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Star names back National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society campaign – Maidenhead Advertiser

March 24th, 2017 5:43 pm

A Strictly Come Dancing judge, a Great British Bake Off winner and two celebrity chefs have backed a new initiative by a Maidenhead-based charity.

Craig Revel Horwood, who has featured on Strictly since 2004, and Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge are among those who have teamed up with the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS).

They will be supporting the Time for Tea campaign, which is seeking to raise awareness of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and collect money for NRAS by holding fundraising tea parties.

Revel Horwood said: Rheumatoid Arthritis has had a huge impact on my life, growing up watching my mother struggling on a daily basis to cope with the effects of this disease.

I am delighted to be supporting the NRAS Tea Party - a fun and simple way to support NRAS valuable work and ensure they can continue to be there to help people like my mother.

Francis Quinn, who won the 2013 edition of the Great British Bake Off, and TV cook Lorraine Pascale have also signed up.

NRAS provides help and support for the 690,000 adults with RA in the UK, as well as 12,000 children with JIA (Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis).

The condition mainly affects the joints of sufferers, but can also cause problems in the heart, eyes and lungs.

The charitys head of fundraising, Michelle Vickers, said: Time for Tea is a great way for people who want to raise money for NRAS and be able to do it in a fun and inclusive way every month.

We love to bring people together and with the rise of baking across the UK this is a fantastic way of raising community spirit.

Whether you know someone with RA, you have RA or you just want to help people who are impacted with the life-altering condition, Time for Tea will help you to make a difference.

Visit http://www.nras.org.uk/tea-party to find out more and apply for a fundraising pack.

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China Diabetes Market Report: Patients, Prevalence, Oral Antidiabetics, Insulin and Diagnostics – Yahoo Finance

March 24th, 2017 2:45 am

NEW YORK, March 23, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- China currently has the highest number of diabetics in the world. The disease has presently reached epidemic proportions in the adult population. Around three decades ago, less than one percent of the Chinese adult population had diabetes. These levels, however, have increased to around 12 percent-making it the diabetes capital of the world.

The rise of diabetes in China can be attributed to a number of factors. Driven by a strong economic growth over the past few decades, the Chinese population has become richer, fatter and less mobile. Apart from urbanisation and sedentary lifestyles, Chinese people are also genetically more vulnerable to diabetes compared to Europeans and many other population groups. Other factors such as poor awareness of health issues, high consumption of white rice, poor healthcare infrastructure, etc. have also driven the prevalence of the disease.

China's diabetes statistics may ring alarm bells for the government and healthcare authorities, for drug and diagnostic manufacturers, however, it represents a goldmine. Fuelled by a continuous increase in healthcare expenditures, the market for diabetes drugs and diagnostics is expanding robustly in the country. This is creating lucrative opportunities for global healthcare companies at a time when growth rates in the more developed markets have declined.

IMARC's new report"China Diabetes Market Report: Patients, Prevalence, Oral Antidiabetics, Insulin and Diagnostics"provides an analytical and statistical insight into the Chinese diabetes market. The report provides both current and future trends in the prevalence, demographical breakup, diagnosis and treatment of diabetes in China. The research study serves as an exceptional tool to understand the epidemiology, market trends, therapeutic structure, competitive structure and the outlook of the Chinese diabetes market. This report can serve as an excellent guide for investors, researchers, consultants, marketing strategists and all those who are planning to foray into the China diabetes market in any form.

What we have achieved in this report?

Comprehensive situation analysis of the Chinese diabetes epidemiology and its dynamics: Focus of the Analysis: Historical, current and future prevalence of diabetes in China Historical, current and future prevalence of type-1 and type-2 diabetes in China Historical, current and future prevalence of diabetes in the urban and rural regions in China Historical, current and future prevalence of diabetes among males and females in China Historical, current and future prevalence of diabetes among various age groups in China Historical, current and future diagnosis rates for diabetes in China Historical, current and future drug treatment rates for diabetes in China

Comprehensive situation analysis of the Chinese Oral Antidiabetics market and its dynamics: Focus of the Analysis: Performance of the Oral Antidiabetics market in China Performance of key classes Performance of key players Market outlook

Comprehensive situation analysis of the Chinese Insulin market and its dynamics: Focus of the Analysis: Performance of the Insulin market in China Performance of key classes Performance of key players Market outlook

Comprehensive situation analysis of the Chinese diabetes diagnostics market and its dynamics: Focus of the Analysis: Performance of the diabetes diagnostics market in China Market Segmentation Key players Market outlook Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p03451748-summary/view-report.html

About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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Anti-aging peptide recovers fur growth, kidney health in mice – Medical News Today

March 24th, 2017 2:42 am

An anti-aging therapy could be one step closer; in a new study, researchers reveal how a peptide led to the destruction of cells that play a role in aging, reversing fur loss, kidney damage, and frailty in mice.

The research describes how the peptide stops levels of a protein called FOXO4 from increasing in senescent cells, which are cells that lose the ability to replicate and destroy themselves, but which remain metabolically active.

Senescent cells accumulate with age, and studies have shown that they can contribute to the aging process by causing damage to neighboring cells and impairing tissue function.

Previous research has shown that in senescent cells, levels of FOXO4 rise to prevent another protein called p53 from prompting the cells' self-destruction.

By blocking FOXO4 with the peptide, the research team has been able to restore programmed cell death, or apoptosis, in senescent cells.

"Only in senescent cells does this peptide cause cell death," says senior author Peter de Keizer, a researcher of aging at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

"FOXO4 is barely expressed in non-senescent cells, so that makes the peptide interesting, as the FOXO4-p53 interaction is especially relevant to those cells, but not normal cells."

On administering the peptide to fast-aging mice in regular doses, the researchers were able to reverse age-related conditions, such as fur loss and poor kidney health.

The findings were recently published in the journal Cell.

For their study, the researchers tested the peptide on older mice that had aged naturally and mice that had been genetically modified to age rapidly.

Both groups of mice developed characteristics and health problems commonly associated with aging, such as loss of fur, a decline in kidney health, and frailty.

Some of the rodents in each group were given infusions of the peptide three times a week for 10 months, while the remaining mice were monitored as controls.

Both the fast-aging and naturally aged mice saw improvements with peptide treatment, with no apparent side effects.

Within 10 days, the fast-aging mice began to experience fur regrowth. After 3 weeks, the naturally aged mice began to see improvements in fitness, compared with mice that did not receive the peptide.

Additionally, both the fast-aging and naturally aged mice started to demonstrate improvements in kidney function from 1 month after peptide treatment.

The team notes that the effects of peptide treatment were was so strong in fast-aging mice that doses needed to be reduced over the study period.

The researchers say that their findings support previous research showing that targeting senescent cells can help to reverse aging and increase lifespan, though much more research is warranted.

