Wireless Automatic Drug Dispenser Implant

Implantable drug dispenser could be great solution for those on long-term prescriptions...

Researchers have developed a new implantable drug dispensary that automatically administers the correct amount of medication, at the push of a button.

The wireless chip, which is about the size of an average flash drive, promises to make drug delivery painless and more efficient.

The chip was designed by Robert Langer, the Institute Professor at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, who together with fellow MIT professor Michael Cima, developed the first version of the implantable drug-delivery chip in the late 1990s and set up a company called MicroCHIPS Inc to begin researching their device.

Devising a system that could work in living tissue wasn’t easy. To do this the researchers made the chip with an array of tiny wells that contain micro dosage of the drug. The wells are sealed with ultrathin layer of platinum and titanium.

Implantable Medical Device Will Dispense Medication

To administer the drug, an external radio frequency is send to the chip, which then applies a voltage to melt the metal film and release the drug. The team also had to ensure the chips could not be hacked.

The recent study the team attempted to treat 7 women suffering from osteoporosis with a widely used drug, teriparatide – known for reversing bone loss in people with severe osteoporosis.

Teriparatide needs daily injections, to work effectively, and it’s so potent that it must be administered in micrograms; these two factors made the drug an ideal candidate for the study.

The chips were implanted into the abdomens of the participants in January 2011. Each chip contain 20 doses of the drug,

One problem that occurs when foreign objects reside in the body for a long duration of time is the formation of a fibrous, collagen-based membrane that begins to grow around the object. To see if this caused any problems with the delivery of the drugs, the chip remained in the patients for 1 year.

All patients liked the implants and all devices successfully delivered the correct dosages, with no negative side effects.

The next stage is to test different drugs for longer periods of time. In the future, Koch hopes that the chip will no only be able to administer drugs, but will also be able to sense exactly when to do this, instead of have a doctor push a button, or set a pre-programmed administering time.

The study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Scientists Cure Hemophiliacs

Scientist use gene therapy to cure hemophilia…

Scientists say they have successfully cured four patients with Hemophilia – a disease the causes defective blood clotting which leads to excessive bleeding that can kill.

After years of preclinical trials, which including curing hemophiliac mice, scientist finally started trials on humans using gene therapy.

The patients were injected with a specially built virus containing a working version of the gene responsible for blood clotting. The virus implants the gene into liver cells where they begin to produce the chemical need for clotting.

Red and White Blood Cells

After 6 months of injections to maintain elevated levels of the working gene, four of them were able to stop receiving injections altogether.

The researchers are now monitoring the patients for any signs of liver cancer caused by the virus, a known risk of gene therapy, but so far there have been no complications.

The next stage will be the trial of 20 patients to assess what dosage of the virus is necessary to get enough liver cells making clotting factor so that all patients can stop receiving injections.

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Stem Cells Safe Procedure To Treat Blindness

The world’s first clinical trials using embryonic stem cells to treat blindness suggest the technique is safe…

The world’s first human trial using stem cells to treat blindness, suggests that the procedure is safe.

US-based Advanced Cell Technology together with the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, have announced their first results, which showed the embryonic stems can be successful attached to deteriorated retina, without showing signs of rejection.

Trials using the same technique have now begun at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital.

The trials involved two patients; one elderly woman in her 70s with dry age-related macular degeneration, and another female patient in her 50s with Stargardt’s disease. Both had very poor vision and were registered blind.

The team injected a mixture, containing 50,000 retinal cells, into the eyes of the patients. The cells then attached to the retinal membrane and grow to replicate the function of other healthy cells surrounding it.

Four months after surgery, both patients were doing well, the team reported.

While the study was conducted to test if the procedure is safe, and not to test if it actually works, the patients did report improved vision following the operation.

If proved safe, the treatment should be able to treat patients with currently incurable blindness, however since using embryonic stem cells is a highly controversial topic, the technique will face great opposition, even if it’s deemed effective.

The team also notes that much more research needs to be conducted, and that it will be years before the treatment can be proven. Nevertheless, the results are certainly a step in the right direction for those who advocate stem cell therapy.