Month: November 2011
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Nanotech Solution Boosts Lithium-Ion Battery Performance
Engineers at Northwestern University in Illinois have created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries that can hold 10 times the charge and recharge 10 times faster than current batteries. A paper describing the research was published last month in the journal Advanced Energy Materials (paid subscription required), and funded by the Energy Frontier Research Centers program…
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FDA Funds Evaluation of Pain Drug Clinical Trial Methods
The Food and Drug Administration is funding a study by researchers at University of Rochester in New York and University of Washington in Seattle to find different ways of evaluating drugs designed to relieve acute and chronic pain. The grant of up to $4.5 million over five years aims to better understand why few new…
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Full Coverage of Meds Reduces Later Heart Attacks, Failures
Academic and industry researchers have found heart attack patients whose insurance fully covered their medications had lower rates of rehospitalization for heart attack or heart failure compared to patients who had prescription co-pays. The team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Aetna Insurance in Hartford, Connecticut, and CVS Caremark in…
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Electronic Film Implant Designed to Monitor Brain Functions
Medical and engineering researchers from the U.S., Korea, and China have developed a thin, flexible electronic film that can monitor brain activity without the use of penetrating electrodes. The team’s findings appear online in the journal Nature Neuroscience (paid subscription required). The film (illustrated left), about one-quarter the thickness of a human hair, contains 720…
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Protein Discovered That Enables Heart Tissue Repair
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, Germany have found a protein that stimulates regression of individual heart muscle cells into their precursor cells, a step required for self-generated healing of damaged heart tissue. The Max Planck Institute, with colleagues from the Schüchtermann Klinik in Bad Rothenfelde, published…
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Intentional Poisonings Result in 14K+ Emergency Room Visits
A study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows intentional poisonings — purposeful attempts to drug other people without their knowledge — resulted in 14,720 hospital emergency room visits in 2009. The report by SAMHSA, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, indicates most victims were female (63%)…
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GSK to Fund Canadian Life Sciences Start-Ups, Institutes
The global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline Inc. (GSK) announced in Toronto a new $50 million fund for early stage life sciences research in Canada. GSK says the Canada Life Sciences Innovation Fund will identify investment opportunities at Canada’s academic and health institutions, translational research centers, and start-up companies. Paul Lucas, president of GlaxoSmithKline Canada, calls the…
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GE, Illinois Tech to Partner on Wind Energy Management
GE’s software division will collaborate with researchers from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) to devise better monitoring and diagnostic methods for the management of wind farms. The project is part of IIT’s University-Industry Consortium for Wind Energy funded by Department of Energy. The two-year project aims to help wind farms reduce maintenance costs and improve…
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Patent Filed for Nanocomposite Polymer-Based Film
A materials scientist at University of Cincinnati has developed a transparent and electrically conductive polymer-based film with potential solar and fuel cell applications. Jude Iroh (pictured right), who is also an engineering professor at UC, recently filed a provisional patent for the discovery. The nanocomposite film is transparent and electrically conductive, says Iroh, as well…
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Wearable Device Captures Food Intake, Lifestyle Patterns
A device developed at University of Pittsburgh allows people battling obesity to track their food consumption and physical activities without keeping separate records. The eButton, as the NIH-funded device is called, is now a prototype in pilot testing, and the result of research by Pittsburgh biomedical engineer Mingui Sun. The eButton, worn on the chest…