joints

Substance protects resilient staph bacteria

...ive medical implants such as catheters, artificial joints and heart valves. A substance found on the surface of Staphylococcus epidermidis has, for the first time, been shown to protect the harmful pathogen from natural human defense mechanisms that would otherwise kill the bacteria, according to scientist...

Nano-bumps could help repair clogged blood vessels

...s critical for the proper attachment of artificial joints once they are implanted. Now the biomedical engineers have seen the same kind of increased attachment for endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells lining the insides of arteries, said Thomas Webster, an associate professor of biomedical engineer...

UCSD medical/bioengineering reseachers show titanium debris satobtage artificial joints

...erate micrometer-sized particles. "As replacement joints are becoming increasingly common in aging populations, our results explain how such devices fail and suggest that improvements should be made in artificial joint design," said the study's senior author K.L. Paul Sung, Ph.D., UCSD professor of orthope...

Disabling gene defuses rheumatoid arthritis in mice

...preventing wayward immune cells from attacking the joints or on reducing the ability of these cells to open fire. The new results suggest it may be just as helpful to let these cells kill themselves and each other. "We already know a great deal about Foxo3a from studies of its role in some cancers, and hop...

Arthritis: What Wnt wrong?

...erestingly, Wnt-7b was strongly upregulated within joints at sites of disease manifestation: mainly in synovium of RA but in synovium, cartilage, osteophyte, and bone of OA. In addition, the findings that Wnt-7b was frequently found at sites of inflammation and elicited an inflammatory response are consiste...

Results of world's first gene therapy trial for arthritis show approach safe, feasible

...macrophages and lymphocytes colonize the lining of joints where they release proteins called cytokines that ...Vector Core Facility. According to their results, joints treated with the genetically modified cells exhibited high levels of IL-1 Ra, indicating successful ...

Fluoride poisoning in China due to clay, not coal

...le, and in severe cases can distort bones, stiffen joints and lead to paralysis. In Guizhou province, where the problem is most serious, there were 10.5 million cases of dental fluorosis and just over half a million cases of skeletal fluorosis in 2001. Reference: Chinese Journal of Endemiology 24, 468 (200...

Bare metal stents deliver gene therapy to heart vessels with less inflammation in animal studies

...ely used in medicine. Some examples are artificial joints and orthopedic pins and rods, pacemaker electrodes, and titanium tooth implants. "The results of our study may have broader implications for other diseases in which implantable medical devices may be used to deliver gene therapy," said Dr. Levy. Dr....

Stem cells from muscles can repair cartilage

...f Medicine, researchers induced damage to the knee joints in 36 12-week-old rats and divided them into three...t fatty tissue and tissue lining the space between joints (synovium) might also be sources of stem cells, obtaining these cells is more invasive than muscle b...

Rice bioengineers pioneer techniques for knee repair

... about the potential treatment of entire arthritic joints and not just small defects," said lead researcher and lab director Kyriacos Athanasiou, the Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Bioengineering. Athanasiou's new self-assembly method involves a break from conventional wisdom in bioengineering; almost all...

Animal brains 'hard-wired' to recognize predator's foot movements, Queen's study suggests

...f small reflective markers attached to the central joints of a person's body. When the subject moves, these seemingly unstructured white marker dots become organized into meaningful images, from which observers can determine the gender, body build, emotional state, and other attributes. In this study, Dr....

How the octopus forms an elbow

...nt-like structures, and how the movements of these joints are controlled. The new findings, which appear in the April 18th issue of Current Biology, are reported by Tamar Flash of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Binyamin Hochner and German Sumbre of Hebrew University, and Graziano Fiorito of the Stazion...

Secrets of the sea yield stronger artificial bone

... tissue over time. In contrast, today's artificial joints are made from metal alloys and ceramics that often trigger inflammation and immune responses, or may require corrective surgery after only a few years. The need for better biomaterials is further underscored by the growing demand for artificial joint...

Bioengineered tissue implants regenerate damaged knee cartilage

...ature within 12 months after implantation, even in joints showing signs of osteoarthritis. "Left untreated, many cartilage injuries will progress to osteoarthritis and the need for eventual replacement of the whole joint. Future investigations need to be carried out but this approach will allow us to imp...

Whiplash injuries ?are they caused by startle reflexes?

...ation of the body relative to the head damages the joints and muscles of the neck, which can lead to long-lasting pain. Jean-Sébastien Blouin and colleagues at The University of British Columbia, collaborating with MEA Forensic Engineers & Scientists, exposed subjects to rear-end collisions that were s...

The appearance of your hands can reveal your age, study finds

...ge spots, wrinkles, deformity, veins and prominent joints ?did not change the participants' ability to distinguish the person's age. Overall, the physical characteristic which most commonly gave away age was prominent hand veins. In altered images where hand veins were removed, participants significan...

Gene therapy research switches off joint inflammation; switches on genetic process of joint repair

...y". Coauthor Paul Bobrowski emphasized that "If joints are like a brick wall made from bricks of glucosam...s." Elaborating Bobrowski said, "By activating the joints master bricklayer Reparagen offers a more effective approach for regaining joint health." ...

Autoimmune disease triggered if T cells miss a single protein early on

...he pancreas in the case of type 1 diabetes, or the joints in rheumatoid arthritis. The discovery, from a mouse model of a human autoimmune condition, suggests that effective strategies to treat autoimmune disease should target not only the "peripheral" sites where autoimmune disease is active, but also t...

Cigarette smoking impedes tendon-to-bone healing

...maximum force, the researchers found that shoulder joints in the nicotine-exposed rats were weaker. "Those changes were most apparent at earlier time points, and shoulder strength tended to equalize between the two groups about 8 weeks after surgery," Galatz says. "But certainly, the tissue was weaker ea...

Proteins anchor memories in our brain

...he pancreas in the case of type 1 diabetes, or the joints in rheumatoid arthritis. The discovery, from a mouse model of a human autoimmune condition, suggests that effective strategies to treat autoimmune disease should target not only the "peripheral" sites where autoimmune disease is active, but also t...

New engineered drug may offer prolonged arthritis relief

...IL-1 heightens the activity of enzymes that damage joints by breaking down their collagen "framework," Setto...various ELPs, Betre developed a protein for use in joints that would precipitate out of solution and clump at normal body temperature. When he injected the ...

Researchers show that veins stiffen as we age

As if creaking joints and hardening of the arteries weren't bad enough, a research team from the University of Delaware and the Christiana Care Health System in Newark has now confirmed that even our veins stiffen as we age. "When you are young, your veins are nice and ...

OHSU surgeon implants donated tissue allografts

...ondral allografts that can be used in a variety of joints to treat a variety of conditions. Allocation of these tissues is performed on a priority basis back to the communities that the donors came from. The fresh cartilage allografts are extensively tested to assure bacteria and viral free grafts are provi...

Woven scaffolds could improve cartilage repair

...mprove the ability of physicians to repair damaged joints with the patient's own stem cells. "If further ex...designed and built the weaving machine. "The first joints to be treated this way would likely be hips and shoulders, though the approach should work for carti...

Bones in motion: Brown scientists to create new 3-D X-ray system

...ing to understand the complex motions of bones and joints are held back by technology. Computed tomography, or CT, delivers detailed 3-D images, but CT scanners are too slow to capture rapid motion. Cinefluoroscopy, a technique that uses X-rays to view objects, can produce moving images in two dimensions, b...

Experimental gene therapy 'abolishes' arthritis pain and lessens joint damage

...ly 35 percent reduction in permanent structural to joints caused by round and after round of osteoarthritic inflammation. To date, treatment of arthritis is dominated by drug treatments like non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs, COX-2 inhibitors and acetominophen. Morphine and its derivatives are still...

Breakthrough developments in rheumatoid arthritis reported

...ands, searching out the telltale signs of inflamed joints and wrists from his research subjects with rheumatoid arthritis. With these clinical features at his side, he turns to the basic building blocks of life – the human genome – to figure out what makes these people susceptible to the disabling inflammat...