"The common thread I see for the future of anti-aging research is that there are three fronts in which we can improve: the prevention of cellular damage and senescence, safe therapeutic removal of senescent cells, to stimulate stem cells - no matter the strategy - to improve tissue regeneration once senescence is removed," says de Keizer.

He and his colleagues now plan to conduct a clinical trial to assess the safety of the peptide in humans.

Learn how exercise prevents cellular aging by increasing mitochondrial capacity.

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‘Bad luck’ mutations increase cancer risk more than behavior, study says – fox5sandiego.com

March 24th, 2017 2:42 am

The uncrontolled division of cancer cells leads to the carcinogenesis.

The uncrontolled division of cancer cells leads to the carcinogenesis.

For the first time, researchers have estimated what percentage of cancer mutations are due to environmental and lifestyle factors, hereditary factors and random chance. Overall, 66% of the genetic mutations that develop into cancer are caused by simple random errors occurring when cells replace themselves, according to a new study published in the journal Science.

Environmental factors contribute 29% of mutations, while the remaining 5% are inherited, say Cristian Tomasetti and Dr. Bert Vogelstein, both of Johns Hopkins University.

In a previous paper, Tomasetti and Vogelstein asserted that your risk of developing cancer is largely based on random DNA errors that occur when self-renewing cells divide. In their new paper, they offer more detail describing how dumb luck plays a more significant role than either environmental, lifestyle or hereditary factors in causing this disease.

Every time a perfectly normal cell divides, as you all know, it makes several mistakes mutations, explained Vogelstein in a briefing. Now most of the time, these mutations dont do any harm. They occur in junk DNA, genes unrelated to cancer, unimportant places with respect to cancer. Thats the usual situation and thats good luck.

Occasionally, one of these random miscopies will occur in a cancer driving gene.

Thats bad luck, said Vogelstein.

Though this fact may be demoralizing to some people, researchers noted it might bring comfort to people with cancers they worked to prevent or the parents of children with cancer.

Your lifestyle still matters

In a previous research paper published in 2015, Tomasetti and Vogelstein used a mathematical model to first present this idea that cancer risk is strongly correlated with the total number of divisions undergone by normal cells. For 31 cancers, the researchers first estimated the number of stem cells in tissues where disease arose and then they estimated the rate at which these cells divide. Comparing these to incidence of these cancers in the United States, the two researchers found a strong correlation between cell division and lifetime risk of each given cancer.

For their new study, Tomasetti and Vogelstein worked with Lu Li, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to analyze genome sequencing and epidemiologic data from 32 cancer types, including breast and prostate cancers. This time, the research team concluded that nearly two-thirds of mutations in these cancers are attributable to random errors that occur naturally in healthy, dividing cells during DNA replication.

Drilling deeper, they searched 423 international cancer databases to examine data from 69 countries spanning 6 continents, representing 4.8 billion people or two-thirds of the worlds population. Then, as theyd done in their previous study, they estimated stem cell divisions in different human tissues and compared this to lifetime incidence of 17 cancer types.

Once again, their new mathematical model showed a high correlation between cancer incidence and the total number of divisions of normal cells. This time, though, their finding that 66% of all genetic mutations leading to cancer are caused by random errors crossed borders and so ranged across many different potential environmental factors that might lead to cancer.

While this randomness is upsetting, even mutations caused by environmental or lifestyle factors are haphazard, explained Tomasetti.

Take smoking: Cigarette smoking undoubtedly leads to more genetic mutations than might normally happen, yet where the DNA defects occur on a smokers genome is completely accidental. In other words, mutations caused by smoking, just like random mutations, can affect either cancer driving genes or stretches of DNA that are irrelevant to cancer.

Lifestyle factors still matter for cancer prevention.

Just one mutation is not sufficient to cause cancer typically three or more mutations must occur, Tomasetti noted. If, say, your cells miscopy DNA and so cause two random mutations, a third mutation is still needed. Obesity, smoking, lack of exercise and poor eating habits might supply that necessary third gene defect that tips your body into a disease state.

The new study, then, does not let us off the hook: We play a role in protecting our good health.

Paradigm shift

Since the 1970s, the accepted wisdom underlying cancer research was that genomic alterations caused cancer and most of these alterations are mutations, explained Tomasetti. As envisioned by scientists, DNA defects cause the haywire growth of cells which disturb the natural processes of your body.

Naturally, that leaves one fundamental question: What causes these mutations?

Widespread belief suggests the majority of cancers are caused by behavioral and environmental factors, with inherited genetic mutations causing the remainder of cases.

This is the current paradigm and we feel that our new research breaks this paradigm, said Tomasetti. We discovered theres a third factor that actually causes most of the mutations random errors made during normal cell division.

So why was this never appreciated before? It was never measured before and when you measure something you can have a sense of how important that is, said Tomasetti.

In an editorial published alongside the new study, Martin A. Nowak, a professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University, and Bartlomiej Waclaw, a researcher at University of Edinburgh, wrote that a large portion of the variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained, in the statistical sense, by the number of stem cell divisions.

An understanding of cancer risk that did not take bad luck into account would be as inappropriate as one that did not take environmental or hereditary factors into account, Nowak and Waclaw wrote.

While Tomasetti and Vogelsteins first paper led to no less than a few hundred papers written in response, their new study appears to be more soothing to the nerves.

Answers for those who did everything right

I was concerned about the last article, because it didnt talk enough about prevention and it left people thinking, Gee youre just destined to get cancer and you cant do anything about it,' said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. Brawley, who was not involved in the research said he was much happier with the current paper, even if it doesnt tell me anything I hadnt known for the last 20 years.

Bert Vogelstein is an incredibly well-respected, well-known cancer biologist who published a paper very similar to this you might even call it part one of this paper two years ago, said Brawley, explaining the original paper caused quite a stir because it implied that almost all cancers were not preventable.

And it really upset the anti-smoking people, it upset the folks who are in the nutrition and physical activity for cancer prevention he really upset the prevention crowd, said Brawley, who believes the new paper is generally a better explanation of the original theory.

Keep in mind its a mathematical simulation, its not a clinical trial, but [Vogelstein is] noting that a certain number of cases are due to replication error, DNA replication error, in normal growth, said Brawley. Those are cancers we really cannot do a lot to prevent.

Brawley described counseling a 47-year old woman who said shed done everything right: She ate healthy, exercised, didnt smoke and got yearly mammograms. Despite having a clean mammogram just six months earlier, she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.

How did this happen to me? she asked Brawley.

The answer is she had a replication error, said Brawley. And the way you think about replication error is DNA is always being copied throughout your body a million times every day, you know, cells die off and cells are replaced. We have mitosis and an important thing in cell duplication or mitosis is DNA is replicated or copied and the DNA is supposed to be copied exactly and occasionally theres a misreplication or miscopying.

