Imaging tech

Directed at the tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans, or for those who want immediate dermatology-related diagnoses, Skin of Mine is a platform for measuring and monitoring moles and other skin conditions.

The app--updated in mid-May and compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad--is now available for $2.99.

The setup is simple: create a free account at SkinofMine.com, upload symptom photos to receive automated analyses, and pay on average $50 to receive a certified diagnosis directly from a Skin of Mine medical professional (these include doctors, nurse practitioners, and physicians' assistants) of the user's … Read more

After being available for several years in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and throughout Europe, Swedish firm Sectra's digital mammography system has now been approved by the FDA for use in the U.S. (It was also approved for use in Canada in March and in Russia in April.)

The system, called MicroDose, uses technology called photon counting that results in two key changes over traditional mammograms: higher-resolution images at half the radiation exposure.

"Until now, digital mammography systems in the U.S. have managed to reduce the radiation dose slightly below those of film-based systems," Dr. Jesper … Read more

While microscopes might be affixed to cell phones, they don't usually look like them. But it seems the researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF in Germany got the designer bug when they developed this one.

In this case, though, form is actually following function. The microscope is flat because it has been entirely rethought, with several tiny lenses to simultaneously scan one image instead of one that scans and then groups together many images.

"Our ultrathin microscope consists of not just one but a multitude of tiny imaging channels, with lots of tiny lenses arrayed alongside one another" Dr. Frank Wipperman, who managed the team, said in a news release. "Each channel records a tiny segment of the object at the same size for a 1:1 image."… Read more

Cameras are getting smaller fast. Just last week, the Naneye camera was declared the world's smallest at just 1mm x 1mm.

Now the Naneye can claim another prize--being the smallest for the shortest amount of time. Because today the Tel Aviv-based medical device firm Medigus has unveiled a camera that is just 0.99mm wide.

Making such a big deal of a difference that is but a fraction of a millimeter may seem like splitting hairs, but in the world of endoscopic devices, even a hair width counts.

"Medical procedures that have not been possible until now become possible with the world's smallest camera," said Dr. Elazar Sonnenschein, Medigus CEO, in a news release. "The advanced technology provides the medical community and patients with safe, quality and cost-effective treatment."

The silicon-based camera houses a dedicated 0.66mm x 0.66mm sensor with image resolution at 45,000 pixels (so not exactly high-resolution at just under 1/20th of a megapixel). Cost has yet to be disclosed, but Medigus says pricing should be "sufficiently low" for use in disposable devices.

The firm says it will be supplying samples in the coming weeks to companies in the U.S. and Japan for use in endoscopic and surgical devices in such fields as cardiology, orthopedics, gastroenterology, and gynecology.… Read more

DNA molecules are not merely carriers of information. They are also highly stable and programmable, which is why researchers have been working so feverishly on a design strategy called DNA origami.

And now a team at MIT is developing a program that makes the game playable by more than just a select few.

DNA origami--constructing specific 2D and 3D shapes out of DNA strands--could prove to be a highly effective means of developing nanoscale tools, such as synthetic photocells that perform artificial photosynthesis and highly targeted drugs (think of sending a cancer drug to hunt down a specific tumor).

But it's still young. Paul Rothemund of CalTech first introduced DNA origami in 2006 (thereby making the cover of Nature and delivering a TED Talk showing tiny DNA smiley faces), and William Shih's lab at Harvard Medical School was able to up the game from 2D to 3D a few years later.

The result is that today a small number of brilliant and highly specialized minds are bent over a nanoscale game of origami, playing with various sequences to try to build specific shapes for specific tasks. Imagine a room of highly sophisticated gamers playing with building blocks in a world without Tetris; if they had the game, they'd be able to work faster.… Read more

Two professors at Binghamton University in New York are using a novel imaging technique to observe the behavior of an enzyme--called tubulin tyrosine ligase, or TTL--as its behavior can suggest whether certain cancer cells might grow more aggressively than others.

Though they are not developing actual therapies, Susan Bane and Susannah Gal say their research could help further personalize targeted cancer therapies.

"Potentially, we could put [a tumor sample] in our labeling system and say, 'Yes, that has a problem with the TTL system, and therefore you should be more aggressive with it,'" says Gal, whose work is funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. "Or we could say, 'That's probably OK, so you can treat it with normal chemotherapy.'"

The enzyme TTL involves microtubules, which both help chromosomes line up correctly during cell division and provide part of the scaffolding of a cell's structure. Those microtubules are made of proteins called tubulin; the enzyme carboxypeptidase clips an amino acid called tyrosine off the ends of some of these proteins, and later the enzyme TTL puts that tyrosine back on.

Bane says it's unclear why tyrosine is clipped off only to be reattached, but it's clearly an important part of the cell's cycle: "We do know that if you don't have that enzyme, you'll die."

In some cancer cells, that cycle of removing and reattaching tyrosine is disrupted, with too many tubulins lacking tyrosine altogether. Tumors made of those cells, Bane says, "tend to grow more aggressively."… Read more

Any time someone concatenates the words "Paul Allen," "brain," and "science" in one sentence, two assumptions can safely be made: What's being described will be expensive; what's being described will be newsworthy.

And so it comes as little surprise that the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science announced this week a world first: a highly detailed guide to both the anatomy and the genes of the human brain that includes 1,000 anatomical landmarks backed by 100 million data points measuring the strength of gene activity at each landmark. The cost of … Read more

Retired U.S. Navy sonar experts have helped create a novel portable device to detect, diagnose, and monitor strokes. The brain-imaging system uses a simple headset and laptop--and decades of submarine technology--to home in on brain activity that signifies trouble.

The headset is equipped with six highly sensitive accelerometers. Instead of peering out through the rounded bow of a submarine, they are oriented inward toward the brain.

The brain's machinations (veins expanding and contracting, aneurysms wobbling) each have their own unique vibrations that cause slight skull pulsations. The headset sensors measure these movements to look for irregular blood flow in much the same way submarines measure motion and generate signals that are processed, analyzed, and matched to objects.

Data on the type and location of brain vascular abnormalities is then rapidly sent to the PC.

"As sonar sorts out whales and other objects from vessels, the device sorts out cerebral abnormalities such as aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations (AVMs, an abnormal connection between veins and arteries), ischemic strokes, and traumatic brain injury from normal variations in physiology," said Dr. Kieran J. Murphy, director of research and deputy chief of radiology at the University of Toronto and University Health Network in Toronto, in a release (PDF).

Murphy is presenting trial data on the device--developed by Mountain View, Calif.-based Jan Medical--at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 36th Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago this week. … Read more