#Bioelectronics Previous Data

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Low gravity in space travel found to weaken and disrupt normal rhythm in heart muscle cells

Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists who arranged for 48 human bioengineered heart tissue samples to spend 30 days at the International Space Station report evidence that the low gravity conditions in space weakened the tissues and disrupted their normal rhythmic beats when compared to Earth-bound samples from the same source.

The scientists said the heart tissues "really don't fare well in space," and over time, the tissues aboard the space station beat about half as strongly as tissues from the same source kept on Earth.

The findings, they say, expand scientists' knowledge of low gravity's potential effects on astronauts' survival and health during long space missions, and they may serve as models for studying heart muscle aging and therapeutics on Earth.

A report of the scientists' analysis of the tissues is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Previous studies showed that some astronauts return to Earth from outer space with age-related conditions, including reduced heart muscle function and arrythmias (irregular heartbeats), and that some—but not all—effects dissipate over time after their return.

But scientists have sought ways to study such effects at a cellular and molecular level in a bid to find ways to keep astronauts safe during long spaceflights, says Deok-Ho Kim, Ph.D., a professor of biomedical engineering and medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Kim led the project to send heart tissue to the space station.

To create the cardiac payload, scientist Jonathan Tsui, Ph.D. coaxed human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to develop into heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes). Tsui, who was a Ph.D. student in Kim's lab at the University of Washington, accompanied Kim as a postdoctoral fellow when Kim moved to Johns Hopkins University in 2019. They continued the space biology research at Johns Hopkins.

Tsui then placed the tissues in a bioengineered, miniaturized tissue chip that strings the tissues between two posts to collect data about how the tissues beat (contract). The cells' 3D housing was designed to mimic the environment of an adult human heart in a chamber half the size of a cell phone.

To get the tissues aboard the SpaceX CRS-20 mission, which launched in March 2020 bound for the space station, Tsui says he had to hand-carry the tissue chambers on a plane to Florida, and continue caring for the tissues for a month at the Kennedy Space Center. Tsui is now a scientist at Tenaya Therapeutics, a company focused on heart disease prevention and treatment.

Once the tissues were on the space station, the scientists received real-time data for 10 seconds every 30 minutes about the cells' strength of contraction, known as twitch forces, and on any irregular beating patterns. Astronaut Jessica Meir, Ph.D., M.S. changed the liquid nutrients surrounding the tissues once each week and preserved tissues at specific intervals for later gene readout and imaging analyses.

The research team kept a set of cardiac tissues developed the same way on Earth, housed in the same type of chamber, for comparison with the tissues in space.

When the tissue chambers returned to Earth, Tsui continued to maintain and collect data from the tissues.

"An incredible amount of cutting-edge technology in the areas of stem cell and tissue engineering, biosensors and bioelectronics, and microfabrication went into ensuring the viability of these tissues in space," says Kim, whose team developed the tissue chip for this project and subsequent ones.

Devin Mair, Ph.D., a former Ph.D. student in Kim's lab and now a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins, then analyzed the tissues' ability to contract.

In addition to losing strength, the heart muscle tissues in space developed irregular beating (arrhythmias)—disruptions that can cause a human heart to fail. Normally, the time between one beat of cardiac tissue and the next is about a second. This measure, in the tissues aboard the space station, grew to be nearly five times longer than those on Earth, although the time between beats returned nearly to normal when the tissues returned to Earth.

The scientists also found, in the tissues that went to space, that sarcomeres—the protein bundles in muscle cells that help them contract—became shorter and more disordered, a hallmark of human heart disease.

In addition, energy-producing mitochondria in the space-bound cells grew larger, rounder and lost the characteristic folds that help the cells use and produce energy.

Finally, Mair, Eun Hyun Ahn, Ph.D.—an assistant research professor of biomedical engineering—and Zhipeng Dong, a Johns Hopkins Ph.D. student, studied the gene readout in the tissues housed in space and on Earth. The tissues at the space station showed increased gene production involved in inflammation and oxidative damage, also hallmarks of heart disease.

"Many of these markers of oxidative damage and inflammation are consistently demonstrated in post-flight checks of astronauts," says Mair.