Brawley appreciates the fact that Tomasetti and Vogelstein acknowledge the past controversy and make a point in their new paper of addressing prevention and detection.

I think that we need to have a balance between cancer prevention efforts as well as what I would call wise early detection or wise screening efforts, said Brawley.

Theres a tendency in the US to think that every screening test is great. Unfortunately there are screening tests that actually cause more harm than good, said Brawley.

In the 1960s and 1970s, we stopped doing chest X-ray screening for lung cancer because, after 20 years of doing it, we finally got around to doing an assessment and we found the death rates were higher in the screened versus the unscreened group, said Brawley. The reason? When a patients chest X-ray was found to be abnormal, the follow-up biopsy might cause a collapsed lung or heart attack, he explained.

We still have huge debates whether theres a benefit to prostate cancer screening. There, the benefit might be to a subset of men and not to all men thats an unknown, thats a question mark, said Brawley.

When it comes to mammography screening, thats something all of us believes saves lives but its not perfect, said Brawley.

The best studies that we have show that mammography reduces risk of death by 30%, said Brawley. That means if you have a group of women who habitually get screened, get good high quality screening, mammography is not going to help 70%.

According to Vogelstein, the new study is important for two reasons.

We hope this research offers comfort to the literally millions of patients who have developed cancer but have led near perfect lifestyles, said Vogelstein. Non-smokers who have avoided the sun, these cancer patients eat healthy diets, exercised and done everything to prevent cancer. But they still get it, said Vogelstein.

Its important, especially for parents of children who have cancer, that people understand the root causes of cancer.

The first thing someone looking on the web would see is cancer is caused by environment or heredity, said Vogelstein. When it comes to the parent of a child with cancer, they think they either transmitted a bad gene or exposed their child to an environmental agent that caused disease.

This causes a tremendous amount of guilt, said Vogelstein, who is also a pediatrician and has seen such cases. We dont need to add guilt to an already tragic situation.

The second reason the study is important is because cancer will strike about 1.6 million people in the United States this year. And it will kill 600,000 of us, said Vogelstein. We need a completely new strategy.

He hopes new awareness of these random mutations will inspire many scientists to devote their efforts to various strategies to limit the damage that these internal enemies do.

The first step is simply recognizing these enemies exist, said Vogelstein.

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Scientists Spot Gene for Rare Disorder Causing Deafness, Blindness – Montana Standard

March 24th, 2017 2:42 am

THURSDAY, March 23, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they have found the genetic cause of a rare disorder that causes children to be born with deafness, blindness, albinism and fragile bones.

The syndrome is called COMMAD. It occurs when children inherit two mutations -- one from each parent -- of a gene called MITF. Each parent is also deaf due to another rare genetic disorder called Waardenburg syndrome 2A.

Further research is needed to learn more about the role of MITF during early development and how mutations in this gene result in the development of Waardenburg 2A and COMMAD, said researchers from the U.S. National Eye Institute (NEI).

COMMAD stands for the names of a number of conditions that affect people with this disorder. It includes missing tissue around the eye; abnormally dense bones prone to fracture; small or abnormally formed eyes; an abnormally large head; albinism (lack of melanin in the skin, eyes and hair), and deafness.

Identifying the genetic cause of COMMAD is important because deaf people commonly choose to marry other deaf persons. People who are deaf may not know that their deafness is associated with Waardenburg 2A, the researchers explained.

Deaf couples may want to consider genetic counseling prior to conceiving a child. If both potential parents have Waardenburg 2A, they risk passing mutated versions of MITF to their children, who would then have COMMAD, study lead author Dr. Brian Brooks said in a NEI news release.

Brooks is chief of the NEI's Pediatric, Developmental, and Genetic Ophthalmology section.

The study describes two unrelated cases of children born with COMMAD who inherited the two mutations of MITF from their parents.

Most people who are born deaf don't have Waardenburg 2A. Along with hearing loss, people with the syndrome have premature graying of the hair, blue eyes, fair skin and sometimes vision problems, the researchers said.

The study was published recently in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

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Could the Tiny Zebrafish Teach Us to Cure Blindness? – Smithsonian

March 24th, 2017 2:42 am

Zebrafish are only a few centimeters long, but theyve got some supersized powers. When their hearts or brains are damaged, they regenerate. When their fins are cut off, they grow back. When they are blinded, they can regain the ability to see.

Its this last ability thats the subject of some potentially groundbreaking new research. Vanderbilt scientists may have discovered the key to zebrafish retina regeneration. If the process can be replicated in humans, it stands to power new treatments for blindness caused by retinal disease and injury.

As I learned more and more about how zebrafish are capable of regenerating most tissues and organs, I was intrigued, especially with the fact that the zebrafish retina can be damaged to cause blindness yet it only takes about three to four weeks before vision is restored, says James Patton, the biological sciences professor at Vanderbilt who directed the research.

Zebrafish, a freshwater minnow named for their characteristic stripes, havelong been a popular test subjectfor researchers. They breed easily in captivity, grow quickly, and as babies are completely transparent, which makes it easy to study their organs. Then there are their regenerative abilities. As they share 70 percent of humans' genetic code, its often possible to use them to study human genetic traits and diseases.

The structure and cell types of zebrafish retinas are almost identical to those of humans. Each contain three layers of nerve cells: light-detecting photoreceptors, signal-integrating horizontal cells, and ganglion cells that pass visual information on to the brain.

So I became even more intrigued as to why humans cannot regenerate damaged retinas and fish can, Patton says.

Retinal damage is behind many of theleading causes of blindnessin the developed world. These causes includemacular degeneration, an often age-related disease in which part of the retina becomes damaged, causing blurring and blank spots in vision; diabetic retinopathy, where diabetes damages the blood vessels in the retina; andretinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition causing degeneration of the retinas rod photoreceptor cells. Since human retinas do not regenerate, any retinal damage caused by disease or injury is permanent.

Patton and his team became curious about how, exactly, zebrafish retina regeneration is initiated. Previous studies have suggested that growth factors secreted by dying photoreceptors in the fishes eyes might start the process, sparking stem cells in the eyes to begin dedifferentiating (going back to an earlier developmental stage) and then differentiating into new retina cells. But Mahesh Rao, one of Pattons graduate students, got the idea to look at the neurotransmitter GABA, a chemical messenger in the brain that reduces the activity of neurons, noting that GABA had been found to control stem cell activity in mice brains.

The team tested Raos idea by blinding zebrafishthis can be done by putting them in darkness for a few days, then exposing them to bright lightthen giving them GABA-stimulating drugs. They also gave GABA-lowering drugs to normally sighted zebrafish. They found that the blind fish given GABA-stimulating drugs could not regenerate their retinas normally, while the normal fish with lowered GABA levels began regenerating their retinas. This suggested that it was, indeed, a lowered concentration of GABA that started the retina regeneration process.

