SCIENCE AND MEDICINE | health & wellness ||
New vaccines
Ebola outbreaks in Africa were suc-
cessfully suppressed thanks to a vac-
cine developed by the American
pharmaceutical company Merck. The
epidemic, which began in March 2014
in Guinea and became the largest since
the Ebola virus was discovered, prod-
ded researchers, and an investigation
that in other circumstances could have
stretched out over a decade, was done
in ten months. A vaccine was created,
and in April 2015 medics inoculated the
first people. The World Health Organi-
zation (WHO) thinks that the effective-
ness of the new VSV-EBOV vaccine
ranges from 75 to 100%.
people take increases, the risk of contracting
the exotic fever grows. This year, WHO began
recommending the Dengvaxia vaccine created
by the Sanofi Pasteur company for prevention
of the disease. Development of the vaccine,
which protects against all four viruses that
cause dengue, took more than twenty years.
Inoculation campaigns are proceeding in
Brazil and the Philippines.
See also: www.sanofipasteur.com/en/articles/deng-
vaxia-world-s-first-dengue-vaccine-approved-in-
mexico.aspx
Also see: www.bloomberg.com/news/arti-
cles/2016-12-23/ebola-vaccine-made-by-
merck-protects-against-deadly-virus
Another vaccine has been developed to
prevent dengue fever. Transmitted by
mosquitoes, dengue fever is very dan-
gerous: it infects about 400 million peo-
ple a year; about 40% of the world’s
population is in the risk zone. As the cli-
mate warms and the number of trips
11
Heart “patches” f rom stem cells
Mohammad Izadifar, a scientist
from
the
University
of
Saskatchewan, has developed a
new way of restoring a damaged
heart with a “biopatch” made of
human stem cells and sea weed
that is printed out on a 3D printer. A
hydrogel based on sea weed is bio-
compatible; it isn’t rejected by the
human body after implantation. “My
goal is to take stem cells from a pa-
tient and then heart muscle cells
from them in-vitro,” the inventor ex-
plains. Then these cells are placed
in a gel patch that is implanted in
the patient. When heart muscle tis-
sues begin dissolving the gel patch,
the modified stem cells spread out
and turn into dense heart muscle
tissue. If everything works the way
it should, the newly formed tissues
soon begin growing blood vessels
that supply cells with oxygen. The
most important moment in the
process of creating an implant, as
Izadifar emphasized, consists of or-
ganizing modified stem cells inside
the gel heart patch in a way that se-
cures their tight connection and the
same ability to conduct an electrical
impulse as the cells of an ordinary
heart muscle.
See also: www.researchgate.net/pub-
lication/320527599_UVassisted_3D_bi
oprinting_of_nanoreinforced_hybrid_c
ardiac_patch_for_myocardial_tissue_e
ngineering
A bionic lens
The Canadian Ocumetics Technology Cor-
poration in British Columbia is running clin-
ical trials of Bionic Lens that give people
super vision, ridding them forever of
cataracts, farsightedness, and nearsighted-
ness. They are implanted in just a few min-
utes, being positioned over the crystalline
lens. Sharp vision is restored completely and
immediately. And because the range of focus
of the lens is far broader than the range of
the natural lens, you will be able to make out
details at a distance of thirty meters (a hun-
dred feet), and at very close distances, too;
for example, lifting a finger to your eyes, you
will even be able to discern skin cells. It’s
also interesting that bionic lenses can be co-
located with components that allow a tele-
phone screen to be projected onto the retina
or that build in a system of administering
medicine to an eye. Such a function can be
very much in demand for patients with glau-
coma and other eye disorders; a lens can’t
by itself cure color blindness, ophthalmic my-
opathy, retina disorders, and optic nerve
damage. Doctor Garth Webb, the creator of
the Bionic Lens, said that the lens could ap-
pear in the arsenal of eye surgeons perhaps
as early as this year.
For further reading, see:
www.businessinsider.com/ocumetics-
bionic-lens-perfect-vision-at-every-age-
2015-5
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