User login
No more hot flashes? AI device could stop menopause symptom
Vasomotor symptoms the sudden rises in body temperature that affect about 75% of menopausal women, have drawn interest after the approval of a new oral drug and research linking hot flashes to Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and stroke.
Now entering the discussion are researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Embr Labs (a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff) who say they’ve developed a machine-learning algorithm that can predict a hot flash.
The device, which sells for $299, is already touted as a way to manage menopausal hot flashes.
But once the algorithm is added, the device will be able to “continuously monitor physiological signals – skin temperature, body temperature, sweating, activity level, or heart rate – and identify early indicators that a hot flash is building,” said Michael Busa, PhD, director of the Center for Human Health and Performance at UMass Amherst, who led the team that developed the algorithm.
That data would be sent to a computing platform in the cloud, where the algorithm can flag signs of an impending hot flash, Dr. Busa said. The device would automatically prompt cooling in less than a second, which could effectively stop the hot flash in its tracks or at least help to take the edge off.
Exploring cooling therapy for hot flashes
“There is always tremendous interest in anything that is nonhormonal and effective in treatment of hot flashes,” said Karen Adams, MD, an ob.gyn. and director of the menopause and healthy aging program at Stanford (Calif.) University. (Dr. Adams was not involved in developing this technology.)
Hormone therapy is the primary treatment, easing hot flashes in 3-4 weeks, Dr. Adams said. “But some women do not want to take estrogen, or should not due to medical contraindications.”
Hormone therapy is generally not recommended for people with a history of breast cancer, blood clots, or diseases of their heart or blood vessels. Recent research presented at the annual meeting of the Menopause Society found that hormone therapy may not work as well in women with obesity.
For nonhormonal treatments, the Food and Drug Administration cleared the oral med fezolinetant (Veozah) in May. Antidepressant medications can also be used as a first-line treatment in those who can’t take estrogen. Another oral drug, elinzanetant, is in late-stage clinical trials.
But there has been little clinical investigation – only two small studies, Dr. Adams said – examining cooling therapy as a treatment for hot flashes. That’s something the makers of this device hope to change.
“Despite the fact that seeking cooling relief is a woman’s immediate natural response to the onset of a hot flash, there is limited work done to understand the benefits of this natural therapy,” said Matthew Smith, PhD, chief technology officer at Embr Labs. “This is in part because the technology didn’t exist to deliver cooling in an immediate, reproducible manner.”
The algorithm’s performance has been benchmarked using data from women having hot flashes, Dr. Smith said. Results have been submitted for publication.
The Embr Wave has been shown to help menopausal women with hot flashes sleep better. It has also been tested as a therapy for hot flashes related to cancer treatment.
But to truly evaluate the device as a treatment for hot flashes, it should be tested in randomized trials including a “sham treatment arm” – where some people get the real treatment while others get the sham treatment, Dr. Adams said.
“Device studies tend to have high placebo response rates that can only be truly evaluated when there is a sham treatment in the study,” she said. “If such a device were shown to be safe and effective, we would absolutely recommend it. But we’re a long way from that.”
A version of this article appeared on WebMD.com.
Vasomotor symptoms the sudden rises in body temperature that affect about 75% of menopausal women, have drawn interest after the approval of a new oral drug and research linking hot flashes to Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and stroke.
Now entering the discussion are researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Embr Labs (a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff) who say they’ve developed a machine-learning algorithm that can predict a hot flash.
The device, which sells for $299, is already touted as a way to manage menopausal hot flashes.
But once the algorithm is added, the device will be able to “continuously monitor physiological signals – skin temperature, body temperature, sweating, activity level, or heart rate – and identify early indicators that a hot flash is building,” said Michael Busa, PhD, director of the Center for Human Health and Performance at UMass Amherst, who led the team that developed the algorithm.
That data would be sent to a computing platform in the cloud, where the algorithm can flag signs of an impending hot flash, Dr. Busa said. The device would automatically prompt cooling in less than a second, which could effectively stop the hot flash in its tracks or at least help to take the edge off.
Exploring cooling therapy for hot flashes
“There is always tremendous interest in anything that is nonhormonal and effective in treatment of hot flashes,” said Karen Adams, MD, an ob.gyn. and director of the menopause and healthy aging program at Stanford (Calif.) University. (Dr. Adams was not involved in developing this technology.)
Hormone therapy is the primary treatment, easing hot flashes in 3-4 weeks, Dr. Adams said. “But some women do not want to take estrogen, or should not due to medical contraindications.”
Hormone therapy is generally not recommended for people with a history of breast cancer, blood clots, or diseases of their heart or blood vessels. Recent research presented at the annual meeting of the Menopause Society found that hormone therapy may not work as well in women with obesity.