The findings were published this month in the journalStem Cell Reports.

We hope to use thefishmodel to understand the factors and mechanisms regulating retina regeneration in the hope that we can apply lessons learned to humans, Patton says.

The team is beginning to test the GABA theory on mice. If that works, it will be on to human trials, testing whether GABA inhibitors can stimulate retina regeneration.

If the research does indeed prove successful in humans, some of thenearly 40 million blind people worldwidemay one day have a tiny, striped fish to thank.

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Patient prepared for blindness while waiting two years for operation – Stuff.co.nz

March 24th, 2017 2:42 am

TERESA RAMSEY

Last updated16:23, March 24 2017

Supplied

Allen Taylor with 200 life size cut-outs of health workers during the New Zealand Public Service Association's health underfunding roadshow outside Thames Hospital.

Allen Taylor was waiting so long for a cataract operation, he came close to losinghis sight.

Born cross-eyed, the Waihi man was already blind in one eye after a botched eye operation when he was 3yearsold.

So when he was told by his optometrist that he needed a cataract operation on his good eye, he was keen to get it done.

However, it took two years on the waiting list before he had the operation at Waikato Hospital last year.

"I was told by my optometrist that if I didn't have anything done shortly, I could go blind," he said.

"I was really worried. When I was waiting, I sort of got used to the idea that I could be blind."

Taylor, 82, said hospital waiting lists shouldn't be so long.

He had friends whose health had deteriorated while on long waiting lists for vital operations, he said.

"It's been going on for a long time but nobody seems to do anything."

Taylor came to Thames Hospital on March 22 to offer his support for the New Zealand Public Service Association's Health Underfunding Roadshow.

The nationwide campaign travelled to 38 towns across the country to raise awareness about health underfunding.

The events included local stories and 200 life size cut-outs of health workers missing due to underfunding.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation industrial advisor Lesley Harry said underfunding was now affecting patient safety.

"Poor access to care, care rationing, health worker burnout and strained infrastructure are now common,"she said.

"The 2016Budget made it clear that the government was not properly assessing current or future funding needs."

Campaign Organiser Simon Oosterman said Thames Hospital hadthe same issues with workload, staffing and funding as the national survey results.

According to a recentYesWeCare.nz survey of 6000 health workers, nine out of 10 people working in health say they don't have enough staff or resources.

The survey results also showed 82 per cent of health workers thoughtthe government's current level of health funding was affecting their workload and work pressure.

YesWeCare.nz is a new community/health workforce coalition for better health funding and includes 83,000 Kiwis working in health, their unions, ActionStation and the People's MentalHealth Review.

-Stuff

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Field of biotechnology is ever expanding and evolving – BSI bureau (press release)

March 24th, 2017 2:42 am

Dr Kalpana Joshi shares her thoughts with BioSpectrum on current biotech education and the academia-industry gap

Dr Kalpana Joshi is Professor and Head of the Department of Biotechnology at Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE). The institute is affiliated to Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) and recognised by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi. Recently, SCOE has received NAAC "A" Grade. BTech Biotechnology course run by the department is first AICTE approved course in SPPU. Dr Joshi completed her doctorate in molecular biology from National Chemical Laboratory. She headed in-vitro biology group at Pharma R and D, besides giving consultancy to pharma companies like Glenmark, Matrix, Hyderabad and Orchids, Chennai. The SCOE department has a team of faculty with expertise in fermentation engineering, biochemical engineering, pharma biotechnology, biochemistry, analytical chemistry and microbiology. Faculty is active in fetching grants for research, patents and publications. Dr Joshi shares her thoughts with BioSpectrum on current biotech education and the academia-industry gap

Do you think biotech schools are teaching what industry needs?

Field of biotechnology is ever expanding and evolving. Pharma companies have diversified into production and business of biotherapeutics, vaccines and immunologicals, and molecular diagnostics. Industries such as agri-biotech, dairy biotech, food biotech are coming up and have specific requirement of skilled manpower. I feel giving hard core fundamental knowledge of the subjects and skill development are essential to meet industry requirement.

Specific requirements of industry when it comes to biotech education?

Industry requires experienced and trained manpower. There is no time for training in companies. I remember my former boss used to tell me Kalpana this is not university for training. Take someone who would work from the next day.' Biotech schools need to develop necessary laboratory skills and strong basics.

Where is the gap according to you?

As a manager in drug discovery R&D of top pharma company, I used to interview candidates from renowned biotech schools in India. Major observation was students lacked practical skills and basic knowledge of fundamental subjects like microbiology, immunology, molecular biology, biochemistry etc. We at SCOE decided to focus on developing strong knowledge and skills in three pillars of biotechnology namely microbiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology with blend of engineering fundamentals like mass transfer, heat transfer, unit operations, plant design and process development. We have created excellent facilities so that students get to handle top brand equipment like PCR, HPLC, Lyophiliser, fermenters, microfiltrations and develop practical skills in molecular biology, animal tissue culture and data analysis softwares. Gap is at many places. I can give examples. Students use graph papers to plot graphs. We need to train them to use Excel to analyse data and plot graphs using softwares like Prism and SPSS normally used by industries

What do you do to bridge the skill gap if it exists?

At Sinhgad Institutes, we have state-of-the-art laboratories where students are trained for developing practical skills in microbiology, enzymology, molecular biology, fermentations and reaction engineering. We also teach them computation and statistics. Students work on projects and develop skills in at least one technique such as PCR, HPLC or cell culture. They are trained to be analytical, logical and develop problem solving capacity. Students are encouraged to do industry internships and projects in collaboration with companies and national laboratories.

What has been the investment in student training?

We have invested in infrastructure, facilities, equipment and faculty. Faculty members are PhD/ MTechs from renowned institutes like NCL, IITs, ICTs with industry exposure. If faculty does not know what is happening in the industry then it is difficult to percolate it to students. We ensure that faculty gets exposure to industry and maintain interactions with industry experts

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CEEB 2017: Applications released for MSc, MTech Biotechnology courses, check here – The Indian Express

March 24th, 2017 2:42 am

By: Express Web Desk | New Delhi | Published:March 24, 2017 12:07 pm CEEB 2017: The details of the course under each university is provided in three prospectus available on the official website

CEEB 2017: The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi has announced that it will hold The Combined Entrance Examination (CEEB) 2017 for MSc in Biology, MSc in Agricultural Biotechnology and MTech in Biotechnology will be held on May 19, 2017. Candidates who are interested in the courses can apply online from JNUs official website.

