Researchers from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and collaborators have successfully treated bladder tumors in mice using urease-powered nanobots. The testing consisted of the administration of 18F-nanorobots to tumor-bearing mice divided into four groups depending on tumor volumes using a group of non-tumor-bearing mice as control. Importantly, the therapy remained in the bladder with only a very small proportion of radioactivity seen in other organs. The results were published in Nature Nanotechnology on Jan. 15, 2024.

Vaxess Technologies Inc. seeks patent protection for devices that enable the reliable application of silk fibroin-based microneedle medicament patches used for delivering small molecule drugs, vaccines, peptides, biologics, antibodies, hormones or other materials into or through the skin.

One of the largest med-tech deals of 2023 was wiped off the charts when Medtronic plc terminated a $738 million agreement to acquire South Korean wearable insulin patch maker Eoflow Co. Ltd., citing “multiple breaches” under its agreements, on Dec. 6.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven tools have the ability to design new drugs, with a bit of help from humans, said Anders Hogner, from Astrazeneca plc’s R&D department at the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo Europe in London. “We don’t have anything out there yet,” he added, but the company appears to be working on it.

Wubin Bai, assistant professor of applied physical sciences, and members of his lab at UNC-Chapel Hill have developed a wearable, wireless sensing patch for deep tissue monitoring of multiple biometric indicators, including tissue oximetry, pulse oximetry, photoplethysmography, heart pulsation, and respiration.

Conncons GmbH filed for patent protection of its networked medical infusion systems. The connecting components of their infusion systems house sensors that can detect data associated with medications in drug reservoirs.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is in full development, and advances are already used in many fields, including medicine. In oncology, these tools can identify a tumor in an image with 99% accuracy. But they can also miss it if the algorithm was not developed with the right data or the correct decisions. The 2023 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress brought together in Madrid doctors and deep learning experts to discuss the challenges and advances of AI in this area. And what’s better than asking an AI what its trainer has told it about AI?

The mRNA technology used in vaccines against viral infections could also be developed for cancer therapies. A group of scientists has designed a circular RNA (circRNA) encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that acts in the mitochondria of tumor cells through the protein gasdermin-D (GSDMD) and reduces adenocarcinoma. The work was published on Oct. 16, 2023, in Nature Cancer.

No one is looking in the rearview mirror at Medtronic plc as a fresh U.S. FDA approval for the next generation version of its intrathecal drug delivery system allows the company to leave behind a spate of problems associated with its Sychromed II device. The device delivers medication directly to the fluid surrounding the spinal cord via a small catheter positioned to deposit the drug at the site of most severe pain. The targeted delivery improves management of chronic and cancer-related pain as well as management of severe spasticity without use of systemic opioids.

Quantum dots, a phenomenon in quantum physics that alters the energy of electrons and changes the properties of particles, caught the attention of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA) for the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Alexei Ekimov and Louis Brus received the award for their discovery; Moungi Bawendi, for developing its applications. With their work, “in equal shares,” said the Secretary General of KVA Hans Ellegren, the three scientists have laid the foundations of nanotechnology, a tool that we see today in our homes, on televisions and LED lamps, or in laboratories and hospitals for designing new drugs or new strategies against cancer.