For nonhormonal treatments, the Food and Drug Administration cleared the oral med fezolinetant (Veozah) in May. Antidepressant medications can also be used as a first-line treatment in those who can’t take estrogen. Another oral drug, elinzanetant, is in late-stage clinical trials.
But there has been little clinical investigation – only two small studies, Dr. Adams said – examining cooling therapy as a treatment for hot flashes. That’s something the makers of this device hope to change.
“Despite the fact that seeking cooling relief is a woman’s immediate natural response to the onset of a hot flash, there is limited work done to understand the benefits of this natural therapy,” said Matthew Smith, PhD, chief technology officer at Embr Labs. “This is in part because the technology didn’t exist to deliver cooling in an immediate, reproducible manner.”
The algorithm’s performance has been benchmarked using data from women having hot flashes, Dr. Smith said. Results have been submitted for publication.
The Embr Wave has been shown to help menopausal women with hot flashes sleep better. It has also been tested as a therapy for hot flashes related to cancer treatment.
But to truly evaluate the device as a treatment for hot flashes, it should be tested in randomized trials including a “sham treatment arm” – where some people get the real treatment while others get the sham treatment, Dr. Adams said.
“Device studies tend to have high placebo response rates that can only be truly evaluated when there is a sham treatment in the study,” she said. “If such a device were shown to be safe and effective, we would absolutely recommend it. But we’re a long way from that.”
A version of this article appeared on WebMD.com.
Vasomotor symptoms the sudden rises in body temperature that affect about 75% of menopausal women, have drawn interest after the approval of a new oral drug and research linking hot flashes to Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and stroke.
Now entering the discussion are researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Embr Labs (a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff) who say they’ve developed a machine-learning algorithm that can predict a hot flash.
The device, which sells for $299, is already touted as a way to manage menopausal hot flashes.
But once the algorithm is added, the device will be able to “continuously monitor physiological signals – skin temperature, body temperature, sweating, activity level, or heart rate – and identify early indicators that a hot flash is building,” said Michael Busa, PhD, director of the Center for Human Health and Performance at UMass Amherst, who led the team that developed the algorithm.
That data would be sent to a computing platform in the cloud, where the algorithm can flag signs of an impending hot flash, Dr. Busa said. The device would automatically prompt cooling in less than a second, which could effectively stop the hot flash in its tracks or at least help to take the edge off.
Exploring cooling therapy for hot flashes
“There is always tremendous interest in anything that is nonhormonal and effective in treatment of hot flashes,” said Karen Adams, MD, an ob.gyn. and director of the menopause and healthy aging program at Stanford (Calif.) University. (Dr. Adams was not involved in developing this technology.)
Hormone therapy is the primary treatment, easing hot flashes in 3-4 weeks, Dr. Adams said. “But some women do not want to take estrogen, or should not due to medical contraindications.”
Hormone therapy is generally not recommended for people with a history of breast cancer, blood clots, or diseases of their heart or blood vessels. Recent research presented at the annual meeting of the Menopause Society found that hormone therapy may not work as well in women with obesity.
For nonhormonal treatments, the Food and Drug Administration cleared the oral med fezolinetant (Veozah) in May. Antidepressant medications can also be used as a first-line treatment in those who can’t take estrogen. Another oral drug, elinzanetant, is in late-stage clinical trials.
But there has been little clinical investigation – only two small studies, Dr. Adams said – examining cooling therapy as a treatment for hot flashes. That’s something the makers of this device hope to change.
“Despite the fact that seeking cooling relief is a woman’s immediate natural response to the onset of a hot flash, there is limited work done to understand the benefits of this natural therapy,” said Matthew Smith, PhD, chief technology officer at Embr Labs. “This is in part because the technology didn’t exist to deliver cooling in an immediate, reproducible manner.”
The algorithm’s performance has been benchmarked using data from women having hot flashes, Dr. Smith said. Results have been submitted for publication.
The Embr Wave has been shown to help menopausal women with hot flashes sleep better. It has also been tested as a therapy for hot flashes related to cancer treatment.
But to truly evaluate the device as a treatment for hot flashes, it should be tested in randomized trials including a “sham treatment arm” – where some people get the real treatment while others get the sham treatment, Dr. Adams said.
“Device studies tend to have high placebo response rates that can only be truly evaluated when there is a sham treatment in the study,” she said. “If such a device were shown to be safe and effective, we would absolutely recommend it. But we’re a long way from that.”
A version of this article appeared on WebMD.com.