The exam is being held by JNU on behalf of 14 universities that offer Agricultural Biotechnology, 32 that offer Biotechnology and six institutes offering MTech in Biotechnology. The details of the course under each university is provided in three prospectus available on the official website along with the fees to be paid at the time of admission. Candidates can also check the eligibility requirements for each college provided in the prospectus.

Steps to apply for CEEB 2017:

Go to the official website for JNU (jnu.ac.in).

Click on the admissions tab on the home page.

Click on the notification Combined Entrance Examination for Biotechnology Programmes [ CEEB ] Prospectus 2017-18 and read the prospectus provided for each course. Make sure to check all details before proceeding.

On the admissions page, click on Apply online and follow the link for CEEB.

Read the instructions carefully and click on I Accept Apply Online.

Fill in the details in the fields provided and click on Register.

Download a copy of the application form for further reference.

For more stories on CEEB 2017, click here

For all the latest Education News, download Indian Express App now

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Cellect Biotechnology Provides Corporate Update and Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2016 Financial Results – P&T Community

March 24th, 2017 2:42 am
Cellect Biotechnology Provides Corporate Update and Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2016 Financial Results
P&T Community
TEL AVIV, Israel, March 23, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cellect Biotechnology Ltd. (NASDAQ:APOP) (TASE:APOP), a developer of innovative technology which enables the functional selection of stem cells, today provided a corporate update and ...

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Knee arthritis: Joint preservation and not replacement are the new … – Hindustan Times

March 24th, 2017 2:41 am

Everyone suffering from degenerative arthritis is scared of one operation -- knee replacement surgery. Now, researchers believe the key to success here could be preserving the joint rather than go in for a replacement.

For those suffering with age-related (degenerative) arthritis of the knee, a stage comes when all the reasonable non-operative options stop working. Thats when the option of surgery comes into the picture.

Dr J Maheshwari of Max Smart Super Specialty Hospital, Saket said that one common option suggested is knee replacement, and it being as intimidating as it sounds, it is natural that patients look for an alternative. Other non operative options such as stem cell treatment, oil messages etc. with large claims and no scientific backing also come into consideration.

Scared of the so called Total Knee Replacement, the patients often fall for alternative treatment modalities with tall claims and no scientific validity, and ultimately land up in a situation where knee replacement, like it or not, remains the only option.

Sometimes the surgery is delayed so much that even the best of surgeons cannot give a good result, and the fear of the patient actually comes true, said Dr Maheshwari.

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There is a recent advance in medicine, where the scientific community is focusing on joint preservation and not replacement options. Some of these are non surgical -- such as physiotherapy, weight reduction, modification in lifestyle etc, but others are surgical, where effort is to keep the original joint going. Some of these options may be surgical, aimed at corrective surgery in early stages of the arthritis, where one can see that if left to itself that particular joint is going to the path of damage, and hence future knee replacement.

These options could be key-hole surgery (arthroscopic surgery), which, if done at the right time, can halt the progress of the disease and may save one from knee replacement. Unfortunately, most patients do not have significant complaints at this stage, and may ignore their problem.

Joint preservation is the key here. (Shutterstock)

Dr Maheshwari further stated, in some patients with deformed legs (bow legs), the progress of arthritis can be halted by correcting the alignment, what is called high tibial osteotomy (HTO). Best approach, therefore would be to see a specialist to get yourself evaluated whether you have some such issue which may be the reason for your knee to take downhill course, and whether some intervention can prevent it from reaching knee replacement stage. Even in cases, where joint is damaged beyond a certain level, it is not necessary that total replacement is the only option. There are options where only the damaged part of the knee is capped (partial replacement).

Knee, as we know it today, is made up of three distinct compartments. Often the damage is limited to only one of the three compartments, and in such cases, a limited surgery on that compartment can produce good results, without changing the whole joint. These operations are more recent in the armamentarium of knee surgeons, and have been shown to be effective. These options are not applicable in every patient of advanced knee arthritis, but in some, selected by careful investigations and special X rays. These are good joint preserving options.

As a last resort, knee replacement is always an option in case it is ascertained that all compartments of the knee are damaged. Also knee replacement remains a potent back up option in any case where partial replacement has been done in the past, and for some reason it has not given desired results.

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Generational differences in arthritis prevalence – Nature.com

March 24th, 2017 2:41 am
Generational differences in arthritis prevalence
Nature.com
A longitudinal study of four birth cohorts (19351944, n = 1,598; 19451954, n = 2,208; 19551964, n = 2,781; and 19651974, n = 2,230) found that succeeding generations had a higher prevalence of arthritis. Various risk factors were associated with ...

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Strong Progress for Paralyzed Patients After Stem Cell Therapy, Company Says – KQED

March 24th, 2017 2:40 am

A small stem cell trial in which patients with severe spinal injuriesappeared to make remarkable progress is still showing excellent results, according to the company conductingthe research.

One of the patients in the trial is 21-year-old Kris Boesen, from Bakersfield, California, whose story we reported on last year.A car crash had left theBakersfield, California native with three crushed vertebrae, almost no feeling below his neck, and a grimprognosis. Doctors believed he would live the rest of his life as a paraplegic.

Enter stem cell therapy. Most treatments for serious spinal injuries concentrate on physical therapy to expand the range of the patients remainingmotor skills and to limit further injury, not to reverse the actual damage. But last April, as part of an experimental phase 2 clinical trial called SCiStar, researchers injected Boesen with 10 million stem cells. By July, hehad recovered use of his hands to the point where he could use a wheelchair, a computer and a cellphone, and could take care of most of his daily living needs.In recent months his progress has continued, says his father.

Boesen is not the only patient to have improved in the trial, according toAsterias Biotherapeutics, which is conducting the research. Boesen is part of a cohort of six patients who were experiencing various levels of paralysis and were injected with the 10 million stem cell dose. In a Jan. 24update, the company saidfive of those patientshad improved either one or twolevels on a widely used scale to measuremotor function in spinal injury patients.

On Tuesday, Asterias issued a newupdate, announcingthat the sixth patient in the cohort has experienced a similar improvement.

While spontaneous recovery for spinal injury patients does occur,the likelihood of all six patients recovering to the degree they haveis less likely, researchers say.

This is as good as you could hope at this point, said Charles Liu, Boesens neurosurgeon and director of the USC Neurorestoration Center. So far all the evidence is pointing in the right direction.

To measure improvement in spinal injury patients, researchers use two yardsticks: the Upper Extremity Motor Scale, or UEMS, and the International Standards for Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury, or ISNCSCI. On the UEMS scale,patients are scored from 0 to 5 on theirability to use five key muscles in the wrists, elbows and fingers. The ISNCSCI scale assesses where damage has occurred along the different levels of the cervical vertebrae, which generally determines the scope of impairment to the body and the level of care needed.

