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Patients with darker skin who received less accurate readings of their oxygen levels using pulse oximeters — the ubiquitous devices clamped on hospitalized patients’ fingers — also received less supplemental oxygen during ICU stays, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Source: STAT

Minority patient groups may receive less supplemental oxygen in the ICU due to inaccurate readings from pulse oximeters.

The Council on Strategic Risks hosted a webinar on June 8 titled RADx® Initiative & COVID-19 Solutions: Bioengineering at Unprecedented Speed and Scale. This NIH RADx Initiative was critical in the shift from solely laboratory-based testing to the public-private partnership that enabled the production and accessibility of point-of-care and over-the-counter COVID-19 tests. Source: Council on Strategic Risks

Researchers funded by NIH's RADx Tech program have developed a fast, cost-effective method to detect the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 variants. The team adopted a customizable genotyping approach to identify known variants and subvariants—an approach that can augment current surveillance.

As more machine learning tools reach patients, developers are starting to get smart about the potential for bias to seep in. But a growing body of research aims to emphasize that even carefully trained models — ones built to ignore race — can breed inequity in care. Source: STAT

As they grow, solid tumors surround themselves with a thick, hard-to-penetrate wall of molecular defenses. Getting drugs past that barricade is notoriously difficult. Now, scientists have developed nanoparticles that can break down the physical barriers around tumors to reach cancer cells. Once inside, the nanoparticles release their payload: a gene editing system that alters DNA inside the tumor, blocking its growth and activating the immune system. Source: Science Daily/UT Southwestern Medical Center

Improvements in brain sensing technologies have allowed clinicians to perform increasingly complex surgeries and enabled researchers to map the signals of the brain that control feeling, movement, and thought.

Osteoarthritis – a painful condition that results from the deterioration of the cartilage in our joints – affects millions of people worldwide. To combat this issue, NIBIB-funded researchers are developing an implantable, biodegradable film that helps to regenerate the native cartilage at the site of damage. Their study, performed in rabbits, could be an initial, important step in the establishment of a new treatment.

After less than two years of data collection and processing, RSNA has successfully delivered over 30,000 de-identified imaging studies to the Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center (MIDRC) project, an open-access platform which publishes data to be used for research. MIDRC is funded by NIBIB. Source: RSNA News