NIBIB-supported researchers have developed a smart nanoprobe designed to infiltrate prostate tumors and send back a signal using an optical imaging technique known as Raman spectroscopy. The new probe, evaluated in mice, has the potential to determine tumor aggressiveness and could also enable sequential monitoring of tumors during therapy to quickly determine if a treatment strategy is working.

NIBIB is marking the 10-year anniversary of a commercialization program that helps innovators bring their medical devices from the lab to the marketplace.

While pacemakers have treated many patients with heart rhythm disorders, their bulky design and use of wires limits their usefulness and poses a risk of heart damage or infection. Now, researchers have cut the cords, shrunk the size, and expanded the capabilities of current designs.

A team of engineers led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and including colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently announced in the journal Nature Communications that they had successfully built a tissue-like bioelectronic mesh system. The mesh can grow along with the cardiac cells, allowing researchers to observe how the heart's mechanical and electrical functions change during the developmental process.

Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst

Many companies are now developing isothermal genetic tests that can diagnose a wide array of respiratory diseases, sexually transmitted infections and more. These products aim to provide precise and prompt diagnostic information, enabling people to quickly seek appropriate medical treatment. Source: Nature

A multidisciplinary group of NIH-funded scientists have successfully captured real-time, high-resolution images of the developing mouse placenta during the course of pregnancy. Their technique, which combines a surgically implanted window with a next-generation imaging system, provides key insight into placental development under both healthy and pathological conditions.

UMass Chan Medical School researchers have documented a phenomenon that had confounded clinicians: Some people persistently test positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on rapid home antigen tests despite obtaining concurrent negative PCR tests. Source: Medical Xpress

"We didn't," says Dr. Carlo Pierpaoli, chief of the NIH's laboratory on quantitative medical imaging. The NIH study was larger, Pierpaoli says, and used a control group that was better matched — in terms of age, profession, and location — to the group being studied. It also was designed to produce highly consistent results.

Source: NPR

Carlo Pierpaoli, lead author on the neuroimaging study, said while there is no evidence of brain injury on the MRIs, it is still possible that those reporting AHIs “may be experiencing the results of an event that led to their symptoms, but the injury did not produce the long-term neuroimaging changes that are typically observed after severe trauma or stroke.”

Source: The Hill