Focus: NIH NIBIB Grant News

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Researchers have developed a compact, wearable ultrasound device that monitors muscle activity. Attachable to the skin with an adhesive and powered by a small battery, the device wirelessly captures high-resolution images of muscle movements, enabling continuous, long-term monitoring. When worn on the rib cage, it effectively monitored diaphragm function for respiratory health assessments. When worn on the forearm, it accurately captured hand gestures, allowing users to control a robotic arm and even navigate virtual games. This new technology has potential applications in healthcare for conditions affecting muscle function, as well as in human-machine interfaces for more natural robotic control.

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Typical diagnosis of upper urinary tract cancers requires removal of suspicious tissue with forceps, a technically challenging procedure that only samples one region of the organ. NIBIB-funded researchers are developing preclinical microgrippers that could be deployed throughout the upper urinary tract, which could potentially grab tiny pieces of tissue at hundreds of different areas and someday facilitate early detection of disease.

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Houston Methodist researchers have developed an advanced mathematical model that predicts how novel treatment combinations could significantly extend progression-free survival for patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common type of lung cancer.

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Physical human feats require a high level of coordination between the sensory functions of our skin and motor functions of our muscles. What kind of achievements could robots perform with the same cohesion between sensing and action? In the medical space, researchers have begun to explore the possibilities.

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A team of NIBIB-funded researchers recently developed an AI platform that can analyze 3D pathology images to predict disease outcomes. Their method had improved performance in predicting prostate cancer outcomes when compared with traditional pathology approaches, such as analysis by expert pathologists using 2D images.

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Because of its high accuracy, laboratory-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing is the gold standard for infectious disease diagnostics. Yet PCR requires highly trained staff and costly equipment, hindering its availability, especially in low-resource settings. New research suggests a different kind of test could be more streamlined without sacrificing performance.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists say they have developed an artificial lymph node with the potential to treat cancer, according to a new study in mice and human cells.

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A multidisciplinary group of NIH-funded scientists have successfully captured real-time, high-resolution images of the developing mouse placenta during the course of pregnancy.

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Georgia Tech researchers have engineered one of the world’s first yeast cells able to harness energy from light, expanding our understanding of the evolution of this trait — and paving the way for advancements in biofuel production and cellular aging.

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A beating heart makes for a formidable surgical arena, but a new robotic catheter could someday equip surgeons to operate in the cardiac environment with greater ease.

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A study using a synthetic ‘minimal cell’ organism stripped down to the 'bare essentials' for life demonstrates the tenacity of organism's power to evolve and adapt, even in the face of an unnatural genome that would seemingly provide little flexibility.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists say they have developed a nanoparticle — an extremely tiny biodegradable container — that has the potential to improve the delivery of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based vaccines for infectious diseases such as COVID-19, and vaccines for treating non-infectious diseases including cancer.

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Impairments in the lymphatic system may contribute to brain diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases and stroke. Researchers have found a noninvasive and nonpharmaceutical method to influence glymphatic transport using focused ultrasound, opening the opportunity to use the method to further study brain diseases and brain function.

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NIH-funded researchers developed an online tool that can analyze self-collected, at-home videos with a smartphone. When deployed in a nationwide study, the tool could predict physical health and osteoarthritis of the knee or hip.

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Using focused-ultrasound-mediated liquid biopsy in a mouse model released more tau proteins and another biomarker into the blood than without the intervention. This noninvasive method could facilitate diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders, according to research from Washington University in St. Louis.

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For the first time, researchers at UC San Diego have created an atomic-level computer model of the H1N1 virus that reveals new vulnerabilities, suggesting possible strategies for the design of future vaccines and antivirals against influenza.

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Using a new method based upon comparing DNA mutation rates between parents and offspring, evolutionary biologists at Indiana University have for the first time revealed the average age of mothers versus fathers over the past 250,000 years, including the discovery that the age gap is shrinking, with women's average age at conception increasing from 23.2 years to 26.4 years, on average, in the past 5,000 years.

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NIBIB-funded researchers are developing a new method to treat pancreatic cancer. In their study, they combined an injectable radioactive gel with systemic chemotherapy in multiple mouse models of the disease. The treatment resulted in tumor regression in all evaluated models, an unprecedented result for this genetically diverse and aggressive type of cancer.