Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Keeping Medical Data Private

People have always been concerned about the quite common, practice of storing thier medical information on computers into "private databases". "The problem is, stuff that's considered anonymous really isn't," says Michael Swiernik, director of medical informatics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Patients are wary of whether or not they are truly protected and with the development of a new algorithm, we may be on the way to better ensuring that medical data can be securely stored on computers. Researchers at Vanderbilt University have created an algorithm designed to protect the privacy of patients while maintaining researchers' ability to analyze vast amounts of genetic and clinical data to find links between diseases and specific genes or to understand why patients can respond so differently to treatments. The increasing availability of electronic medical records makes it easier to group patient files into huge databases where they can be accessed by researchers trying to find associations between genes and medical conditions--an important step on the road to personalized medicine. Though the patient records in the databases are "anonymous", they still have a numerical code called the the ICD, which can easily be tracked by a hacker. Bradley Malin and his colleagues found that they could identify more than 96 percent of a group of patients based solely on their particular sets of diagnosis codes.Researchers want to combine their clinical-code-protecting algorithm with other security mechanisms already in place, like protections for demographic information, to keep patient data as safe as possible. They also want to reach out to use more data outside of Vanderbilt, according to Grigorios Loukides, the study's lead author. "Generating data is expensive, and it's both good science and good etiquette to reuse data. The challenge is to do it while protecting people." says study author Malin.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Gold Nanosensors

Gold Nanosensors can now be implanted into the body to continuously monitor for blood clots. Gold Nanosensors are injected directly into the patient, allowing the doctor to measure protein concentrations by shining a laser light through the skin. This new technology will allow scientists to directly examine proteins and how they interact within a cell. Some of these proteins include ones that are involved in viral infections. 120 nanometers in diameter, the sensor consists of a silica core, encapsulated in a thin layer of gold. On top of the gold shell, are aptamers, or short strands of nucleic acids to bind to a specific molecule. When shining a laser on the aptamer, the molecule absorbs the light and will emit a characteristic spectrum allowing the doctor to view many different things. This new technology is not only cheap but it would provide easy monitoring for high-risk individuals and prevent clot-related deaths. Currently, research is being done at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Colin Campbell, a chemist at the University of Edinburgh leads the research. Researchers in Scotland have shown that the novel particles can accurately detect thrombin in blood samples, a biomarker for blood clots. For the time being there are not very many known aptamers that effectively target specific proteins. This is an area of medicine that would have to be further explored for the technology to gain more widespread application.


http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25031/page2/


http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-04/gold-nanosensors-continuously-monitor-blood-clots


Monday, April 5, 2010

Robotic Planes Chase After Climate Data

NASA has newly begun to fly an unmanned aircraft, controlled completely by a robot and outfitted with scientific instruments that observe Earth's atmosphere with extensive detail. These newly fitted robo planes will help scientists and researchers on Earth to collect and analyze an even greater amount of data to help predict our climate and weather, more accurately. The three aircraft, have been named the Global Hawks, and can fly for up to 30 hours and travel for huge distances and at high altitudes; they can also gather more precise data than satellites and can be stationed to monitor an area for extended periods of time. They are able to obtain certian tymes of atmospheric and earth science data critical to helping us better understand nature's weather patterns. According to Robbie Hood, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration committee, "they could fly over a hurricane to monitor its intensity changes or fly over the arctic to monitor sea ice changes in higher detail". The planes will be equipped with 11 different instruments to take measurements and map aerosols and gases in the atmosphere, profile clouds, and gather meteorological data such as temperatures, winds, and pressures. The instruments onboard for the first mission include: a LIDAR instrument that uses a laser pulse to measure the shape, size, and density of clouds and aerosols; a spectrograph that measures and maps pollutants like nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and aerosols; an ultraviolet photometer for ozone measurements; a gas chromatograph to calculate greenhouse gases; a handful of other instruments that can accurately measure atmospheric water vapor and ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons ; and high-definition cameras to image the ocean colors and learn about their biological processes. NASA acquired the aircraft from the U.S. Air Force in 2007. They were originally developed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Now researchers are modifying them for their first extensive earth science missions. The researchers will also be able to sample parts of the atmosphere that they have not been able to reach or monitor for long durations--the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. That part of the atmosphere is "a crucial region that responds to and contributes to climate change at the surface, and we have come to realize that it is highly undersampled," says David Fahey, co-project scientist and a research physicist at NOAA's Earth Science Research Lab in Boulder, CO.
The planes are really robotic satellite-aircraft hybrids thatwill hopefuully revolutionize the way we do science. One of the eventual targets will be to study hurricanes in the Caribbean, and will include a new suite of instruments for the planes. These may be a critical component in helping us to better predict and prepare for future weather disasters.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Fingertip Bacteria Helps In Forensics

Sometimes on a crime scene, a fingerprint can be only partial or can't identify a person. Scientists have discovered a new way to identify a person from the DNA of the bacteria on a person's fingertip.

In an experiment to test the effectiveness of bacteria analysis, scientists took swabs from three computer keyboards and compared bacterial gene sequences with those from the fingertips of the keyboard owners. There findings concluded that even with a small surface such as a computer key to test from, the correct person could be found.

Could this new and innovative way of identification be as trusted as blood or an actual fingerprint? Time and further research will tell.