3D-printed tumor models could advance new cancer therapies
Scientists have made big strides in the fight against cancer. A person’s risk of dying of cancer in the U.S. fell by 27% in the past 2 decades, thanks in large part to researchers who continue to uncover the complex details of how cancer works and to make advances in treatment.
Now the by enabling scientists to develop 3D tumor models that better represent samples from patients.
The impact could be “huge,” says Y. Shrike Zhang, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate bioengineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both in Boston, who studies 3D bioprinting. “It is not the only technology that may allow modeling of tumors in vitro, but it certainly is one of the most capable.”
Why does that matter? Because the 2D cell cultures that scientists often use now may not capture all the complexities of how cancer grows, spreads, and responds to treatment. It’s one reason why so few potential new cancer drugs – 3.4%, according to one estimate – can pass all clinical trials. Results may not carry over from the culture dish to the patient.
Researchers say these 3D-printed blood vessels may treat certain dangerous health problems that affect your veins, arteries, or capillaries.
A 3D-bioprinted model, on the other hand, may be better at copying a tumor’s “microenvironment” – all the parts (cells, molecules, blood vessels) that surround a tumor.
“The tumor microenvironment plays an integral role in defining how cancer progresses,” says Madhuri Dey, a PhD candidate and researcher at Penn State University. “In vitro 3D models are an attempt at reconstituting a [cancer] microenvironment, which sheds light on how tumors respond to chemo or immunotherapeutic treatments when they are present in a native-like microenvironment.”
Ms. Dey is the lead author of a study funded by the National Science Foundation in which breast cancer tumors were 3D-bioprinted and successfully treated. Unlike some previous 3D models of cancer cells, this model did a better job of imitating that microenvironment, she explains.
So far, “3D bioprinting of cancer models has been limited to bioprinting of individual cancer cells laden in hydrogels,” she says. But she and her colleagues developed a technique called aspiration-assisted bioprinting that lets them control where blood vessels are located relative to the tumor. “This model lays the foundation for studying these nuances of cancer,” Ms. Dey says.
“This is a quite cool work,” Dr. Zhang says of the Penn State study (which he was not involved in). “Vascularization is always a key component in [a] majority of the tumor types.” A model that incorporates blood vessels provides a “critical niche” to help tumor models reach their full potential in cancer research.
A 3D printer for your body
Chances are you’ve heard of 3D printing and may even own (or know someone who owns) a 3D printer. The concept is like regular printing, but instead of spewing ink onto paper, a 3D printer releases layers of plastic or other materials, hundreds or thousands of times, to build an object from the ground up.
Three-dimensional bioprinting works much the same way, except those layers are made of living cells to create biological structures like skin, vessels, organs, or bone.
Bioprinting has been around since 1988. So far, it’s mainly used in research settings, such as in the field of regenerative medicine. Research is underway for ear reconstruction, nerve regeneration, and skin regeneration. The technology was also recently used to create eye tissue to help researchers study eye diseases.
The technology’s potential for use in cancer research has yet to be fully realized, Ms. Dey says. But that may be changing.
“The use of 3D-bioprinted tumor models is getting close to translations in cancer research,” says Dr. Zhang. “They are being increasingly adopted by the research field, and [the technology] has started to be explored by the pharma industry for use towards cancer drug development.”
Because bioprinting can be automated, it could allow researchers to create high-quality, complex tumor models at scale, Dr. Zhang says.
Such 3D models also have the potential to replace or reduce the use of animals in tumor drug testing, Ms. Dey notes. They “are expected to provide a more accurate drug response, compared [with] animal models, as animal physiology does not match humans’.”
The FDA Modernization Act 2.0, a new U.S. law eliminating the requirement that drugs be tested in animals before humans, has “further paved the way for such technologies in the drug development pipeline,” Dr. Zhang says.
What if we could build a custom tumor model for each patient?
Possible uses for bioprinting go beyond the lab, Ms. Dey says. Imagine if we could customize 3D tumor models based on biopsies from individual patients. Doctors could test many treatments on these patient-specific models, letting them more accurately predict how each patient would respond to different therapies. This would help doctors decide which course of treatment is best.
In Ms. Dey’s study, the 3D model was treated with chemotherapy and with immunotherapy, and it responded to both. This highlights the potential for such 3D models to reveal the body’s immune response and be used to screen therapies, she says. “We hope is that in the future, this technique can be adapted in the hospital, which would speed up the course of cancer treatment.”
To that end, she and her colleagues are now working with real breast cancer tumors removed from patients, re-creating them in the lab in 3D to use for chemo and immunotherapy screening.
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
Scientists have made big strides in the fight against cancer. A person’s risk of dying of cancer in the U.S. fell by 27% in the past 2 decades, thanks in large part to researchers who continue to uncover the complex details of how cancer works and to make advances in treatment.
