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A tiny self-propelled drug-delivery device might someday make taking antibiotics safer and more efficient. Think of it as a tiny submarine scooting around inside your stomach, fueled by the acid there. Oral antibiotics are commonly prescribed life-saving drugs. Once an antibiotic is swallowed, it takes a trip to the stomach, where there's lots of acid. That stomach acid can break chemical bonds in the antibiotic and deactivate it.

Today we can print human skin. Soon we may be able to print human organs. A new item has just been added to the list of things that can be 3D printed: human skin. This is what researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) in Spain have recently demonstrated. With a 3D printer that uses special ink composed of human cells, they were able to create human skin that looks and behaves like real skin — with a dermis and an epidermis, able to produce collagen and react like real skin does to tests done. This artificially created...

Freepers, let’s put our heads together and figure out how to fix healthcare in the US. I’ll never forget watching Bill Bradley give a speech many years ago where he spoke with great outrage, saying something like this: “I was at the doctor’s office the other day and there was a woman who brought in her young child. And the child had to have a shot of penicillin. And I watched that poor mother as she was leaving have to pull out her checkbook and write the doctor a check for $60!” he said with trembling voice. I believe that...

President-elect Donald Trump surprised many when he chose one of President Obama’s appointees to run the Department of Veterans Affairs after pledging to overhaul the department during the campaign. But the nominee, current under secretary of health David Shulkin, has a long history in the private sector turning around struggling hospitals. Veterans groups called the choice a pleasant surprise, as they say Shulkin has overseen a turnaround in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and resisted calls for privatizing the federal system. “While our membership has been clear in its preference to have a veteran leading the VA, I am heartened...

Dutch scientists and engineers have taken a big step towards developing a bionic kidney that could one day potentially replace the need for dialysis or transplantation. They have tested a "living membrane" made with human cells that would be at the heart of a functional artificial kidney implant. The Device Filtered Out Waste, The Same Way As A Real Kidney The team presented the advancement at at ASN Kidney Week 2016 November 15-20 at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. They demonstrated this activity by attaching human renal proximal tubular epithelial cells on the surfaces of artificial hollow structures. These cultured...

The number of NHS patients in England who had urgent operations cancelled hit record numbers in November, soaring to almost double the level a year ago, according to government data.

I believe that President-elect Donald Trump will succeed in bringing down health care costs, and tackling soaring drug prices will be at the forefront of his battle. This may have come as a shock to the industry, who likely believed that they’d be given a free pass under a Republican presidency and Republican-controlled Congress. It is likely that on Election Day the Big Pharma companies prematurely let out a collective sigh of relief believing that a Republican-led government would never allow for imported medicines or for Medicare to negotiate drug prices, but it appears that the well-deserved panic is starting...

Shares of a key biotech ETF plunged to their lowest point since the election, after President-elect Donald Trump pledged in an interview with Time Magazine to curb spiraling drug prices. In morning trading on the stock market today, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (IBB) exchange-traded fund was down more than 3%, near 266. The index had jumped 9% on Nov. 9, after Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House, on the belief that high drug prices would not be as big a focus for Trump as it would have been for Clinton. IBD's 421-company Medical-Biomed/Biotech industry...

According to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, adding cinnamon to your diet can cool your stomach by up to two degrees. "The results of the study, which used pigs, seemed to show that cinnamon maintained the integrity of the stomach wall," said study co-lead author Prof. Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. "When pigs feed at room temperature, carbon dioxide gas increases in their stomach." "Cinnamon in their food reduces this gas by decreasing the secretion of gastric acid and pepsin from the stomach walls, which in turn cools the pigs' stomachs during digestion,"...

Sometimes ancient remedies are the best, even if they make you a little squeamish. Maggots are being used again but in a new way: to save lives, limbs and money. Some doctors think the larvae could revolutionize wound care, which costs $10 to 15 billion a year in the U.S. It’s a problem that will grow, with our growing diabetes population. On the Ca-Hil farm out in the small town of Wild Peach in Brazoria County, it is another day. Owner Randy Harang is prepping the fields to bale hay, but for the 59-year-old, it is not just business as...

* Salk Institute scientists have used new technique to cure rats' blindness * It is the first time anyone has edited DNA in eyes, heart, brain or liver * These organs' cells rarely divide, making them very difficult to penetrate * So far the most advanced method is called CRISPR, which can edit skin and gut genes - it was tested yesterday by Chinese scientists * But Salk's study has been hailed as biggest leap in DNA research to date Scientists have discovered how to edit DNA to repair 'broken genes' to cure incurable diseases - and potentially extend human...

