one, has seen so...