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Cybathlon turns spotlight on Iron Man tech

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A Cybathlon pilot wearing an electrode-equipped cap uses a brain-computer interface to move an avatar through a computer-generated virtual obstacle course. (Credit: Cybathlon / ETH Zurich)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Imagine a contest for the kinds of technologies that would set Tony Stark’s nuclear-powered heart all aflutter in the “Iron Man” movies: exoskeletons, brain-computer interfaces, stair-climbing wheelchairs and bionic limbs, for example.

You don’t have to imagine it anymore: Swiss organizers are getting ready for the first-ever Cybathlon on Oct. 8 in Zurich.

This is no Hollywood publicity stunt: The Cybathlon is aimed at giving a boost to assistive devices and the millions of people around the world who use them. Fifty-five teams from 23 countries already have signed up for the games, and the organizers have put out the call for more teams to register.

The teams’ pilots will vie in six events that take advantage of exoskeletons, brain-wave controllers, prosthetic arms and legs, powered wheelchairs and muscle-stimulation bikes.

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A 3-D bioprinter for artificial body parts?

Image: 3D-printed ear
A human ear structure sits in a dish after it was printed with a device called the Integrated Tissue-Organ Printing System. (Credit: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine)

Researchers say they’ve developed a 3-D bioprinter that can create artificial body parts with ready-made channels for getting nutrients and oxygen to the implanted cells. If the technology can be perfected, the device could solve one of the biggest obstacles to creating 3D-printed organs: how to nourish masses of manufactured tissue.

“It can fabricate stable, human-scale tissue of any shape,” Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, said in a news release. “With further development, this technology could potentially be used to print living tissue and organ structures for surgical implantation.”

Atala and his colleagues describe their experiments with the bioprinter, known as the Integrated Tissue-Organ Printing System or ITOP, in a study published Feb. 15 by Nature Biotechnology.

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Neanderthal DNA linked to modern maladies

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Researchers say Neanderthal DNA influences modern traits. (Credit: Michael Smeltzer / Vanderbilt)

A comparison of Neanderthal DNA with the genomes of present-day patients has pointed up connections between our now-extinct cousins and modern traits ranging from addiction and depression to blood clotting and skin problems.

“Our main finding is that Neanderthal DNA does influence clinical traits in modern humans,” Vanderbilt University geneticist John Capra, the senior author of a paper published Feb. 11 by the journal Science, said in a news release.

The comparison drew upon a database that links biological samples from 28,000 patients with anonymized versions of their electronic health records. The Electronic Medical Records and Genomics Network, also known as eMERGE, is funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute.

The network collects records from nine hospital systems across the country, including Vanderbilt University Medical Center as well as Group Health Cooperative / University of Washington Medical Center / Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

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How Amazon inspired birth-control drones

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Aerial vehicles are used to deliver medical supplies in Ghana. (Credit: Drones for Development)

When U.N. health experts were trying to come up with a way to deliver contraceptives to women in hard-to-reach areas of Ghana, they took a page from Amazon’s drone delivery playbook.

Their pilot project, known as Dr. One, was reportedly inspired in late 2014 by the Seattle-based online retailer’s plans for aerial package deliveries.

“We thought, ‘Hang on a minute. We can use this for something else!” Kanyanta Sunkutu, a South African public health specialist with the U.N. Population Fund, was quoted as saying in The Huffington Post’s report about the project.

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Gates and Bezos invest in cancer testing venture

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Illumina’s gene sequencers are already being used to study cancer cells, and the new venture known as Grail is expected to take the field to the next level. (Credit: Illumina)

One of the giants of gene sequencing, Illumina, has spun off a new $100 million company called Grail to create an all-in-one blood test for cancer – and its investors include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

The name reflects the view that such a blood test is a “holy grail” for cancer diagnosis. Grail would use ultra-deep gene sequencing to look for the characteristic nucleic acids that are shed into the blood by tumors. Those traces are known as circulating tumor DNA, or ctDNA.

If the technology is perfected, it could offer a non-invasive way to find out if a patient has cancer well before symptoms appear. That would better the chances for treatment.

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