Brainstorm Health: Ingestible Gut Bacteria Monitor, Athenahealth Pressure, Open Offices and Biopharma

MIT scientists have evolved new tech nestled at the corner of numerous developing, if nevertheless nascent, elements of the lifestyles sciences zeitgeist: An ingestible sensor containing genetically modified bacteria that might be used to smell out sicknesses in the hard-to-reach gastrointestinal tract (through relaying facts to a phone).

let’s start off with the inevitable caveats. The look at of the tool, published in technological know-how, could be very early level and concerned pigs, not people. but the generation’s potential programs are putting.

“by means of combining engineered biological sensors collectively with low-energy wi-fi electronics, we will come across organic alerts inside the body and in close to actual-time, enabling new diagnostic abilties for human health programs,” said MIT’s Timothy Lu in a assertion. put some other way: those “residing cellular” sensors can engage with blood additives, consisting of organic markers that imply sickness, and relay those responses via a wi-fi, phone-readable sign.

you can test out MIT’s video of the era right here.

Ingestible sensors are having a second, as evidenced through the FDA approval of the primary-ever “digital tablet” last yr. That device, from Proteus virtual health and Otsuka pharmaceuticals, is meant to monitor whether or not or not sufferers are sticking to their prescribed drug regimens. the prospect of being capable of use other kinds of that tech to provide a real-time readout on what’s going on in the intestine—that may have implications for the entirety from gastrointestinal disorders to figuring out the way to make drugs extra powerful—is a excellent one.

study on for the day’s news—and experience your Memorial Day weekend. We’ll be returned in your inboxes on Tuesday, may 29.

DIGITAL HEALTH

Elliott management places the squeeze on Athenahealth. Elliott management is persisting in its bid for health IT and analytics company Athenahealth—and it’s using a piece of a sugar-and-vinegar technique in its today's letter to the latter employer’s board of administrators, issued Thursday. “it's also essential to emphasize that athenahealth’s stock fee is now buying and selling at $154 consistent with proportion, an growth of 22% from the inventory charge prior to the general public disclosure of Elliott’s provide. buyers are actually looking ahead to the organisation to have interaction with Elliott and other fascinated parties. Failure to engage will in all likelihood result in athenahealth’s inventory returning to depressed ranges,” wrote Elliott. The company has made a $a hundred and sixty-in keeping with-proportion all-cash provide in the deal.

INDICATIONS

Delving into the massive cancer immunotherapy panorama. The cancer studies Institute is out with a amazing, and extraordinarily certain, new report on the worldwide kingdom of most cancers immunotherapy R&D. This area has come to be one of the pass-to therapeutic spaces for existence sciences corporations large and small alike (to the point that some observers are involved there won't be sufficient scientific trial individuals for the sheer wide variety of ongoing research.) CRI’s record is an in depth account of which types of new most cancers technologies are being explored via organizations the world over. (CRI)

Biopharma staffers truly don’t like open workplaces. It seems downright impossible to escape the “open office” in company culture in recent times. That’s a truth which attracts some sturdy reactions from people. And, in biopharma at least, staffers don’t seem particularly pleased with the method. Endpoints news polled extra than 600 industry respondents and the message changed into clear: “eighty% said they hated the idea of an open office — and forty three% of those people paintings in an open office.” (Endpoints)