Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

Shortages of PPE for healthcare workers could be tackled using social media and 3D printing

Researchers have come up with the use of social media and 3D printing techniques to deal with the severe shortage of personal protective equipment (PPEs) for healthcare workers who are dealing with the highly infectious severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The

5 May 2020

Viral post alleging Obama-era device tax caused current PPE shortage is way off

A social media post, which in April was shared widely on Facebook and made appearances on a conservative online discussion forum, asserts that former President Barack Obama signed legislation that caused companies to manufacture medical devices overseas, including items essential for the current coronavirus pandemic.

5 May 2020

Indian physicians’ petition puts focus on race risks in the wake of COVID-19

A group of leading, ethnic Indian physicians has petitioned Britain's National Health Service (NHS) to formally include ethnicity as a COVID-19 infection risk factor for healthcare workers in the UK.

5 May 2020

Air ambulance service may lead to surprise bills for many patients

When an emergency dispatcher calls for a helicopter or plane to fly a critically ill patient to a hospital, they don't have time to check whether they take the patient's insurance.

5 May 2020

Study: Brazilian president’s attitude to coronavirus increases 'risky behavior' in the country

Jair Bolsonaro's public undermining of pandemic prevention efforts reduces social distancing in the parts of Brazil where his voter base is strongest, according to a new study using location data from over 60 million phones.

4 May 2020

Loss of smell may be related to neuroinvasive propensity of SARS-CoV-2

The novel coronavirus has rapidly infected millions over the world in over 187 countries and territories, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. One of the often-neglected and under-reported symptoms of the virus is the loss of the sense of smell or anosmia. Now, a new study out of Germany published on the preprint server medRxiv in April 2020 provides a quantified estimate of the magnitude of anosmia as a symptom of the coronavirus.

4 May 2020

Analysis of India's battle with COVID-19

A new paper published on the preprint server medRxiv in April 2020 suggests, based on mathematical models, that premature removal of lockdown restrictions in India could be highly counterproductive, enhancing the secondary spread of COVID-19, pushing up the number of fatalities and prolonging the course of the pandemic in India.

4 May 2020

AI tool automatically diagnoses atrial fibrillation and other ECG abnormalities

Artificial intelligence may be an aid to interpreting ECG results, helping healthcare staff to diagnose diseases that affect the heart.

4 May 2020

UC San Diego receives $55 NIH grant to advance clinical and translational research

The Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute at University of California San Diego has received a five-year, $54.7 million Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Center for Advancing Translational Science, part of the National Institutes of Health.

4 May 2020

New recommendations for treating the most critical COVID-19 patients

As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise and the deaths mount, the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs has drafted a set of recommendations for health care workers on the front lines, to help them make decisions on how to treat the most critical patients, those with severe lung or heart failure

4 May 2020

Wyss Institute and Cytosurge collaborate to improve CRISPR multiplexing

Today, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Cytosurge AG, a company manufacturing unique high-precision nanotechnology instruments, announced that they will collaboratively investigate CRISPR-based approaches to more effectively introduce multiple edits into the genome of single cells, while minimizing CRISPR-related toxicity.

4 May 2020

New computer modeling systems to predict spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus

Joe Mihaljevic, mathematical epidemiologist and assistant professor in Northern Arizona University's School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, is leading a new project to create computer modeling systems to predict outcomes of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, across four northern Arizona counties--Coconino, Navajo, Apache and Mohave.

4 May 2020

Testing in California still a frustrating patchwork of haves and have-nots

Months into the spread of the coronavirus in the United States, widespread diagnostic testing still isn't available, and California offers a sobering view of the dysfunction blocking the way.

4 May 2020

A $10 million grant enables expansion of BCG vaccine trial against COVID-19

An A$10 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will allow the Murdoch Children's Research Institute's clinical trial of the BCG vaccine against COVID-19 to extend to 10,000 healthcare workers across Australia, Spain and The Netherlands.

4 May 2020

COVID-plagued California nursing homes often had problems in past

When Jorge Newbery finally got through to his 95-year-old mother, Jennifer, on a video call April 18, she could barely talk or move and her eyes couldn't focus.

4 May 2020

AI-based technology could help accelerate clinical trials for glaucoma

The technology, supported by an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, could help accelerate clinical trials, and eventually may be used in detection and diagnostics, according to the Wellcome-funded study published today in Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics.

4 May 2020

FDA approves SFU professor's invention to wean COVID-19 patients from ventilators

Simon Fraser University professor Andy Hoffer hopes the SFU spinoff company he founded, Lungpacer Medical Inc., will help save the lives of COVID-19 patients using mechanical ventilators--and get them off more quickly, so that more ventilators can be available for all critically ill patients.

4 May 2020

Individuals with high risk of cancer and CVD cannot be identified based on family history

Certain genetic changes, termed "pathogenic variants," substantially increase risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer--the leading causes of death--but testing to identify individual carriers is not part of current clinical practice.

4 May 2020

Rapid affordable viral testing kits for low-resource settings

A new paper published on the preprint server bioRxiv* in April 2020 reports a low-cost, sensitive and rapid RT-PCR testing kit for the detection of COVID-19. If validated, this could provide an enormous boost to diagnostic testing in low-resource regions of the world.

4 May 2020

Scripps professor receives Research Program Award for advancing RNA-targeting medicines

In recognition of his high-impact work advancing the field of RNA-targeting medicines, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded Scripps Research Chemistry Professor Matthew Disney, PhD, a prestigious Research Program Award, to aid Disney's development of treatments for incurable diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS and frontotemporal dementia.

4 May 2020