Dr. Denton Cooley, a Houston native and a pioneer of heart transplants, died Friday. He was 96. Born in 1920, Cooley graduated with highest honors from the University of Texas Austin and earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1944. Cooley performed the first transplant of a human heart in the United States in 1968. The following year, he became the first surgeon to implant an artificial heart in a human.

Knowing she had only weeks to live rather than her whole life ahead of her, a dying schoolgirl desperately turned to cryogenics in the hope she could one day be brought back.Described as a “bright, intelligent young person”, the tragic 14-year-old spent her last months fervently researching how she could be frozen until a cure is found for her rare form of cancer in the future. But as she ran out of time, her divorced parents were locked in a bitter battle about what to do with her remains. Too young to make a will, the teenager went to court...

Embattled Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a victim who has been "totally attacked," venture capitalist Tim Draper told CNBC on Tuesday. Holmes has been under fire since a series of reports by The Wall Street Journal suggested the blood-testing start-up's testing devices were flawed. "Elizabeth Holmes is a great example of maybe why the women are so frustrated. She is a woman entrepreneur who built a fabulous company, did great things for consumers and she got attacked," the founding partner of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson said in an interview with "Closing Bell." "This is a great entrepreneur who...

Bill Clinton met Hillary at the bottom of her airplane’s stairs in Philadelphia on Monday and she appeared to stumble as she made her way to the awaiting car. Bill put his arm around her and she shuffled the short distance from the plane to the motorcade vehicle.

Earlier today, the D.C. City Council voted to allow physician-assisted suicide. But the debate isn’t over. The Washington Post reports that “the council must still hold a final vote on the bill, possibly as early as Nov. 15,” and that the mayor, Muriel Bowser, must decide if she’ll sign or veto the bill. The mayor should veto the bill. Physician-assisted suicide will change us all, for the worse—as I explain in a Heritage Foundation report, “Always Care, Never Kill: How Physician-Assisted Suicide Endangers the Weak, Corrupts Medicine, Compromises the Family, and Violates Human Dignity and Equality.” Too many people view...

Christopher and Heather Dempsey found they had a bond that went beyond the major medical procedure they shared.Just under two years ago, Christopher Dempsey made the brave decision to donate half his liver to a stranger and save her life.But little did he know their bond would go beyond a medical procedure.Now the woman he saved, Heather Krueger, is not just a friend, she is his wife.It's a heartwarming love story that began when Christopher, a former marine, overheard a colleague at work talking about a cousin who needed a transplant.Christopher, 38, told the BBC: "I just thought to myself,...

The anchors of CBS This Morning expressed bewilderment on Tuesday at the sharp premium hikes in Obamacare insurance plans, with one asking for an understanding for “why this is happening.” When Obamacare open enrollment begins in 2017, the cost of mid-level plans will rise by an average of 25 percent in the 39 states served by the federal online exchanges. In addition, major providers like Humana, UnitedHealth, and Aetna have scaled back or dropped out of the Obamacare exchanges, leaving roughly 20 percent of consumers with only one insurer to choose from. After Charlie Rose read out the report, Norah...

A San Francisco-based hedge fund has filed a lawsuit against Theranos Inc, accusing the blood testing company of using fraudulent methods to attract an investment of nearly $100 million. The hedge fund, Partner Fund Management LP (PFM), filed the lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery on Monday afternoon, a letter to the hedge fund's investors said. 'Through a series of lies, material misstatements, and omissions, the defendants engaged in securities fraud and other violations by fraudulently inducing PFM to invest and maintain its investment in the company,' said the letter, which was reviewed by Reuters.

Vaccines Regulators: Doctor concocts vaccines with cat saliva, vodka Published September 29, 2016 Associated Press Illinois regulators on Wednesday suspended the license of a suburban Chicago doctor who allegedly gave patients modified vaccinations containing cat saliva and vodka. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation ordered the emergency action in the interest of public safety, according to paperwork signed by Acting Director Jessica Baer. After hearing complaints from health care providers that children were getting unapproved oral versions of childhood shots from Dr. Ming Te Lin, investigators visited Lin's Flossmoor practice. They found a cluttered, unsterile office and "a...