Now the by enabling scientists to develop 3D tumor models that better represent samples from patients.
The impact could be “huge,” says Y. Shrike Zhang, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate bioengineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both in Boston, who studies 3D bioprinting. “It is not the only technology that may allow modeling of tumors in vitro, but it certainly is one of the most capable.”
Why does that matter? Because the 2D cell cultures that scientists often use now may not capture all the complexities of how cancer grows, spreads, and responds to treatment. It’s one reason why so few potential new cancer drugs – 3.4%, according to one estimate – can pass all clinical trials. Results may not carry over from the culture dish to the patient.
Researchers say these 3D-printed blood vessels may treat certain dangerous health problems that affect your veins, arteries, or capillaries.
A 3D-bioprinted model, on the other hand, may be better at copying a tumor’s “microenvironment” – all the parts (cells, molecules, blood vessels) that surround a tumor.
“The tumor microenvironment plays an integral role in defining how cancer progresses,” says Madhuri Dey, a PhD candidate and researcher at Penn State University. “In vitro 3D models are an attempt at reconstituting a [cancer] microenvironment, which sheds light on how tumors respond to chemo or immunotherapeutic treatments when they are present in a native-like microenvironment.”
Ms. Dey is the lead author of a study funded by the National Science Foundation in which breast cancer tumors were 3D-bioprinted and successfully treated. Unlike some previous 3D models of cancer cells, this model did a better job of imitating that microenvironment, she explains.
So far, “3D bioprinting of cancer models has been limited to bioprinting of individual cancer cells laden in hydrogels,” she says. But she and her colleagues developed a technique called aspiration-assisted bioprinting that lets them control where blood vessels are located relative to the tumor. “This model lays the foundation for studying these nuances of cancer,” Ms. Dey says.
“This is a quite cool work,” Dr. Zhang says of the Penn State study (which he was not involved in). “Vascularization is always a key component in [a] majority of the tumor types.” A model that incorporates blood vessels provides a “critical niche” to help tumor models reach their full potential in cancer research.
A 3D printer for your body
Chances are you’ve heard of 3D printing and may even own (or know someone who owns) a 3D printer. The concept is like regular printing, but instead of spewing ink onto paper, a 3D printer releases layers of plastic or other materials, hundreds or thousands of times, to build an object from the ground up.
Three-dimensional bioprinting works much the same way, except those layers are made of living cells to create biological structures like skin, vessels, organs, or bone.
Bioprinting has been around since 1988. So far, it’s mainly used in research settings, such as in the field of regenerative medicine. Research is underway for ear reconstruction, nerve regeneration, and skin regeneration. The technology was also recently used to create eye tissue to help researchers study eye diseases.
The technology’s potential for use in cancer research has yet to be fully realized, Ms. Dey says. But that may be changing.
“The use of 3D-bioprinted tumor models is getting close to translations in cancer research,” says Dr. Zhang. “They are being increasingly adopted by the research field, and [the technology] has started to be explored by the pharma industry for use towards cancer drug development.”
Because bioprinting can be automated, it could allow researchers to create high-quality, complex tumor models at scale, Dr. Zhang says.
Such 3D models also have the potential to replace or reduce the use of animals in tumor drug testing, Ms. Dey notes. They “are expected to provide a more accurate drug response, compared [with] animal models, as animal physiology does not match humans’.”
The FDA Modernization Act 2.0, a new U.S. law eliminating the requirement that drugs be tested in animals before humans, has “further paved the way for such technologies in the drug development pipeline,” Dr. Zhang says.
What if we could build a custom tumor model for each patient?
Possible uses for bioprinting go beyond the lab, Ms. Dey says. Imagine if we could customize 3D tumor models based on biopsies from individual patients. Doctors could test many treatments on these patient-specific models, letting them more accurately predict how each patient would respond to different therapies. This would help doctors decide which course of treatment is best.
In Ms. Dey’s study, the 3D model was treated with chemotherapy and with immunotherapy, and it responded to both. This highlights the potential for such 3D models to reveal the body’s immune response and be used to screen therapies, she says. “We hope is that in the future, this technique can be adapted in the hospital, which would speed up the course of cancer treatment.”
To that end, she and her colleagues are now working with real breast cancer tumors removed from patients, re-creating them in the lab in 3D to use for chemo and immunotherapy screening.
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
Scientists have made big strides in the fight against cancer. A person’s risk of dying of cancer in the U.S. fell by 27% in the past 2 decades, thanks in large part to researchers who continue to uncover the complex details of how cancer works and to make advances in treatment.
Now the by enabling scientists to develop 3D tumor models that better represent samples from patients.
