“Appearing Nov. 6 in the journal Nature Communications, the new technology might one day help people unable to talk due to neurological disorders regain the ability to communicate through a brain-computer interface.
‘There are many patients who suffer from debilitating motor disorders, like ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or locked-in syndrome, that can impair their ability to speak,’ said Gregory Cogan, Ph.D., a professor of neurology at Duke University’s School of Medicine and one of the lead researchers involved in the project. ‘But the current tools available to allow them to communicate are generally very slow and cumbersome. There are many patients who suffer from debilitating motor disorders, like ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or locked-in syndrome, that can impair their ability to speak,’ said Gregory Cogan, Ph.D., a professor of neurology at Duke University’s School of Medicine and one of the lead researchers involved in the project. ‘But the current tools available to allow them to communicate are generally very slow and cumbersome.'”
Learn more about Duke Scientists Create Brain Implant That May Enable Communication From Thoughts Alone via Duke Today.
“In a Finnish study, significant differences in the gene activity of the fetal intestine, brain and placenta were identified, depending on the microbes in the mother’s body and the compounds produced by them. The findings indicate that maternal microbes are important to her offspring’s development and health.
The microbiota of the mother or dam is thought to be important for the development and health of her offspring. However, so far little is known about how interactions with the microbiota begin and what the mechanisms of action are.
A collaborative study carried out at the Universities of Helsinki, Eastern Finland and Turku investigated how the maternal microbiota affects fetal development by comparing the foetuses of normal and germ-free mouse dams living in a sterile environment. The researchers measured gene expression and the concentrations of small-molecular compounds, or metabolites, in the fetal intestine, brain and placenta.
‘The effects of the dam microbiota and the metabolites it produces on fetal development have not been previously investigated in such a comprehensive manner. Our study sheds light on the significance of the microbiota and the mechanisms by which the microbiota affects individual development and pregnancy. We identified previously unknown compounds in the fetus, which are likely to be microbial and which can be important for individual development,’ says Mikael Niku, the principal investigator of the study from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki.”
Learn more on Maternal Microbiota Can Affect Fetal Development via Science Daily.
Aleksi Husso, Tiina Pessa-Morikawa, Ville Mikael Koistinen, Olli Kärkkäinen, Hyuk Nam Kwon, Leo Lahti, Antti Iivanainen, Kati Hanhineva, Mikael Niku. Impacts of maternal microbiota and microbial metabolites on fetal intestine, brain, and placenta. BMC Biology, 2023; 21 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s12915-023-01709-9
“Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, thinks artificial intelligence could spark the greatest positive transformation education has ever seen. He shares the opportunities he sees for students and educators to collaborate with AI tools — including the potential of a personal AI tutor for every student and an AI teaching assistant for every teacher — and demos some exciting new features for their educational chatbot, Khanmigo.”
These are the kind of tools and the type of out-of-the-box thinking that will help us in how we train, educate, and assess our future family physicians.
Learn more here on How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education via TED.
“Advances in treatment and earlier detection have significantly improved cancer survival rates in recent decades. But some cancers remain devastatingly lethal. For patients with glioblastoma (GBM), the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer, the average life expectancy is just 12 to 18 months after diagnosis. Only a quarter will survive more than a year, and just 5% more than five years.
At the University of Toronto, Prof Yu Sun and his team at the Robotics Institute are harnessing the potential of nanorobotics – the field of technology developing microscopically small robots – to build what could be a game changing new treatment option: ‘nano-scalpels‘ that seek out cancer cells and destroy them by spinning when activated by a magnetic field.”
Learn more on Tiny robots, giant steps: how nanotechnology could improve cancer and fertility treatment via The Guardian.
“A team of over 200 researchers around the world, involving multiple health and scientific institutions, led by the University of Oxford, has today published, in the journal Nature, the first digital atlas showing the dynamics of normative maturation of each hemisphere of the fetal brain between 14 and 31 weeks’ gestation – a critical period of human development.
The atlas was produced using over 2,500 3-dimensional ultrasound (3D US) brain scans that were acquired serially during pregnancy from 2,194 fetuses in the INTERGROWTH-21st Project, which is a large population-based study of healthy pregnant women living in eight diverse geographical regions of the world (including five in the Global South), whose children had satisfactory growth and neurodevelopment at 2 years of age.
The study is unique because, for the first time, an international dataset of 3D US scans, collected using standardised methods and equipment, has been analysed with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and image processing tools to construct a map showing how the fetal brain matures as pregnancy advances.”
Read more on the First digital atlas of human fetal brain development published via Oxford University News & Events.
We are excited to announce that applications are now open for CHES’ Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE-Canada) and Clinical Educator Fellowship Program (CEFP). This includes our inaugural call for applicants to the Indigenous Stream of our Fellowship.
We are holding an in-person Open House on Wednesday, November 8th from 5.30-7:30pm and a Virtual Open House on 16th November from 5.30-7:30pm.Attendees will meet Dr. Rose Hatala, Director of MHPE-Canada and CEFP; Chief CEFP Fellows Lucas Streith and Brian Kim, and MHPE-Canada students. Register now!
