Category Archives: News

JOHNS HOPKINS RESEARCHERS REPORT THAT A NEW PEPTIDE HOLDS PROMISE FOR IMPROVING TREATMENT FOR DEGENERATIVE RETINAL DISEASES, SUCH AS AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION, DIABETIC MACULAR EDEMA AND DIABETIC RETINOPATHY. THESE VASCULAR DISEASES OFTEN RESULT IN CENTRAL VISION LOSS AS BLOOD VESSELS GROW INTO TISSUES AT THE BACK OF THE EYE, WHERE SUCH GROWTH SHOULD NOT OCCUR.

Cross Sectional Eye Anatomy. Credit: NIH National Eye Institute

The study, published Jan. 18 in Science Translational Medicine, shows that the injectable peptide may more strongly suppress abnormal blood vessel growth and leakage in the eye, cause regression of established abnormal vessels, and may last longer when compared to current treatments. If proven effective in humans, this could mean that patients need only a few needle injections to the eye per year, instead of the monthly injections that are the current standard of care.

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BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERS AT JOHNS HOPKINS REPORT THEY HAVE WORKED OUT A NONINVASIVE WAY TO RELEASE AND DELIVER CONCENTRATED AMOUNTS OF A DRUG TO THE BRAIN OF RATS IN A TEMPORARY, LOCALIZED MANNER USING ULTRASOUND. THE METHOD FIRST “CAGES” A DRUG INSIDE TINY, BIODEGRADABLE “NANOPARTICLES,” THEN ACTIVATES ITS RELEASE THROUGH PRECISELY TARGETED SOUND WAVES, SUCH AS THOSE USED TO PAINLESSLY AND NONINVASIVELY CREATE IMAGES OF INTERNAL ORGANS.

When Drug-Laden Nanoparticles (Left) Absorb Energy From Ultrasound Waves, Their Liquid Center (Green) Turns To Gas And Expands The Particles (Right), Loosening Their Exterior And Releasing The Drug (Blue).

Because most psychoactive drugs could be delivered this way, as well as many other types of drugs, the researchers say their method has the potential to advance many therapies and research studies inside and outside the brain.

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IN 2017, MORE THAN A QUARTER MILLION WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES WILL BE DIAGNOSED WITH INVASIVE BREAST CANCER, AND MANY WILL HAVE LUMPECTOMIES AND MASTECTOMIES TO REMOVE THEIR TUMORS AND SOME SURROUNDING TISSUE.

Nanofiber-Hydrogel Composite Material.

Though cancer-free, patients who undergo these procedures often have visible defects, even after painful reconstructive surgery, which uses soft tissue taken from another part of the body.

Unsatisfied with current practices that call for invasive reconstructive procedures, Sashank Reddy and Justin Sacks, two plastic surgeons at Johns Hopkins, teamed with Hai-Quan Mao, now the associate director of the University’s Institute for NanoBioTechnology, and Russ Martin, a postdoctoral fellow in Mao’s lab, to create something better.

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ONE NIGHT IN OCTOBER 2013, WHEN KINZIE LANDERS WAS 14 YEARS OLD, HER PARENTS RUSHED HER TO THE LOCAL EMERGENCY ROOM NEAR THEIR HOME IN TEXAS AS SHE WAS SLIDING INTO A COMA. UNAWARE THAT THEIR DAUGHTER HAD TYPE 1 DIABETES, HER PARENTS LISTENED HELPLESSLY AS DOCTORS EXPLAINED THAT THEY’D NEED TO INTUBATE HER. SHE WAS MINUTES AWAY FROM LOSING THE ABILITY TO BREATHE ON HER OWN.

Thoracic Surgeon Richard Battafarano, Otolaryngologist–Head And Neck Surgeon Alexander Hillel And Interventional Pulmonologist Andrew Lerner Are On The Multidisciplinary Team That Staffs The Johns Hopkins Complex Airway Clinic, Offering Comprehensive Diagnosis And Treatment For Patients With Laryngotracheal Stenosis.

“It was a lifesaving moment for which we’re forever grateful,” her mother, Shelly Landers, says.

But, Shelly adds, that single intervention led to future complications that Kinzie and her family never imagined. Months later, she’d developed so much scar tissue within her trachea that she struggled to breathe. Her airway was so swollen, remembers her mother, that doctors told her it was the diameter of a coffee straw.

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IN A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT STUDY WITH MICE, SCIENTISTS AT THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SHOW THAT A NOVEL COATING THEY MADE WITH ANTIBIOTIC-RELEASING NANOFIBERS HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BETTER PREVENT AT LEAST SOME SERIOUS BACTERIAL INFECTIONS RELATED TO TOTAL JOINT REPLACEMENT SURGERY.

A Titanium Implant (Blue) Without A Nanofiber Coating In The Femur Of A Mouse. Bacteria Are Shown In Red And Responding Immune Cells In Yellow.

A report on the study, published online the week of Oct. 24 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted on the rodents’ knee joints, but, the researchers say, the technology would have “broad applicability” in the use of orthopaedic prostheses, such as hip and knee total joint replacements, as well pacemakers, stents and other implantable medical devices. In contrast to other coatings in development, the researchers report the new material can release multiple antibiotics in a strategically timed way for an optimal effect.

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