For instance, if a patient has sustained damage at the fourth cervical vertebra down, known as C-4, at the base of the neck, it generally means that person is paralyzed from the neck down, requiring round-the-clock care and a ventilator to breathe.A patient with a C-5 injury may not be able to move her arms or hands, requiring about 6 to 12 hours per day of assisted care; and at the C-6 level, better motor function mayallow a patient to take care of most of herdaily living needs on her own.

Which is all to say that even one level of recovery could substantially improve the daily life ofa spinal injury patient.

According to Asterias, all six patients in the 10million-cell cohort have improved their general UEMS scores, and jumped at least one motor level on the ISNCSCI scale on one or both sides of their body.

Two patients have improvedtwo motor levels on one side; and one patient,Boesen, has improved two motor levels on both sides.

Steve Cartt, president and CEO of Asterias, said anotherpatient, Jake Javier of Danville, California, has gonefrom partial paralysis to being able to use his hands well enough to considerpursuing a computer science career.

Throws Like a Regular Throw

In September, Boesens father, Rod Boesen, told us how excited he wasthat his son had regained some feeling in one of his feet. Last week, at11 months post-injection, the elder Boesensaid Kris has continued to improve.

Now he can move his toe and his knee together at the same time, Boesen said. Theyre about to give him a manual wheelchair now [instead of a motorized one]. He can grip with his hands enough to use a manual one.

Boesen said the movement in his sons arms and hands has greatlyimproved since September.Kris, a formerhigh school pitcher, had beenflinging a ball to his dog like people throw hand grenades, Boesen said. They kind of cradle them and thats how Kris would do it. But now he throws like a regular throw, tosses that ball down the hall, has that release point down, and just wings it.

Asterias is currently recruiting patients for a trial in which theyll receive 20 million stem cells, the optimal dose, according to company researchers. Two patients have already started the 20 million stem cell therapy, and six-month results from those patients will be released in the fall, Cartt said.

Patients who received 2 million stem cells in an earlier phase of the study have not shown much change in their condition, according to the Jan. 24 update.

Guarded Optimism

While Boesens father is impressed with the results, the optimism of researchers inside and outside the studyhas been guarded.The trial is still in its early stages, and the sample size is small, said Paul Knoepfler, a cell biology professor and stem cell researcher at UC Davis, who is not involved in the SCiStar study.

As a scientist, I still would want to wait for more data, Knoepfler said. Its certainly interesting, but its still early. Its a phase 2 trial.

To address the issue of small sample size, Asterias islooking at historical data to determinethe level of improvement for patients in similar circumstances who did not receive stem cell therapy. The company has said it found a meaningful difference in the recovery of its study patients compared to the norm.

Liu said one of the most importantresults is the lack of significant side effects or other negative outcomes resulting from the treatment to date.

Thats very significant to me, Liu said. Thats the first thing you look for, is anyone hurt from this therapy.

There was also a concern, he said, that some patients might regress over time, once the initial injection of stem cells wore off. Thathasyet to occur.

No one has lost anything theyve gained, Liu said. We were very happy to see that. This is all very promising.

The next step for the SCiStartrial will be to establish a control group, Cartt said.

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Blinded by science: Women go blind after stem-cell treatment at Florida clinic – MyPalmBeachPost (blog)

March 22nd, 2017 5:44 pm

Three women reportedly went blind after a stem cell treatment at a Florida clinic.

Whats more is that at least two of the women had gone to the clinic because it was listed as a macular degeneration study on a federal database.

Doctors call the incident an example of how risky such clinics can be.

News reports from The Associated Press, The New England Journal of Medicine and others say that a clinic the experimental procedure occurred was in Sunrise, Florida run by U.S. Stem Cell Inc.

Age-related macular degeneration can rob a person of their central vision.

The women were injected in their eyes with a cell preparation derived from her own fat tissue.

Ophthalmologist Dr. Thomas Albini of the University of Miami, who examined the women, said one woman is totally blind and the others legally blind. He said all suffered detached retinas.

These women had fairly functional vision prior to the procedure and were blinded by the next day, Albini said.

The clinics method hasnt been proven effective or tested for safety in people, he added.

Its very alarming to us as clinicians that somebody would do this to both eyes at the same time, said Albini.

Dr. Thomas Albini of the University of Miami.

Elizabeth Noble, one of the women said she was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration that blurs the central vision. The former educator said she heard about the treatment at the clinic for a research study described on ClinicalTrials.gov, a website run by the National Institutes of Health.

The former educator said she heard about the treatment at the clinic for a research study described on ClinicalTrials.gov, a website run by the National Institutes of Health.

Its very easy to register studies on ClinicalTrials.gov and essentially use a government website as a marketing device, Leigh Turner, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota, told BuzzFeed News.

Noble went to the clinic in June 2015 where staff took fat from around her belly button, extracted those cells and mixed them with Nobles blood plasma. They then injected it into both her eyes for $5,000, according to a story in Buzzfeed.

In an editorial accompanying the Journals report, stem cell expert Dr. George Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School, called the clinics treatment careless.

This report joins a small but growing medical literature highlighting the risks of such wanton misapplication of cellular therapy, he wrote. Providing such treatments for profit outside a proper research setting is a gross violation of professional and possibly legal standards, he said.

Buzzfeed reports this isnt the first time experimental procedures at a clinic have gone awry.

In 2010, for example, a woman with the autoimmune disease lupus died after her own bone marrow cells were injected into her kidneys at a clinic in Thailand.

In 2013, the Florida Department of Health revoked the medical license of Zannos Grekos over the death of a 69-year-old woman. He had extracted material from her bone marrow, filtered it, and then infused it into the arteries feeding her brain. The woman had a stroke.

Treatment for age-related macular generation is at the center of the Medicare fraud trial in West Palm Beach of Dr. Salomon Melgen, who happens also to be tied to a bribery scandal involving a U.S. senator.

Read The Palm Beach Posts coverage of the fascinating Melgen trial by clicking here.

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Science to Beat the Death: 200 300 years old human in the Future! – Sri Lanka Guardian

March 22nd, 2017 5:44 pm

Interview by Kev Kharas Photography byDamien Maloney Courtesy: Unlimited.World

(March 22, 2017, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) Russian-born Maria Konovalenko is one of the most visible faces at work in the pro-longevity community today. A zealous advocate for the fight against human ageing and a PhD scientist and researcher at the trailblazing Buck Institute in California, her ultimate goal is to use advances in science and technology to help people live the longest, healthiest lives they possibly can.

Her ethos that ageing and dying should be seen as diseases that humanity can work together to cure challenges everything we understand about natural life cycles. It also hints at the possibilities that lie ahead for radical human lifespan extension an extra 30 years in her lifetime, she conservatively estimates, then rapidly up to 200, 300. Beyond that, lies the rather more distant goal of human immortality.