Kim's lab sent a second batch of 3D engineered heart tissues to the space station in 2023 to screen for drugs that may protect the cells from the effects of low gravity. This study is ongoing, and according to the scientists, these same drugs may help people maintain heart function as they get older.

The scientists are continuing to improve their "tissue on a chip" system and are studying the effects of radiation on heart tissues at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory. The space station is in low Earth orbit, where the planet's magnetic field shields occupants from most of the effects of space radiation.

IMAGE: Heart tissues within one of the launch-ready chambers. Credit: Jonathan Tsui

[morerushikesh]

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[moremedtech]

Neuro Chip can identify and suppress symptoms of various neurological disorders.

Neuro Chip can identify and suppress symptoms of various neurological disorders. EPFL researchers have combined low-power chip design, machine learning algorithms, and soft implantable electrodes to produce a neural interface that can identify and suppress symptoms of various neurological disorders. Mahsa Shoaran of the Integrated Neurotechnologies Laboratory in the School of Engineering collaborated with Stéphanie Lacour in the Laboratory for Soft Bioelectronic Interfaces to develop NeuralTree: a closed-loop neuromodulation system-on-chip that can detect and alleviate disease symptoms. Thanks to a 256-channel high-resolution sensing array and an energy-efficient machine learning processor, the system can extract and classify a broad set of biomarkers from real patient data and animal models of disease in-vivo, leading to a high degree of accuracy in symptom prediction. “NeuralTree benefits from the accuracy of a neural network and the hardware efficiency of a decision tree algorithm,” Shoaran says. “It’s the first time we’ve been able to integrate such a complex, yet energy-efficient neural interface for binary classification tasks, such as seizure or tremor detection, as well as multi-class tasks such as finger movement classification for neuroprosthetic applications.” “NeuralTree benefits from the accuracy of a neural network and the hardware efficiency of a decision tree algorithm,” Shoaran says. “It’s the first time we’ve been able to integrate such a complex, yet energy-efficient neural interface for binary classification tasks, such as seizure or tremor detection, as well as multi-class tasks such as finger movement classification for neuroprosthetic applications.”

Efficiency, scalability, and versatility

NeuralTree functions by extracting neural biomarkers – patterns of electrical signals known to be associated with certain neurological disorders – from brain waves. It then classifies the signals and indicates whether they herald an impending epileptic seizure or Parkinsonian tremor, for example. If a symptom is detected, a neurostimulator – also located on the chip – is activated, sending an electrical pulse to block it. Shoaran explains that NeuralTree’s unique design gives the system an unprecedented degree of efficiency and versatility compared to the state-of-the-art. The chip boasts 256 input channels, compared to 32 for previous machine-learning-embedded devices, allowing more high-resolution data to be processed on the implant. The chip’s area-efficient design means that it is also extremely small (3.48mm2), giving it great potential for scalability to more channels. The integration of an ‘energy-aware’ learning algorithm – which penalizes features that consume a lot of power – also makes NeuralTree highly energy efficient. In addition to these advantages, the system can detect a broader range of symptoms than other devices, which until now have focused primarily on epileptic seizure detection. The chip’s machine learning algorithm was trained on datasets from both epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease patients, and accurately classified pre-recorded neural signals from both categories. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of Parkinsonian tremor detection with an on-chip classifier,” Shoaran says.

Self-updating algorithms

Shoaran is passionate about making neural interfaces more intelligent to enable more effective disease control, and she is already looking ahead to further innovations. “Eventually, we can use neural interfaces for many different disorders, and we need algorithmic ideas and advances in chip design to make this happen. This work is very interdisciplinary, and so it also requires collaborating with labs like the Laboratory for Soft Bioelectronic Interfaces, which can develop state-of-the-art neural electrodes, or labs with access to high-quality patient data.” As a next step, she is interested in enabling on-chip algorithmic updates to keep up with the evolution of neural signals. “Neural signals change, and so over time the performance of a neural interface will decline. We are always trying to make algorithms more accurate and reliable, and one way to do that would be to enable on-chip updates, or algorithms that can update themselves.” ERC Starting Grant 2021, funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation.