The impact could be “huge,” says Y. Shrike Zhang, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate bioengineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both in Boston, who studies 3D bioprinting. “It is not the only technology that may allow modeling of tumors in vitro, but it certainly is one of the most capable.”
Why does that matter? Because the 2D cell cultures that scientists often use now may not capture all the complexities of how cancer grows, spreads, and responds to treatment. It’s one reason why so few potential new cancer drugs – 3.4%, according to one estimate – can pass all clinical trials. Results may not carry over from the culture dish to the patient.
Researchers say these 3D-printed blood vessels may treat certain dangerous health problems that affect your veins, arteries, or capillaries.
A 3D-bioprinted model, on the other hand, may be better at copying a tumor’s “microenvironment” – all the parts (cells, molecules, blood vessels) that surround a tumor.
“The tumor microenvironment plays an integral role in defining how cancer progresses,” says Madhuri Dey, a PhD candidate and researcher at Penn State University. “In vitro 3D models are an attempt at reconstituting a [cancer] microenvironment, which sheds light on how tumors respond to chemo or immunotherapeutic treatments when they are present in a native-like microenvironment.”
Ms. Dey is the lead author of a study funded by the National Science Foundation in which breast cancer tumors were 3D-bioprinted and successfully treated. Unlike some previous 3D models of cancer cells, this model did a better job of imitating that microenvironment, she explains.
So far, “3D bioprinting of cancer models has been limited to bioprinting of individual cancer cells laden in hydrogels,” she says. But she and her colleagues developed a technique called aspiration-assisted bioprinting that lets them control where blood vessels are located relative to the tumor. “This model lays the foundation for studying these nuances of cancer,” Ms. Dey says.
“This is a quite cool work,” Dr. Zhang says of the Penn State study (which he was not involved in). “Vascularization is always a key component in [a] majority of the tumor types.” A model that incorporates blood vessels provides a “critical niche” to help tumor models reach their full potential in cancer research.
A 3D printer for your body
Chances are you’ve heard of 3D printing and may even own (or know someone who owns) a 3D printer. The concept is like regular printing, but instead of spewing ink onto paper, a 3D printer releases layers of plastic or other materials, hundreds or thousands of times, to build an object from the ground up.
Three-dimensional bioprinting works much the same way, except those layers are made of living cells to create biological structures like skin, vessels, organs, or bone.
Bioprinting has been around since 1988. So far, it’s mainly used in research settings, such as in the field of regenerative medicine. Research is underway for ear reconstruction, nerve regeneration, and skin regeneration. The technology was also recently used to create eye tissue to help researchers study eye diseases.
The technology’s potential for use in cancer research has yet to be fully realized, Ms. Dey says. But that may be changing.
“The use of 3D-bioprinted tumor models is getting close to translations in cancer research,” says Dr. Zhang. “They are being increasingly adopted by the research field, and [the technology] has started to be explored by the pharma industry for use towards cancer drug development.”
Because bioprinting can be automated, it could allow researchers to create high-quality, complex tumor models at scale, Dr. Zhang says.
Such 3D models also have the potential to replace or reduce the use of animals in tumor drug testing, Ms. Dey notes. They “are expected to provide a more accurate drug response, compared [with] animal models, as animal physiology does not match humans’.”
The FDA Modernization Act 2.0, a new U.S. law eliminating the requirement that drugs be tested in animals before humans, has “further paved the way for such technologies in the drug development pipeline,” Dr. Zhang says.
What if we could build a custom tumor model for each patient?
Possible uses for bioprinting go beyond the lab, Ms. Dey says. Imagine if we could customize 3D tumor models based on biopsies from individual patients. Doctors could test many treatments on these patient-specific models, letting them more accurately predict how each patient would respond to different therapies. This would help doctors decide which course of treatment is best.
In Ms. Dey’s study, the 3D model was treated with chemotherapy and with immunotherapy, and it responded to both. This highlights the potential for such 3D models to reveal the body’s immune response and be used to screen therapies, she says. “We hope is that in the future, this technique can be adapted in the hospital, which would speed up the course of cancer treatment.”
To that end, she and her colleagues are now working with real breast cancer tumors removed from patients, re-creating them in the lab in 3D to use for chemo and immunotherapy screening.
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
Can nanotechnology help cure IBD?
Finding a cure for inflammatory bowel disease is a big goal. But the key to achieving it might be to think small.
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers are developing nanoparticles – particles measuring between 1 and 100 nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) – designed to treat IBD, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. (For context: A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.)
Described in a paper in Science Advances, these , a compatible compound commonly used in medicine.