In-person Open House Date: Wednesday, November 8th Time: 5:30 – 7:30pm Location: CHES, P. A. Woodward Instructional Resources Centre (IRC), 429 – 2194 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z3
Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE) Canada: The MHPE is a two-year, part-time, internationally recognized, research degree program that is primarily distance-based with annual, three-week courses that are delivered on-site. The program focuses on the acquisition of knowledge and skills relevant for a career in the field of education and education research for the health professions, with thesis supervision and mentorship offered by local experts in the field. MHPE-Canada is open to physicians, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, dentists, pharmacists, and others. For more information on the program, eligibility, and the application process, please head to the CHES MHPE-Canada website.
Clinical Educator Fellowship Program: CHES is offering opportunities for senior residents (R3-R5), residents in enhanced skills programs (PGY3 Family Medicine), or established clinicians interested in health education scholarship, to develop their skills in health education. This 2-year fellowship is designed for those interested in developing an academic career as a Clinical Educator and boasts many education leaders as active alumni.
Indigenous Stream: This Stream is for any Indigenous physician and Indigenous ally physician interested in developing knowledge and skills as a Clinical Educator. Fellows within the Indigenous stream, with the support of an advisory group, will help create a vision of an Indigenous approach to educational leadership.
Application Deadlines: This year’s application deadline for both programs is Friday, December 15, 2023. Please send all applications and inquiries to ches.applications@ubc.ca.
Many thanks,
Sara Harb, on behalf of Dr. Rose Hatala, Director of MHPE-Canada and CEFP.
“Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections and HIV-induced acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) continue to represent a global health burden. There is currently no effective vaccine, nor any cure, for HIV infections; existing antiretroviral therapy can suppress viral replication, but only as long as antiviral drugs are taken. HIV infects cells of the host immune system, and it can establish a long-lived viral reservoir, which can be targeted and edited through gene therapy. Gene editing platforms based on the clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeat-Cas system (CRISPR-Cas) have been recognized as promising tools in the development of gene therapies for HIV infections. In this review, we evaluate the current landscape of CRISPR-Cas-based therapies against HIV, with an emphasis on the infection biology of the virus as well as the activity of host restriction factors. We discuss the potential of a combined CRISPR-Cas approach that targets host and viral genes to activate antiviral host factors and inhibit viral replication simultaneously. Lastly, we focus on the challenges and potential solutions of CRISPR-Cas gene editing approaches in achieving an HIV cure.”
Learn more on “A CRISPR-Cas Cure for HIV/AIDS” via International Journal on Molecular Science.
“The current opioid crisis emphasizes the need for nonaddictive pain treatments. Here Perez-Sanchez and colleagues evaluated whether direct inhibition of pain-related hyperactivity in sensory neurons could be such a targeted pain treatment strategy. The authors expressed PSAM4-GlyR, a chemogenetic system based on the human nicotinic acetylcholine and glycine receptors, in mouse sensory neurons. PSAM4-GlyR activation with the FDA-approved drug varenicline inhibited sensory neurons and improved acute, inflammatory, and neuropathic pain-related behaviors in mice. PSAM4-GlyR activation also inhibited human-derived sensory neurons and normalized hyperactivity in sensory neurons derived from a patient with erythromelalgia, a condition characterized by burning pain. Although further validation in human pain models is needed, these results suggest the potential of PSAM4-GlyR in gene therapy for pain treatment.” — Daniela Neuhofer, Editor’s Summary
Read more on “A humanized chemogenetic system inhibits murine pain-related behavior and hyperactivity in human sensory neurons” via Science Translational Medicine.
“As hospitals and health care systems turn to artificial intelligence to help summarize doctors’ notes and analyze health records, a new study led by Stanford School of Medicine researchers cautions that popular chatbots are perpetuating racist, debunked medical ideas, prompting concerns that the tools could worsen health disparities for Black patients.
Powered by AI models trained on troves of text pulled from the internet, chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard responded to the researchers’ questions with a range of misconceptions and falsehoods about Black patients, sometimes including fabricated, race-based equations, according to the study published Friday in the academic journal Digital Medicine and obtained exclusively by The Associated Press.”
Read more on AI chatbots are supposed to improve health care. But research says some are perpetuating racism via CBC News.
Do you have an idea for how to improve practice, health care delivery or any aspect of community-based primary health care? Then the UBC Clinician Scholar Program (CSP) may be for you! We are accepting applications until November 30, 2023 for program start date of July 1, 2024, so please help us spread the word.
The CSP will help you to develop your ideas into scholarship. Our program supports:
Developing and conducting research
Community engagement
Contributions to education and to the family medicine knowledge base
Knowledge translation
The Clinician Scholar Program offers two-year, half-time positions in family medicine research. These enhanced skills residency positions are open to practicing BC family physicians as part of the Postgraduate Program of the UBC Faculty of Medicine. The CSP is an accredited program with the College of Family Physicians in Canada.
Family Medicine Residency Site: Abbotsford-Mission 