References

U. Shin, C. Ding, B. Zhu, Y. Vyza, A. Trouillet, E. C. M. Revol, S. P. Lacour, M. Shoaran, "NeuralTree: A 256-Channel 0.227-μJ/Class Versatile Neural Activity Classification and Closed-Loop Neuromodulation SoC," in IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), vol. 57, no. 11, pp. 3243-3257, Nov. 2022, doi: 10.1109/JSSC.2022.3204508. U. Shin, L. Somappa, C. Ding, B. Zhu, Y. Vyza, A. Trouillet, S. P. Lacour, M. Shoaran, “A 256- Channel 0.227μJ/class Versatile Brain Activity Classification and Closed-Loop Neuromodulation SoC with 0.004mm2-1.51μW/channel Fast-Settling Highly Multiplexed Mixed-Signal Front-End" in IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), 2022, doi: 10.1109/ISSCC42614.2022.9731776. Source: EPFL Read the full article

[kathleenseiber]

‘Cyborg’ locusts could sniff out bombs

Researchers are one step closer to bomb-sniffing cyborg locusts.

In a new study, they found locusts can quickly discriminate between different explosives’ smells.

If you want to enhance a locust to be used as a bomb-sniffing bug, however, there are a few technical challenges that need solving before sending it into the field.

Is there some way to direct the locust—to tell it where to go to do its sniffing? And because the locusts can’t speak (yet), is there a way to read the brain of these cyborg bugs to know what they’re smelling? For that matter, can locusts even smell explosives?

Yes and yes to the first two questions. Previous research has demonstrated both the ability to control the locusts and the ability to read their brains, so to speak, to discern what it is they are smelling.

And now, thanks to new research, the third question has been settled. The answer, again: “yes.”

Locusts detecting explosives

In a pre-proof paper in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics: X, researchers showed how they were able to hijack a locust’s olfactory system to both detect and discriminate between different explosive scents—all within a few hundred milliseconds of exposure.

They were also able to optimize a previously developed biorobotic sensing system that could detect the locusts’ firing neurons and convey that information in a way that told researchers about the smells the locusts were sensing.

“This is not that different from in the old days, when coal miners used canaries.”

“We didn’t know if they’d be able to smell or pinpoint the explosives because they don’t have any meaningful ecological significance,” says Barani Raman, professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. “It was possible that they didn’t care about any of the cues that were meaningful to us in this particular case.”

Previous work in Raman’s lab led to the discovery that the locust olfactory system could be decoded as an “or-of-ands” logical operation. This allowed researchers to determine what a locust was smelling in different contexts.

With this knowledge, the researchers were able to look for similar patterns when they exposed locusts to vapors from TNT, DNT, RDX, PETN, and ammonium nitrate—a chemically diverse set of explosives.

“Most surprisingly,” Raman says, “we could clearly see the neurons responded differently to TNT and DNT, as well as these other explosive chemical vapors.”

With that crucial piece of data, Raman says, “We were ready to get to work. We were optimized.”

Bug brain signals

Now they knew that the locusts could detect and discriminate between different explosives, but in order to seek out a bomb, a locust would have to know from which direction the odor emanated. Enter the “odor box and locust mobile.”

“You know when you’re close to the coffee shop, the coffee smell is stronger, and when you’re farther away, you smell it less? That’s what we were looking at,” Raman says. The explosive vapors were injected via a hole in the box where the locust sat in a tiny vehicle. As the locust was driven around and sniffed different concentrations of vapors, researchers studied its odor-related brain activity.

The signals in the bugs’ brains reflected those differences in vapor concentration.

The next step was to optimize the system for transmitting the locusts’ brain activity. The team, which included Shantanu Chakrabartty, professor in the department of electrical & systems engineering, and Srikanth Singamaneni, professor in the department of mechanical engineering & materials science, focused the breadth of their expertise on the tiny locust.

In order to do the least harm to the locusts, and to keep them stable in order to accurately record their neural activity, the team came up with a new surgical procedure to attach electrodes that didn’t hinder the locusts’ movement. With their new instrumentation in place, the neuronal activity of a locust exposed to an explosive smell was resolved into a discernible odor-specific pattern within 500 milliseconds.