The nanoparticles – the researchers call them “backpacks” – can be attached to probiotics, which deliver them to the gut.
“Due to the colonizing property of probiotics in colon tissues, the nanoparticles could be delivered to colon tissues by probiotics and released slowly,” says study author Quanyin Hu, PhD, a biomedical engineer and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy.
This helps give the nanoparticles time to bring the ROS level back down to normal. But that’s only part of the IBD treatment the researchers envision.
The technology builds on a previous development from Dr. Hu and his team – a protective probiotic shell coating. The coating, which is about 330 nanometers thick, helps probiotics survive long enough to establish and multiply in the gut.
“The harsh environment of gastric acid and bile salt would kill most probiotics,” Dr. Hu says. “Moreover, antibiotics usually used in inflammatory bowel disease treatment also harm probiotic growth.”
Early results are promising, he says. Mice with IBD that received the full treatment – combining the ROS-targeting nanoparticles with the coated probiotics – had fewer IBD symptoms, like less weight loss and colon shortening, than those treated with the encapsulated probiotics alone.
By attacking the disease on multiple fronts – reducing the ROS and improving the balance of gut microbiota – a healthy gut environment could be restored, Dr. Hu says. In other words: “[It] might be possible to finally cure inflammatory bowel disease.”
Nanotechnology offers all kinds of unique advantages over traditional IBD treatments, he says. Nanoparticles can be designed to target specific tissues, like colon tissues. And, compared with small molecules, they can circulate throughout the body longer, so they have more time to build up and do their job.
The next steps will be to test the treatment in large animals and “to develop a stable formulation that can be stored for a long time and produced in a scalable and economical manner,” Dr. Hu says.
Current IBD treatments “can only relieve symptoms,” not cure the disease, he says.
“This study is our first try to fundamentally treat inflammatory bowel disease by recovering a healthy microenvironment in the intestines, and our preliminary data demonstrated that this strategy is delivering promises to pave a new treatment strategy for IBD,” Dr. Hu says.
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
Finding a cure for inflammatory bowel disease is a big goal. But the key to achieving it might be to think small.
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers are developing nanoparticles – particles measuring between 1 and 100 nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) – designed to treat IBD, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. (For context: A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.)
Described in a paper in Science Advances, these , a compatible compound commonly used in medicine.
The nanoparticles – the researchers call them “backpacks” – can be attached to probiotics, which deliver them to the gut.
“Due to the colonizing property of probiotics in colon tissues, the nanoparticles could be delivered to colon tissues by probiotics and released slowly,” says study author Quanyin Hu, PhD, a biomedical engineer and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy.
This helps give the nanoparticles time to bring the ROS level back down to normal. But that’s only part of the IBD treatment the researchers envision.
The technology builds on a previous development from Dr. Hu and his team – a protective probiotic shell coating. The coating, which is about 330 nanometers thick, helps probiotics survive long enough to establish and multiply in the gut.
“The harsh environment of gastric acid and bile salt would kill most probiotics,” Dr. Hu says. “Moreover, antibiotics usually used in inflammatory bowel disease treatment also harm probiotic growth.”
Early results are promising, he says. Mice with IBD that received the full treatment – combining the ROS-targeting nanoparticles with the coated probiotics – had fewer IBD symptoms, like less weight loss and colon shortening, than those treated with the encapsulated probiotics alone.
By attacking the disease on multiple fronts – reducing the ROS and improving the balance of gut microbiota – a healthy gut environment could be restored, Dr. Hu says. In other words: “[It] might be possible to finally cure inflammatory bowel disease.”
Nanotechnology offers all kinds of unique advantages over traditional IBD treatments, he says. Nanoparticles can be designed to target specific tissues, like colon tissues. And, compared with small molecules, they can circulate throughout the body longer, so they have more time to build up and do their job.
The next steps will be to test the treatment in large animals and “to develop a stable formulation that can be stored for a long time and produced in a scalable and economical manner,” Dr. Hu says.
Current IBD treatments “can only relieve symptoms,” not cure the disease, he says.
“This study is our first try to fundamentally treat inflammatory bowel disease by recovering a healthy microenvironment in the intestines, and our preliminary data demonstrated that this strategy is delivering promises to pave a new treatment strategy for IBD,” Dr. Hu says.
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
Finding a cure for inflammatory bowel disease is a big goal. But the key to achieving it might be to think small.
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers are developing nanoparticles – particles measuring between 1 and 100 nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) – designed to treat IBD, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. (For context: A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.)
Described in a paper in Science Advances, these , a compatible compound commonly used in medicine.
The nanoparticles – the researchers call them “backpacks” – can be attached to probiotics, which deliver them to the gut.