VICE: Can you give me a broad overview what youre up to currently?

Maria K:Im in the third year of my PhD inBiology of Aging, set up by USC and the Buck Institute, the leading organisations in the field. I became a student here in the programmes first year so basically it started with us, were the guinea pigs. I feel incredibly privileged. Im focusing on ageing and stem cells in mouse tracheas were trying to figure out which genes are responsible for the failure of tissue to replenish itself.

With the emergence of things like the Google-fundedCalico Labs, would you say theres been a more concerted push to understand the secrets of immortality in recent years?

Not immortality. Were way off that. What were looking at now are the basic mechanisms that drive ageing, figuring out why our bodies lose their regenerative potential over time. Some people are answering different questions for example, why do we develop neurodegenerative pathologies, like Alzheimers? Were all looking at different mechanisms and then trying to interfere with them to slow down ageing. You can extend the lifespan of a worm ten times thats unbelievable! but when you look at more complex animals, like mammals, its not as effective.

What do you think we can expect within the limits of our lifetime?

If youre in your sixties or seventies, hopefully, within the next decade or so, well have a therapy that will extend your health span the years in which youre generally healthy and free from disease. Thats based on recent discussions at one of the big ageing conferences, and what some of the key biologists believe. If youre in your thirties, your life expectancy and the probability of more breakthrough techs being developed is way higher.

We could develop a combination of things that have a synergistic effect. For example: the Buck Institutes Dr Pankaj Kapahi created a worm that had two tailored genetic mutations if administered separately, these mutations had been shown to give about 100 and 60 percent extra lifespan, respectively. But, administered together, they didnt yield to a 160 percent increase in lifespan it was actually an increase of almost 500 percent!

How could AI help expand human lifespan?

AI could change the fate of humanity. People in biology are already dealing with tons of data, but AI would be able to come up with models and predictions based on the entire breadth of existing human knowledge in biology, very quickly. Heres an example: the IBM AI-supercomputer Watson was able to digest all our collective cancer knowledge and diagnose cancer patients more accurately than human physicians. AI wouldnt just be the tool that scientists use it would be the scientist.

What kind of opportunities could radically extended lifespans give us as a species?

I think that liberation from biological ageing is one of the most wonderful things that could happen to humans. We could end pain, disease, suffering; we could go to different planets, deal with the technological problems that space travel poses, create new worlds.

What do you think the global economy might look like in such a world?

Everything would immediately be different in a world with AI. Its very hard to make any meaningful predictions beyond its arrival. But I believe that when it does, technological progress will be the main driver of the economy. The economy of the previous two centuries was driven by what was inside the Earth oil, gas, things like that. Right now, the most expensive companies are tech companies.

If people were born into a world with the expectation of significantly longer life 200, 300 years what do you think would happen to punishments for crimes likemurder?

It would be costly for the government to keep criminals alive in prison for 200, 300 years. Wed have to rethink our old penitentiary system. If a person has done something wrong, maybe we could use tech to change underlying psychological factors that caused the person to commit the crime in the first place. Maybe well come up with a neurotransmitter cocktail, for example, that lets us treat criminals as if violence is a curable disease?

How about the ideal of romantic monogamy if people are living much longer, will they still want to spend their entire lives with one person?

People are very interesting creatures because our relationships adapt and change along with us. I know I might sound extremely optimistic, but there are way too many dystopias in the movies; how might the world look if everything goes right? If the future-society changes so much that monogamys no longer beneficial for an individual, then people will adapt. Chances are the number of pairs staying together for life will decrease. But I dont think it will hit zero.

As a generation, what kind of legacy do you think we should be looking to leave behind?

Definitely extending lifespan and health-span by somewhere in the region of 30 percent. This will happen within the coming few decades. As for the bigger legacy, people are building the base of the algorithms that will hopefully create AI in the more distant future. So that will probably be part of our legacy, too.

Do you believe in life after death?

I dont. However, have you seenBlack Mirror? The San Junipero episode I believe thats a very basic, optimistic representation of what mind uploading might look like in the future. If you could somehow transfer consciousness from a biological subject into some kind of storage device that could be life after death.

Is that something youd enjoy?

Absolutely. I dont want to die. You would be forever young.

Why would you like to live forever?

I would like to implement my dreams. And they range from having a pair of wings, to being able to drink a cocktail in a bar on Mars, to solving the existing problems of the world economic inequality, diseases that make our lives miserable, things like that. I have an endless list of dreams. And thats why I need an endless amount of hours.

Featured image: Maria at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California, credit Damien Maloney

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Macchiarini’s seventh transplant patient dies – The Local Sweden

March 22nd, 2017 5:44 pm

Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini. Photo: AP Photo/Lorenzo Galassi

A seventh patient of Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who was fired from a Swedish university over accusations of misconduct, has died.

Macchiarini performed two synthetic trachea transplants on Yesim Cetir, 26, in Stockholm in 2012 and 2013, but she suffered brutal complications until her death.

In the early hours of Monday, her father Hayrullah Cetir announced on his Facebook account that Yesim died at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.

"My daughter Yesim died tonight [Sunday] at 9.15pm may she rest in peace," he wrote, publishing a picture of her in a hospital bed.

Macchiarini operated on eight patients between 2011 and 2014, three of them at the prestigious Stockholm-based Karolinska Institute, which selects the winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine.

Only one of the patients survived after having a synthetic trachea, designed and implanted by Macchiarini, removed during a surgery in Russia in 2014.

Cetir was the victim of two failed surgeries as her trachea was first badly damaged during treatment in Turkey before she received surgery in Stockholm.

She went to the United States to receive a trachea from a donor, without being able to recover.

"It is with great sorrow that I offer my sincere condolences to Yesim Cetir's family after having heard about her death. It would of course be inappropriate to discuss her earlier medical condition and treatment," Macchiarini said in a written comment to Swedish public broadcaster SVT.

The surgeon gained worldwide fame in 2011 by carrying out the world's first graft of an artificial plastic trachea, which was to be colonized by the patients' stem cells.

While he said in the medical journal The Lancet that the technique was working, successive deaths of his patients and falsifications in the article led him to be sacked.

Macchiarini was suspected of having embellished his resume to be hired by the Karolinska Institute. He is being investigated by Swedish police.

The scandal hit the Nobel Prize and caused several resignations within the institute.

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Blindness | The Mighty

March 22nd, 2017 5:43 pm

Blindness is a lack or loss of vision that cannot be corrected with glasses or contact lenses. A person is considered legally blind when their vision is worse than 20/200. Most people who use the term blindness refer to being unable to see anything or unable to see any light. However, the majority of people considered legally blind can actually see something, like light, shadows, vague outlines or rough shapes.