“Now we can implant the electrodes, seal the locust, and transport them to mobile environments,” Raman says. One day, that environment might be one in which Homeland Security is searching for explosives.

The idea isn’t as strange as it might first sound, Raman says.

“This is not that different from in the old days, when coal miners used canaries,” he says. “People use pigs for finding truffles. It’s a similar approach—using a biological organism—this is just a bit more sophisticated.”

The Office of Naval Research funded the research.

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

The post ‘Cyborg’ locusts could sniff out bombs appeared first on Futurity.

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[all-about-tech-blog1]

Uplifting news for Diabetics? Apple Investigating No-Prick Sensors

A little, mystery group of biomedical designers at Apple is said to deal with a "heavenly chalice" for diabetics: wearable sensors that could constantly screen a man's glucose levels without the requirement for stick prick testing.

Situated in a little office in Palo Alto, Calif., the Apple extend "has been leading possibility trials at clinical destinations over the Bay Area," CNBC announced yesterday, refering to data from "three individuals comfortable with the matter."

As indicated by the report, Apple has been working for no less than five years to grow such biomedical gadgets. The program was purportedly roused by Apple fellow benefactor and CEO Steve Jobs, who passed on of pancreatic tumor in 2011. Apple did not react to our demand for input on the report.

No Breakthrough Product Yet

A constant ailment in which the body can't deliver or utilize insulin legitimately, diabetes as of now influences more than 420 million individuals around the globe, as indicated by the World Health Organization. The malady causes an extensive variety of wellbeing confusions, including visual deficiency, heart assaults, and stroke, and is rebuked for a large number of unexpected losses consistently.

Diabetes can frequently be controlled through exercise, eating routine, prescription and insulin infusions, yet checking the condition can oblige patients to consistently draw a little measure of blood for testing.

"Pricking a finger numerous times each day to screen their blood glucose levels regularly demonstrates overpowering for patients with diabetes," the JAMA Network detailed in a July diary article. "Many just won't take after their doctor's proposal to test so much of the time, making it harder to deal with their condition."

Throughout the years, such troubles have prompted various and all around supported endeavors to build up a successful, simple and non-intrusive approach to screen glucose levels. Be that as it may, no such leap forward item presently can't seem to hit the market.

Dynamic Health Tech Market

As per the CNBC report, until 2015, Apple's glucose observing venture had been driven by Michael Hillman, who is presently the head of equipment at Facebook's virtual reality firm, Oculus. Apple's building group is accepted to incorporate various specialists procured far from biomedical organizations, for example, C8 Medisensors, Medtronic, and Vital Connect.

One of CNBC's anonymous sources said's Apple will likely figure out how to quantify glucose utilizing light-construct sensors in light of the skin. The sensors could be consolidated into gadgets, for example, the Apple Watch, to furnish diabetic wearers with nonstop blood observing.

Many organizations are attempting to grow new sensors and different innovations for the wellbeing business. Previous Apple stage modeler Bob Messerschmidt, for instance, left the organization in 2013 to begin Cor, which arrangements to deliver a home blood-testing gadget for checking a wide assortment of wellbeing pointers, including glucose and cholesterol. In a meeting with Fast Company a year ago, Messerschmidt scrutinized Apple for being to a great degree shrouded about its activities.

Microsoft is working with various wellbeing associations to make utilization of its holographic registering gadget, the HoloLens. For example, HoloLens could be utilized to make reenacted conditions for medical attendants to securely, however practically prepare for calamity reaction. What's more, a year ago, Google/Alphabet's Verily Life Sciences started working with the pharmaceutical organization GSK on a joint venture to create bioelectronic meds.

The biomedical tech industry has likewise had some staggering disappointments, including Theranos, a U.S. blood-test innovation startup that raised a huge number of dollars in funding before inquiries concerning the viability of its items prompted administrative and criminal examinations. The organization has since laid off an expansive segment of its workforce and shut its lab offices.

Picture credit: Product shots by App