Scienceblogtwo

Researchers involved in a new multi-site international phase III study led by Northwestern Medicine found that the drug was highly effective in reducing the signs and symptoms of moderate-to-severe eczema. This is the first study to treat moderate-to-severe eczema in infants and children 6 months to 5 years of age with a biologic drug (monoclonal antibody) instead of immune-suppressing medications. More than half the children experienced at least a 75% reduction in eczema symptoms, highly significant reductions in itching, and improved sleep after a 16-week course of dupilumab, a drug that targets a crucial immunological system in allergens. This is the first massive, random, placebo-controlled trial of a monoclonal antibody for any skin condition, including eczema, in kids as young as six months. The study, which covered 31 locations across Europe and North America, will be released in The Lancet on September 15. According to the lead study author Dr. Amy Paller, chair of dermatology ...

90% of people's lives are often spent indoors, either at work, home, or when traveling. Residents of these enclosed spaces are exposed to a wide range of chemicals from numerous sources, including indoor infiltration of outdoor pollutants, gaseous emissions from furnishings and building materials, and byproducts of our own activities like cooking and cleaning. Additionally, through our breath and skin, we are powerful mobile emission sources of chemicals that enter indoor air. However, how do the chemicals return? This occurs to some extent naturally on its own, when it rains, and through chemical oxidation in the atmosphere outside. In great part, hydroxyl (OH) radicals are in charge of this chemical cleanup. These highly reactive chemicals, also known as the detergents of the atmosphere, are largely created when sunlight reacts with ozone and water vapor to make these very reactive molecules. Direct sunlight and rain have obviously much less of an impact on the air within. Since ...

Wearable sensors are ubiquitous thanks to wireless technology that enables a person's glucose concentrations, blood pressure, heart rate, and activity levels to be transmitted seamlessly from sensor to smartphone for further analysis. Most wireless sensors today communicate via embedded Bluetooth chips that are themselves powered by small batteries. But these conventional chips and power sources will likely be too bulky for next-generation sensors, which are taking on smaller, thinner, more flexible forms. Now MIT engineers have devised a new kind of wearable sensor that communicates wirelessly without requiring onboard chips or batteries. Their design, detailed today in the journal Science, opens a path toward chip-free wireless sensors. The team's sensor design is a form of electronic skin, or "e-skin" -- a flexible, semiconducting film that conforms to the skin like electronic Scotch tape. The heart of the sensor is an ultrathin, high-quality film of gallium nitrid...