“Due to the colonizing property of probiotics in colon tissues, the nanoparticles could be delivered to colon tissues by probiotics and released slowly,” says study author Quanyin Hu, PhD, a biomedical engineer and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy.
This helps give the nanoparticles time to bring the ROS level back down to normal. But that’s only part of the IBD treatment the researchers envision.
The technology builds on a previous development from Dr. Hu and his team – a protective probiotic shell coating. The coating, which is about 330 nanometers thick, helps probiotics survive long enough to establish and multiply in the gut.
“The harsh environment of gastric acid and bile salt would kill most probiotics,” Dr. Hu says. “Moreover, antibiotics usually used in inflammatory bowel disease treatment also harm probiotic growth.”
Early results are promising, he says. Mice with IBD that received the full treatment – combining the ROS-targeting nanoparticles with the coated probiotics – had fewer IBD symptoms, like less weight loss and colon shortening, than those treated with the encapsulated probiotics alone.
By attacking the disease on multiple fronts – reducing the ROS and improving the balance of gut microbiota – a healthy gut environment could be restored, Dr. Hu says. In other words: “[It] might be possible to finally cure inflammatory bowel disease.”
Nanotechnology offers all kinds of unique advantages over traditional IBD treatments, he says. Nanoparticles can be designed to target specific tissues, like colon tissues. And, compared with small molecules, they can circulate throughout the body longer, so they have more time to build up and do their job.
The next steps will be to test the treatment in large animals and “to develop a stable formulation that can be stored for a long time and produced in a scalable and economical manner,” Dr. Hu says.
Current IBD treatments “can only relieve symptoms,” not cure the disease, he says.
“This study is our first try to fundamentally treat inflammatory bowel disease by recovering a healthy microenvironment in the intestines, and our preliminary data demonstrated that this strategy is delivering promises to pave a new treatment strategy for IBD,” Dr. Hu says.
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
FROM SCIENCE ADVANCES
How we treat acute pain could be wrong
In a surprising discovery that flies in the face of conventional medicine,
The paper, published in Science Translational Medicine, suggests that inflammation, a normal part of injury recovery, helps resolve acute pain and prevents it from becoming chronic. Blocking that inflammation may interfere with this process, leading to harder-to-treat pain.
“What we’ve been doing for decades not only appears to be wrong, but appears to be 180 degrees wrong,” says senior study author Jeffrey Mogil, PhD, a professor in the department of psychology at McGill University in Montreal. “You should not be blocking inflammation. You should be letting inflammation happen. That’s what stops chronic pain.”
Inflammation: Nature’s pain reliever
Wanting to know why pain goes away for some but drags on (and on) for others, the researchers looked at pain mechanisms in both humans and mice. They found that a type of white blood cell known as a neutrophil seems to play a key role.
“In analyzing the genes of people suffering from lower back pain, we observed active changes in genes over time in people whose pain went away,” says Luda Diatchenko, PhD, a professor in the faculty of medicine and Canada excellence research chair in human pain genetics at McGill. “Changes in the blood cells and their activity seemed to be the most important factor, especially in cells called neutrophils.”
To test this link, the researchers blocked neutrophils in mice and found the pain lasted 2-10 times longer than normal. Anti-inflammatory drugs, despite providing short-term relief, had the same pain-prolonging effect – though injecting neutrophils into the mice seemed to keep that from happening.
The findings are supported by a separate analysis of 500,000 people in the United Kingdom that showed those taking anti-inflammatory drugs to treat their pain were more likely to have pain 2-10 years later.
“Inflammation occurs for a reason,” says Dr. Mogil, “and it looks like it’s dangerous to interfere with it.”
Rethinking how we treat pain
Neutrophils arrive early during inflammation, at the onset of injury – just when many of us reach for pain medication. This research suggests it might be better not to block inflammation, instead letting the neutrophils “do their thing.” Taking an analgesic that alleviates pain without blocking neutrophils, like acetaminophen, may be better than taking an anti-inflammatory drug or steroid, says Dr. Mogil.
Still, while the findings are compelling, clinical trials are needed to directly compare anti-inflammatory drugs to other painkillers, the researchers said. This research may also lay the groundwork for new drug development for chronic pain patients, Dr. Mogil says.
“Our data strongly suggests that neutrophils act like analgesics themselves, which is potentially useful in terms of analgesic development,” Dr. Mogil says. “And of course, we need new analgesics.”
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
In a surprising discovery that flies in the face of conventional medicine,
The paper, published in Science Translational Medicine, suggests that inflammation, a normal part of injury recovery, helps resolve acute pain and prevents it from becoming chronic. Blocking that inflammation may interfere with this process, leading to harder-to-treat pain.
