NEWS and OPINIONS

Scientists work to 3D bioprint a human heart in 5 years
By Lindsey Theis - Scripps News - A team of Stanford University engineers, cardiologists, and biology experts are at work to bioprint a fully functioning human heart to implant into a pig. Inside one of the labs that focuses on medical innovation at Stanford...

Brain scans can translate a person’s thoughts into words
By Rhiannon Williams - MIT Technology Review - A new system was able to capture exact words and phrases from the brain activity of someone listening to podcasts. A noninvasive brain-computer interface capable of converting a person’s thoughts into words could one day...

CAR-T is not harmful in lymphoma remission phenomenon
By Felix Myhill - RegMedNet - Whether or not to administer CAR-T cell therapy to cancer patients who go into remission during the therapy manufacturing window has long been a largely uninformed decision. The findings of a recent study reveal that administering CAR-T...

Healthspan for All! Healthspan Action Coalition Expands to 120 Organizations
San Francisco, CA and West Palm Beach, FL, December 13, 2023 – The nonprofit Healthspan Action Coalition (HSAC), in its first year of operations, has already assembled 120 organizations under the banner of “Healthspan.” This societal movement recognizes that with new...

FDA Approves First CRISPR Treatment in U.S.
By Alice Park - Time It was only 11 years ago that scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier first described a new way to edit genes, called CRISPR, in a scientific paper. The discovery is so game-changing that the pair earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry...

Student view: Growing mini human hearts from stem cells
by Michigan State University Brett Volmert is a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. candidate in the College of Engineering. In a recent study, Volmert described a method for the creation and growth of mini human hearts, termed “heart organoids”. He presented the research...

Early-stage stem cell therapy trial shows promise for treating progressive MS
By Craig Brierley - University of Cambridge - An international team has shown that the injection of a type of stem cell into the brains of patients living with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) is safe, well tolerated and has a long-lasting effect that appears to...

Tiny living robots made from human cells surprise scientists
By Katie Hunt, CNN Scientists have created tiny living robots from human cells that can move around in a lab dish and may one day be able to help heal wounds or damaged tissue, according to a new study. A team at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss...
FDA outlines process for recognizing standards for regenerative medicines
by Joanne S. Eglovitch - Regulatory Focus The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued final guidance describing its process for recognizing voluntary consensus standards (VCS) to spur the development of regenerative medicine therapies (RMTs) evaluated within...

Engineering stem cells to treat liver disease
By Susan Buckles - Mayo Clinic During clinical rotations in medical school, Kianna Nguyen encountered many patients with liver failure and was struck by a grim reality: Their only hope was a transplant. The shortage of donor organs and therapeutic options was at once...

Machine could make CAR T-cell therapy more accessible
By Drug Target Review Immunotherapy, the promising therapy which harnesses the power of the body’s immune response to target cancer cells, may be advanced by a new minifridge bioreactor developed by researchers at Washington State University. This bioreactor can...

Mimics human tissue, fights bacteria: new biomaterial hits the sweet spot
By UNSW Newsroom The 'Trpzip' material will reform after being squished, fractured, or after being expelled from a syringe. Photo: UNSW Sydney Scientists at UNSW Sydney have created a new material that could change the way human tissue can be grown in the lab and used...