Blindness can be caused by any number of issues, but the most common are injuries to the eye, diabetes, glaucoma and macular degeneration. Approximately 700,000 people in the US meet the legal definition of blindness.

The treatments available for blindness depend on the cause. Medications or surgeries may help, but often blindness is irreversible. Early intervention can be helpful in slowing the progression of blindness, though generally treatment involves receiving guidance and learning how to function with a visual impairment.

Although blindness can pose some challenges to those that are affected, people who are blind are just as capable of functioning and going about daily activities as people with perfect vision. Blindness does not affect everyone in the same way and those who have it can make their own unique decisions about how to manage it.

Some choose to use assistive devices such as canes or service dogs, while others do not. Blindness can be a visible or invisible condition. Many blind people do not fit into societal conceptions or stereotypes of what a person with blindness looks like.

Early intervention services, support groups and awareness organizations are all available for people with blindness and can often provide a great deal of assistance and resources. Research continues in the hopes of finding new technologies that can reverse blindness.

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Blindness | The Mighty

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Blindness | Low Vision | MedlinePlus

March 22nd, 2017 5:43 pm

If you have low vision, eyeglasses, contact lenses, medicine, or surgery may not help. Activities like reading, shopping, cooking, writing, and watching TV may be hard to do. The leading causes of low vision and blindness in the United States are age-related eye diseases: macular degeneration, cataract and glaucoma. Other eye disorders, eye injuries, and birth defects can also cause vision loss.

Whatever the cause, lost vision cannot be restored. It can, however, be managed. A loss of vision means that you may have to reorganize your life and learn new ways of doing things. If you have some vision, visual aids such as special glasses and large print books can make life easier. There are also devices to help those with no vision, like text-reading software and braille books.

The sooner vision loss or eye disease is found and treated, the greater your chances of keeping your remaining vision. You should have regular comprehensive eye exams by an eye care professional.

NIH: National Eye Institute

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Blindness | Low Vision | MedlinePlus

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About Us | blindness.org

March 22nd, 2017 5:43 pm

The Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) was established in 1971 by a passionate group of families driven to find treatments and cures for inherited retinal diseases that were affecting their loved ones. At that time, little was known about these blinding retinal degenerative diseases. Very little research was being done, and there were no clinical trials for potential treatments.

The Foundations goal was clear and focused: To drive the research that would lead to preventions, treatments, and vision restoration for the spectrum of degenerative retinal diseases, specifically macular degeneration including age related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, Usher syndrome, Stargardt disease and Leber congenital amurosis (LCA). Together these conditions affect more than 10 million Americans and millions more throughout the world.

Today, the Foundation Fighting Blindness is the worlds leading private funder of retinal disease research. That funding has been a driving force behind the progress toward cures, including the identification of more than 250 genes linked to retinal disease, and the launch of 20 clinical trials for potential treatments.

On an annual basis, the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Foundations Clinical Research Institute fund more than 100 research grants. The research projects are conducted by more than 150 research investigators at institutions, eye hospitals, and universities in the United States, Australia, England, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Israel, and Mexico.

More about the Foundation Fighting Blindness

More Information about Retinal Degenerative Diseases

Support our Mission

To Support the Foundations mission through a personal donation (Donate button) or to include the Foundation in your estate planning go to:http://myplantofightblindness.org/

Additional Resources

FFB Annual Reports FFB Board of Directors FFB Senior Staff

Leading retinal research scientists praise the advances enabled by the Foundation.

FFB is an extraordinary organization. It has given hope to people who didnt previously have hope, and it has supported the most important fundamental research in the retinal degenerations being carried out anywhere in the world today. Thanks to FFB, I have confidence that we will understand and be able to successfully treat many of these (retinal degenerative) diseases in the relatively near future... we are on the verge of human clinical trials and that would not have happened without the support of the FFB.

This incredible flowering of knowledgewas nursed into existence by the Foundation Fighting BlindnessIf you were to take the thousand most important papers published in the past 15 years in the field of inherited retinal diseases, you would find that over 900 have authors supported by this Foundation.

The Foundation has given a sense of hope to the families that are affected. Theyve pulled in scientists like me and others to be interested in the problems and apply our knowledgeits a proactive thing. The Foundation says we need this problem solved, how do we do it. There is no other foundation as focused as this one on these problems.

The Foundation, existing as an independent private entity, is able to very quickly fund young investigators and fund new and exciting projects. The Foundation has really played a major role in getting a number of important projects off the ground, which would not have happened without its support. The Foundation Fighting Blindness has stimulated interaction and collaboration between different scientific groups and centers, and it has funded a variety of research meetings that have helped scientists learn about areas outside their own, so they can do more productive and more powerful research.

The Foundation Fighting Blindness has played a tremendous role in my development as an ophthalmologist and scientist and in the growing of our program. The Foundation has gathered together scientists from all over the world who are interested in a similar thing: to try to cure these diseasesPeople have to say, yes Im interested in helping this year, and Im interested in helping next year because it just isnt Ok for a child to be born missing one gene product in their retina. The Foundation has been a kind of antenna conveying the resources from society to the scientist and they have done a very successful job of it.

For more information, please contact the Foundation at: 7168 Columbia Gateway Drive, Suite 100 Columbia, MD 21046 800-683-5555 800-683-5551 TDD info@FFB.org

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Brain ‘Rewires’ to Work Around Early Blindness – WebMD

March 22nd, 2017 5:43 pm

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 22, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Blindness at an early age triggers the brain to make new connections that enhance hearing, smell and touch, as well as memory and language, a new study suggests.

Researchers used MRIs to scan the brains of 12 people who were born blind or lost their sight by age 3.

The scans showed a number of changes in the brains of the people who were blind that weren't present in scans from people who could still see.

Changes caused by early blindness "may be more widespread than initially thought," lead author Corinna Bauer, a scientist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, said in a hospital news release.

"We observed significant changes not only in the occipital cortex [where vision is processed], but also areas implicated in memory, language processing and sensory motor functions," added Bauer.

Learning more about these connections could lead to more effective rehabilitation programs to help blind people, the researchers suggested.

According to senior study author Lotfi Merabet, "Even in the case of being profoundly blind, the brain rewires itself in a manner to use the information at its disposal so that it can interact with the environment in a more effective manner." Merabet is director of the Laboratory for Visual Neuroplasticity at the Schepens Eye Research Institute at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston.

"If the brain can rewire itself -- perhaps through training and enhancing the use of other modalities like hearing, and touch and language tasks such as Braille reading -- there is tremendous potential for the brain to adapt," added Merabet.

The study was published online March 22 in the journal PLOS ONE.

WebMD News from HealthDay

SOURCE: Massachusetts Eye and Ear, news release, March 22, 2017

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Brain 'Rewires' to Work Around Early Blindness - WebMD

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