Assessing Heart Function and Fluid Status with Cardiac Scales: Interview with John Lipman, CEO, and Corey Centen, Founder, Bodyport

Bodyport, a medtech company based in San Francisco, developed the Bodyport Cardiac Scale, a set of weighing scales that can non-invasively assess fluid status and heart function. The scales can detect these signals through the feet when a patient steps onto the device. The technology is intended to be convenient and requires only 20 seconds each morning, and should easily lend itself to integration into a daily routine.   

Magnetic Activation of Specific Brain Circuits

Scientists at Rice University developed a system to wirelessly and rapidly activate specific brain circuits using magnetic fields. The technology has been developed in fruit flies, a common experimental animal, but the researchers hope that it could help in understanding the brain and to develop new treatments for neurological disorders in humans.

Nanoparticle Vaccine for Many SARS-Like Coronaviruses

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology, better known as Caltech, have developed a nanoparticle vaccine that appears to confer broad protection against SARS-like betacoronaviruses. This includes SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the current pandemic, and SARS-CoV, which caused the original SARS pandemic in the early 2000s.

How We Solved Sidekiq Memory Issue In Rails Application

The engineering team at Tata 1mg was facing an unusual behavior with the background server where we were using Sidekiq to process the jobs asynchronously. The memory on the server was reaching nearly 100% in about a few days. The pattern was observed at a gap of a cycle of 10–12 days. This needed constant monitoring and a restart of the Sidekiq process manually every time the memory exceeded 80%.We conducted research on the problem and did a root cause analysis, which yielded some specific pattern that was being repeated and causing the issue.

Surgical Dressing Helps Kill Melanoma, Regenerate Healthy Cells

Scientists at the University of Nottingham in the UK have created a surgical dressing that is specifically designed to facilitate and enhance photothermal therapy following melanoma resection. The dressing allows for near-infrared photothermal therapy that lasts just 15 seconds every 48 hours. The concept involves killing any remaining melanoma cells, while encouraging healthy cells to regenerate within the resection site.

TORdx LUNG Test for Donor Lung Assessment: Interview with Eric Brouwer, Chief Scientific Officer at SQI Diagnostics

SQI Diagnostics, a medtech company based in Canada, is developing the TORdx LUNG Test. The technology is intended to assist clinicians in assessing donor lungs in their suitability for transplantation. At present, clinicians typically assess donor lungs using qualitative variables, such as donor health and lung size. One of the most important factors, lung inflammation, is difficult to assess, and clinicians will often play it safe and reject an organ if there is any doubt about it.