Your own cells to the rescue

29 June 2018 News Odyssey An ordered list of links for each blog series is on the Archive page. (0)
Melissa Healy | June 12, 2018 | Los Angeles Times

‘I’m the golden guinea pig’: New immunotherapy ‘eliminated’ aggressive breast cancer

Radiography, x-ray therapeutics and radium therapy (1915) (14757632645).jpg[S]cientists have reported a new approach that eliminated all evidence of advanced-stage breast cancer in a 49-year-old woman who had run out of treatment options. The patient’s “complete durable cancer regression” followed a single infusion of her own immune cells… More than three years later, the patient, Judy Perkins, is not only alive, but seemingly cancer-free … Existing immunotherapy drugs have shown little or no effectiveness against the kinds of solid tumors that account for 90% of cancer deaths, including those of the breast, prostate and colon. This new approach could change that.

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“We’re going to begin to change our brains…”

29 June 2018 News Odyssey An ordered list of links for each blog series is on the Archive page. (0)
TEDx Talks | Published 8/29/17 | YouTube.com

A look into current and near-future biotech by, for and of the brain

TEDx talk“…Brain chips can be inserted into the brain and they are wireless... Spinal injuries can be healed... Humans will have brain chips... Alzheimers, Parkinsons, paralyzed people will want these chips... A chip in one person’s brain will teach a person with a chip in theirs...

“We will communicate without talking. Brain to internet. We won’t know the difference between our own memory and the memory of someone else. Knowledge will be commoditized... All of us will have infinite access to information. We will be connected to everything….”

 

Related information - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This study centers on how computer-based decision procedures, under the broad umbrella of artificial intelligence (AI), can assist in improving health and health care.

Although advanced statistics and machine learning provide the foundation for AI, there are currently revolutionary advances underway in the sub-field of neural networks. This has created tremendous excitement in many fields of science, including in medicine and public health. First demonstrations have already emerged showing that deep neural networks can perform as well as the best human clinicians in well-defined diagnostic tasks.

In addition, AI-based tools are already appearing in health-oriented apps that can be employed on handheld, networked devices such as smart phones. Focus of the Study. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, asked JASON to consider how AI will shape the future of public health, community health, and health care delivery.

We focused on technical capabilities, limitations, and applications that can be realized within the next ten years. Some questions raised by this study are: Is the recent level of interest in AI just another period of hype within the cycles of excitement that have arisen around AI? Or would different circumstances this time make people more receptive to embracing the promise of AI applications, particularly related to health? ...

Angel fish
Public Domain, Link

...and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind ... the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind ...the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. -Genesis 1

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A SistersSite eBook

Flesh and Bone and The Protestant Conscience is an e-book on Amazon.com. It is 99¢ and in the Amazon lending library as well. It is also available here in PDF format. The book description follows.

Would you let your conscience be your guide?

Does God care if the skin and bone of the dead are passed along to the living for medical uses? Is organ donation OK with God? Should you sign a Living Will?

Did you know that dead organ donors are often anesthetized before their organs are removed? Do you know the current definition of death? The conscience cannot function without facts.

As we ponder the ethics of in vitro fertilization, stem cell research and man-made chimeras, our thoughts trail off. How then should we live? (Ez 33:10)

How should a Christian think about euthanasia by starvation when doctors and the state attorney general all agree it is time to withhold feeding from a brain injured patient? Some things are family matters, but someday it may be our family.

Here is a small book to help you think about whether you want to sign your driver's license, donate a kidney, cremate your loved one, and many other practical questions that may arise in the course of your healthcare decisions or watch over others.

It offers a special focus on the doctrine of the Resurrection that is related to such decisions. Sunday School classes and Bible Study groups could use this book to facilitate discussion about the issues covered.

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Help your child learn to use a keyboard while memorizing Scripture.

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