Healthcare : In The News

The brother of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel joins Penn faculty, according to The Associated Press.


The Ivy League institution in Philadelphia announced Friday that Ezekiel Emanuel will hold dual posts in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School for business.

Source: The Associated Press
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Bio IT delves into the partnership between Fox Chase Cancer Center, Ignite Institute and Life Technologies that has formed the Cancer Genome Institute.

Following the widely publicized demise of plans to locate the Ignite Institute for Individualized Health in northern Virginia, the institute has found a new home as part of a three-way partnership at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Only it won't be called Ignite anymore.

Ignite has been rolled into pre-existing plans at Fox Chase to build a center for personalized medicine, says Jeff Boyd, senior vice president of Molecular Medicine. "The Ignite Institute and Fox Chase are working together with Life Technologies to launch what is now the Cancer Genome Institute at Fox Chase," says Boyd. Ignite's founder, Dietrich Stephan, serves as consulting chief scientific officer of the new institute.

Source: Bio IT World
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A bulb literally goes on when students work out at Drexel, according to NPR.

If only all the speed and strength of youth could be channeled into power. Turns out, it can. Some colleges and universities have started converting energy from exercise equipment into electricity.

One of those schools is Drexel University in Philadelphia, where student power runs straight into their buildings' power grids. Dan Simmons, director of recreation at Drexel, says a typical 30-minute workout on a treadmill can generate enough energy to hold a light bulb for 2.5 hours.

Source: NPR
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Researchers in Temple University's physics department are developing magnets as blood thinners, helping reduce the risk of heart disease, according to CNET.

Temple University physics department chair Rongjia Tao made headlines in 2008 when he developed a simple device that creates an electric field to thin fuel, thereby reducing the size of the droplets injected into the engine and improving fuel efficiency.

Now, Tao and former graduate student Ke Huang are unveiling their latest research that this same principle, when applied to the human body, can help thin blood and reduce one's risk of heart attack--without the side effects of blood thinners such as aspirin.

Source: CNET
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Temple researchers find that prolonged bottle feeding may increase risk of obesity, reports Fox News.

Babies who are still drinking from a bottle after the age of one are more likely to become obese, U.S. researchers said today.

A study of almost 7,000 children by scientists at Temple University in Philadelphia found that those who were still being put to bed with a bottle of milk at age two were 30 percent more likely to be obese at age five.

Source: Fox News
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Philadelphia based insurance giant Cigna Corp. exceeded first-quarter expectations due to lowered medical claims and increased international business, according to The Associated Press.

Cigna Corp.'s first-quarter net income jumped 52 percent as medical claims fell, the international business grew again, and it raised its 2011 profit forecast like other big health insurers that also beat expectations for the quarter.

The Philadelphia company said Thursday earnings in health care, its largest segment, climbed 47 percent, and premiums and fees from its international business rose 32 percent, fueled in part by the purchase of the Belgian company Vanbreda International last year.

Source: The Associated Press
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Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University, working in tandem with University of Zurich scientists discover a chemical thought to be a vital piece in the Multiple Sclerosis puzzle, according to The Daily Mail.

In a major breakthrough in the battle against the devastating disease, researchers have pinpointed the chemical 'driving force' behind MS.

Without it, the disease does not develop. And when it is mopped up, symptoms are greatly eased, even in brains already ravaged by the illness.

The results come from experiments on mice but the researchers say they are 'quietly optimistic' that taking the same tack will help people with MS. The first trials on patients are penciled in for later this year.

Source: the Daily Mail (UK)
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Johnson & Johnson plans to buy West Chester-based Synthes, and the deal may usher in future medtech investment, according to Reuters.

Johnson & Johnson's plan to buy Synthes for some $20 billion may mean more deals in the sector as rival medical technology firms try to bulk up in tough times, though antitrust issues are a hurdle.

A weak economy and high unemployment have hit sales of medical devices hard, since patients have to take time off and, in the United States, dig deep into their own pockets to help pay for procedures such as knee replacements.

As a result, more and more companies are looking at acquisitions as a way to add new avenues of growth.

Source: Reuters
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New technology to electronically assess head trauma is being developed by Villanova University engineering professor, according to the National Post.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discover more genes that may be linked to Alzheimer's, according to NPR.

Two groups of researchers have scanned the genomes of thousands of individuals, looking for clues to genes involved in Alzheimer's disease. Gerard Schellenberg of the University of Pennsylvania explains how locating those genes could lead to new ways to treat or prevent the disease.

Alzheimer's disease is one of medical science's big mysteries, of course. It's difficult to diagnose. We don't really know what causes it, if there is any single cause. We have no real cure for it.

Well, writing this week in the journal Nature Genetics, researchers may have found some new clues to the disease. Two big consortia of researchers, one in the U.S., one in Europe, have sifted through the genomes of thousands of Alzheimer's patients and have come up with a handful of genes that seem to be linked to the condition. 

Source: NPR
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The School District of Philadelphia puts new programs in place to help kids eat more healthfully, according to The New York Times.

Tatyana Gray bolted from her house and headed toward her elementary school. But when she reached the corner store where she usually gets her morning snack of chips or a sweet drink, she encountered a protective phalanx of parents with bright-colored safety vests and walkie-talkies.

The scourge the parents were combating was neither the drugs nor the violence that plagues this North Philadelphia neighborhood. It was bad eating habits.

The parents standing guard outside the Oxford Food Shop are foot soldiers in a national battle over the diets of children that has taken on new fervor. With 20 percent of the nation's children obese, the United States Department of Agriculture has proposed new standards for federally subsidized school meals that call for more balanced meals and, for the first time, a limit on calories. The current standard specifies only a minimum calorie count, which some schools meet by adding sweet foods.

Source: The New York Times
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Surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania fix a patient's sleep apnea with a procedure involving robots, according to NPR.

At 32, it just didn't make sense that Daniel Sheiner was exhausted literally from the moment he woke up. "It didn't get any better over the course of the day, and I knew that was not normal," Sheiner says.

A sleep study confirmed Sheiner had one of the worst cases of apnea his doctors had ever seen. After trying a number of different treatments, his doctors finally tried a surgery using robots to treat his stubborn apnea � with positive results.



Source: NPR
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Aker Philadelphia Shipyard improves work safety and saves millions through data tracking practices, according to Industry Week.

When it takes 10,000 labor tasks and 1.2 million labor hours to build one product, tracking costs is quite a task. Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, a leading U.S. commercial shipyard constructing vessels for customers including the U.S. Navy, employs 700 full-time and 500 contractors to build 2.8 ships per year. Managing such a large workforce requires complex tracking system.

Michel Boeckx, Chief Technology Officer at Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, deftly used safety data he collected, via software company Kronos, in order to improve work practices. The company saw 41% fewer eye incidents over a year. These collective improvements enabled the company to reduce medical insurance by two million dollars.

Source: Industry Week
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A new study by Thomas Jefferson University researchers finds that spontaneous cessation of smoking may signal the onset of lung cancer, according to The Washington Post.

A provocative, though small, study suggests that the very act of quitting smoking may be a symptom of not-yet-diagnosed lung cancer.

That's the curious conclusion reached by a team of researchers led by Barbara Campling at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia when they surveyed 115 lung cancer patients, all of them current or former smokers, at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Source: The Washington Post
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The City of Philadelphia and SEPTA join together to address the connection between public health and public transportation, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council and as reported in Flying Kite last week.

Don't see the link between transit and food? Philly does. The City of Philadelphia and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) have made it a top goal to target food deserts--neighborhoods where it is difficult to access fresh food--and public transportation is at the core of their effort.

Source: NRDC Smarter Cities
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