“What we’ve been doing for decades not only appears to be wrong, but appears to be 180 degrees wrong,” says senior study author Jeffrey Mogil, PhD, a professor in the department of psychology at McGill University in Montreal. “You should not be blocking inflammation. You should be letting inflammation happen. That’s what stops chronic pain.”
Inflammation: Nature’s pain reliever
Wanting to know why pain goes away for some but drags on (and on) for others, the researchers looked at pain mechanisms in both humans and mice. They found that a type of white blood cell known as a neutrophil seems to play a key role.
“In analyzing the genes of people suffering from lower back pain, we observed active changes in genes over time in people whose pain went away,” says Luda Diatchenko, PhD, a professor in the faculty of medicine and Canada excellence research chair in human pain genetics at McGill. “Changes in the blood cells and their activity seemed to be the most important factor, especially in cells called neutrophils.”
To test this link, the researchers blocked neutrophils in mice and found the pain lasted 2-10 times longer than normal. Anti-inflammatory drugs, despite providing short-term relief, had the same pain-prolonging effect – though injecting neutrophils into the mice seemed to keep that from happening.
The findings are supported by a separate analysis of 500,000 people in the United Kingdom that showed those taking anti-inflammatory drugs to treat their pain were more likely to have pain 2-10 years later.
“Inflammation occurs for a reason,” says Dr. Mogil, “and it looks like it’s dangerous to interfere with it.”
Rethinking how we treat pain
Neutrophils arrive early during inflammation, at the onset of injury – just when many of us reach for pain medication. This research suggests it might be better not to block inflammation, instead letting the neutrophils “do their thing.” Taking an analgesic that alleviates pain without blocking neutrophils, like acetaminophen, may be better than taking an anti-inflammatory drug or steroid, says Dr. Mogil.
Still, while the findings are compelling, clinical trials are needed to directly compare anti-inflammatory drugs to other painkillers, the researchers said. This research may also lay the groundwork for new drug development for chronic pain patients, Dr. Mogil says.
“Our data strongly suggests that neutrophils act like analgesics themselves, which is potentially useful in terms of analgesic development,” Dr. Mogil says. “And of course, we need new analgesics.”
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
In a surprising discovery that flies in the face of conventional medicine,
The paper, published in Science Translational Medicine, suggests that inflammation, a normal part of injury recovery, helps resolve acute pain and prevents it from becoming chronic. Blocking that inflammation may interfere with this process, leading to harder-to-treat pain.
“What we’ve been doing for decades not only appears to be wrong, but appears to be 180 degrees wrong,” says senior study author Jeffrey Mogil, PhD, a professor in the department of psychology at McGill University in Montreal. “You should not be blocking inflammation. You should be letting inflammation happen. That’s what stops chronic pain.”
Inflammation: Nature’s pain reliever
Wanting to know why pain goes away for some but drags on (and on) for others, the researchers looked at pain mechanisms in both humans and mice. They found that a type of white blood cell known as a neutrophil seems to play a key role.
“In analyzing the genes of people suffering from lower back pain, we observed active changes in genes over time in people whose pain went away,” says Luda Diatchenko, PhD, a professor in the faculty of medicine and Canada excellence research chair in human pain genetics at McGill. “Changes in the blood cells and their activity seemed to be the most important factor, especially in cells called neutrophils.”
To test this link, the researchers blocked neutrophils in mice and found the pain lasted 2-10 times longer than normal. Anti-inflammatory drugs, despite providing short-term relief, had the same pain-prolonging effect – though injecting neutrophils into the mice seemed to keep that from happening.
The findings are supported by a separate analysis of 500,000 people in the United Kingdom that showed those taking anti-inflammatory drugs to treat their pain were more likely to have pain 2-10 years later.
“Inflammation occurs for a reason,” says Dr. Mogil, “and it looks like it’s dangerous to interfere with it.”
Rethinking how we treat pain
Neutrophils arrive early during inflammation, at the onset of injury – just when many of us reach for pain medication. This research suggests it might be better not to block inflammation, instead letting the neutrophils “do their thing.” Taking an analgesic that alleviates pain without blocking neutrophils, like acetaminophen, may be better than taking an anti-inflammatory drug or steroid, says Dr. Mogil.
Still, while the findings are compelling, clinical trials are needed to directly compare anti-inflammatory drugs to other painkillers, the researchers said. This research may also lay the groundwork for new drug development for chronic pain patients, Dr. Mogil says.
“Our data strongly suggests that neutrophils act like analgesics themselves, which is potentially useful in terms of analgesic development,” Dr. Mogil says. “And of course, we need new analgesics.”
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.
FROM SCIENCE TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE