The money will be used to create a new Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Food, which will be led by the university's School of Biosciences, and a similar facility for the creation of new medical devices.

The grant has been provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the centres announced are two of four set to be launched by the organisation.

It has committed to investing £21 million into the development of new ways of manufacturing in the fields of electronics, lasers in production processes, medical technology and food production.

Leading the centre, Dr Tim Foster from the University's Division of Food Sciences, said: "Our vision is to meet the future scientific and technological requirements of the food industry from post-farm gate to supermarket shelf.

"To do this we need to develop world-leading technologies, tools and processes tailored to the specific needs of individual food products."

Author: NuclearVacuum

That’s according to a report in the Telegraph which suggests that given the fiscal insecurity in the country, many pharmacies in the country are having trouble gaining access to vital medicines and drugs.

The newspaper spoke to Yianna and Tassos, who run a pharmacy in Athens, and they explained that because Greece is failing to settle its bills, payments to pharmacies continue to be delayed, meaning that supplies of some drugs are apparently running low.

Yianna said: “Greece is going through a humanitarian crisis. The abscess has burst.

“This is not only a problem for Greece, it’s a problem that other people from the same family — Europe — should see.”

Yianna also told the story of a cancer patient who was in need of medicines costing about €2,100 (£1,700) and had to use money that had been saved for funeral expenses.

Scientists from the University of Cambridge and Edinburgh and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) found that combining positron emission tomography (PET) and computerised tomography could help improve how doctors predict a patient’s risk of having a heart attack. The research also highlights the disease process causing heart attacks directly within the coronary arteries.

119 volunteers were used in the test, with ages between 64 and 80 who don’t suffer from aortic valve disease. The researchers used the standard calcium test to measure the amount of calcified plaques in their coronary arteries,  which is a common test to predict heart attack risk, and were then also injected with two contrast agents.

18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) was used in imaging of atherosclerotic plaque inflammation by Cambridge researchers a decade ago, and18F-sodium fluoride (18F-NaF) was used which can then be visualised and quantified during a PET scan.

“Predicting heart attacks is very difficult and methods we’ve got now are good but not perfect,” said Dr Marc Dweck, lead author and BHF Clinical Research Fellow. “Our new technique holds a lot of promise as a means of improving heart attack prediction.”

They found increased 18F-NaF activity could be observed in specific coronary artery plaques in patients who had many high-risk markers of cardiovascular disease. This shows that certain areas of atherosclerosis within the coronary arteries could have the potential to cause heart attack.

“Once identified, they might be targeted with drug therapy more effectively. Additionally, we might be able to improve our ability to predict an individual person’s future risk of heart attack using this fairly straightforward imaging test in selected people,” Dr James Rudd, joint senior author from Cambridge concluded.

The research has been published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Centre, US, used a new technique for analyzing data from brain imaging studies, finding that concussion victims have unique spatial patterns of brain abnormalities that change over time.

This new research could eventually be used to better assist concussion patients by predicting which head injuries are most likely to have long-lasting neurological consequences and weighing up the best treatments for them, according to lead author Michael L. Lipton, M.D., Ph.D.

Most people who suffer from concussions are able to make full recoveries without suffering any long lasting effects, however, as many as 30 per cent can suffer permanent impairment, such as personality change or neurological disorders.

Previous studies have managed to identify differences between the brains of people who have suffered from a concussion and normal people, although they have not yet been able to assess whether concussion victims differ from one another. Indeed, most researchers assumed that abnormalities resulting from a concussion occur in the same place, Dr Lipton explained.

He said: “That doesn’t make sense, since it is more likely that different areas would be affected in each person because of differences in anatomy, vulnerability to injury and mechanism of injury.”

The researchers deployed a new technique in the study, using the recently developed MRI technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) on 34 consecutive patients. Once the data was obtained, it was analysed using a new software tool called Enhanced Z-score Microstructural Assessment Pathology (EZ-MAP), which can be used to examine microstructural abnormalities across the entire brain of individual patients.

They observed areas of abnormality, finding that each concussion patient had a unique spatial pattern of low fractional anisotropy (FA) that evolved over the study period. Additionally, each patient also had a unique, evolving pattern of abnormally high FA distinct from the areas of low FA.

Attribution: Zephyris

Using the device, doctors and nurses will be able to administer a range of doses to various depths, which is a marked improvement over jet-injection systems that are currently available.

Other benefits of the device include reducing the potential for needle-stick injuries. A recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that hospital-based health care workers accidentally prick themselves with needles 385,000 times each year.

The needle is also likely to help improve compliance among patients who might otherwise avoid the discomfort of regularly injecting themselves with drugs such as insulin.

Catherine Hogan, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and a member of the research team, said: “If you are afraid of needles and have to frequently self-inject, compliance can be an issue.

“We think this kind of technology … gets around some of the phobias that people may have about needles.”

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The research, which could revolutionise electrics and optoelectronics, was conducted by scientists at  Kansas State University, where a novel process has been developed using a diamond knife to cleave graphite into graphite nanoblocks, which are precursors for graphene quantum dots.

Controlling the size and shape of graphene is the holy grail to making the substance workable and usable, and researchers believe that this new research will allow this to happen over a wide range of applications, such as solar cells, electronics, optical dyes, biomarkers, composites and particulate systems.

Vikas Berry, professor of chemical engineering at Kansas State University said: "The process produces large quantities of graphene quantum dots of controlled shape and size and we have conducted studies on their structural and electrical properties.

"We expect that the field of graphene quantum dots will evolve as a result of this work since this new material has a great potential in several nanotechnologies."

University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and CardioKinetix have recently reported positive results from the first-of-its-kind catheter-based Parachute Ventricular Partitioning Device, which is a Percutaneous Ventricular Restoration Therapy (PVRT) technology for patients with ischemic heart failure.

After two years of clinical trials, the researchers have now published their first results from two human studies, which show meaningful and sustained low clinical events two years following treatment with the device.

UH Case Medical Center's Marco Costa said: "Heart failure is such a morbid condition, and in spite of our best efforts, we have so little to offer to our patients.

"Today we shared unprecedented news for cardiologists and heart failure patients. This novel technology could revolutionise care for our patients because the procedure is relatively simple and the outcomes are surprisingly remarkable for such a high-risk population."

The human trials showed several positive results. Patients demonstrated a near-full New York Heart Association (NYHA) class improvement at two years. There was a reduction in left ventricular volume which was maintained out to two years. Additionally, researchers found that the procedure stabilised the remodelling process as demonstrated by no statistical change in post-procedure functional volume.

Dr Costa said that the clinical results were very successful, and that they have enough evidence to conduct a randomised pivotal trial in order to anticipate potential reduction of death and hospitalisation.

Many patients suffer from an enlargement of the left ventricle after a heart attack, which can cause a decrease in cardiac output. To compensate for this loss, the healthy portion of the heart works doubly hard, and therefore becomes overloaded.

To fix this, a small catheter inserted in the femoral artery, and the Parachute implant is deployed in the left ventricle to partition the damaged muscle, which excludes the non-functional heart segment from the healthy, functional segment to decrease the overall volume of the left ventricle and restore its geometry and function.

Dr Costa explained: "This innovative device has the potential to bring together two cardiology disciplines – heart failure and interventional cardiology – to address a significant unmet need in heart failure."

Gloves are no longer considered as laboratory commodity products and are now thought of as tools used to perform the science safely and effectively. There are three primary considerations one should observe when selecting the right laboratory gloves, starting with health and safety.

It is important that the lab gloves being used should meet various health and safety legislation. Before purchasing, check they are certified in accordance with the EU Directive 89/686/EEC, as a PPE Category III product. Much of this research should be done with the research in mind. Consider the level of risk personnel may be exposed to, and according to this select a glove with the appropriate level of certification and performance with respect to test standards relevant to the risk.

Other health and safety aspects include chemical splash hazards and microorganism hazards. Both of these can cause damage to the glove in use and as a consequence cause damage to the skin. There are standard signs in the industry that specify which glove is appropriate for these experiments, such as published EN374-3:2003 test data for chemical hazards and test standard EN374-2:2003 for microorganism hazards.

The second consideration for selecting the right glove is the application specific requirements. Different applications require different protection and functionality, and these considerations go beyond simply considering health and safety requirements.

Contamination is an important consideration, with latex gloves typically associated with protein contamination for example. Functionality is the next requirement, such as the physical attributes of the glove that allow it to be used to perform procedures safely and effectively, such as dexterity and tactile sensitivity, grip, comfort and tear resistance. 

Finally, there are personal considerations. Every person is different and this translates to how we perform in the lab. Choosing a glove that suits you is one of the most important aspects, because if you don’t feel comfortable in your work, your performance is likely to be impacted.

Research teams from the INRS University's Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre in Canada have helped to develop the ultra fast, robust, stable and high precision lasers, which could allow for new avenues of medical research to be opened.

Professor Morandotti, who was elected a fellow by the Optical Society of America and by the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), said:"We advanced a new approach to develop a laser that boasts as yet unparalleled stability and precision, allowing us to conduct new experiments and open up new realms of research.

"Plus, a multitude of applications may be created in biology, medicine, materials processing, IT, high speed communications, and metrology."

The researchers developed a ring resonator (a key laser key component) that plays a duel role by acting as both a filter and a non-linear element. It is manufactured using a special glass which can harness nonlinear optical properties which are central to the operation of the laser.