Medical Marketing and Media: Digital Medicine Society unveils resources to boost DE&I in digitized clinical trials

Medical Marketing and Media: Digital Medicine Society unveils resources to boost DE&I in digitized clinical trials. “The Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) launched a suite of free resources designed to boost diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in digitized clinical trials Wednesday morning…. These include definitions to ensure industry-wide alignment on DE&I as well as a guide to conduct a digitized clinical trial with these considerations in mind.”

Medical Device Association Launches Hub for Research, Standards, News: AAMI ARRAY (Globe Newswire) (PRESS RELEASE)

Globe Newswire: Medical Device Association Launches Hub for Research, Standards, News: AAMI ARRAY (PRESS RELEASE). “The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) has launched a new online platform to bring together its many resources for the health technology, medical device, and sterilization communities. That platform, called AAMI ARRAY, functions as a ‘one-stop shop’ for accessing AAMI’s journal content, industry news, and association updates, as well as the most up-to-date standards, guidance documents, and books.”

Do not try this at home: Medieval medicine under the spotlight in major new project (University of Cambridge)

University of Cambridge: Do not try this at home: Medieval medicine under the spotlight in major new project. “Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries – a new two-year project to digitise, catalogue and conserve over 180 medieval manuscripts – has launched at Cambridge University Library. It will focus on manuscripts containing approximately 8,000 unedited medical recipes and will bring together unique and irreplaceable handwritten books from across the world-class collections of the University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and a dozen Cambridge colleges.”

Newswise: University of Florida launches innovative online courses on AI in medicine

Newswise: University of Florida launches innovative online courses on AI in medicine. “The University of Florida’s College of Medicine is launching an innovative series of interactive online courses to teach medical students and clinicians how artificial intelligence can improve medicine. The three courses are virtual and interactive, making extensive use of animations and videos.”

Focus Taiwan: Traditional herbal formula lauded as effective treatment for COVID-19

Focus Taiwan: Traditional herbal formula lauded as effective treatment for COVID-19. “Taipei, April 22 (CNA) A traditional herbal formula developed in Taiwan, known as Taiwan Chingguan Yihau (NRICM101), can be considered to be an effective treatment for COVID-19 patients, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctors said Friday. Huang Yi-chia (黃怡嘉), a TCM doctor from Tri-Service General Hospital, said her hospital has prescribed NRICM101 to more than 200 COVID-19 patients since it obtained emergency use authorization in Taiwan in May 2020.”

Morgridge Institute for Research: New search app gleans ‘collective consciousness’ from a massive research database

Morgridge Institute for Research: New search app gleans ‘collective consciousness’ from a massive research database. “The PubMed database contains more than 33 million papers that represent the ‘collective consciousness’ of what humans know about biomedicine. It is impossible for researchers to keep up with this vast literature where more than 1,000 new papers get added daily. A new web application, KinderMiner Web, developed by Ron Stewart’s Bioinformatics Group at the Morgridge Institute for Research, gives researchers a fighting chance.”

EurekAlert: Using virtual populations for clinical trials

EurekAlert: Using virtual populations for clinical trials. “A study involving virtual rather than real patients was as effective as traditional clinical trials in evaluating a medical device used to treat brain aneurysms, according to new research. The findings are proof of concept for what are called in-silico trials, where instead of recruiting people to a real-life clinical trial, researchers build digital simulations of patient groups, loosely akin to the way virtual populations are built in The Sims computer game.”

EurekAlert: Personalised medications possible with 3D printing

EurekAlert: Personalised medications possible with 3D printing. “Customised medicines could one day be manufactured to patients’ individual needs, with University of East Anglia (UEA) researchers investigating technology to 3D ‘print’ pills. The team, including Dr Andy Gleadall and Prof Richard Bibb at Loughborough University, identified a new additive manufacturing method to allow the 3D printing of medicine in highly porous structures, which can be used to regulate the rate of drug release from the medicine to the body when taken orally.”

UCLA: UCLA researchers digitize massive collection of folk medicine

UCLA: UCLA researchers digitize massive collection of folk medicine. “A project more than 40 years in the making, the Archive of Healing is one of the largest databases of medicinal folklore from around the world. UCLA Professor David Shorter has launched an interactive, searchable website featuring hundreds of thousands of entries that span more than 200 years, and draws from seven continents, six university archives, 3,200 published sources, and both first and second-hand information from folkloric field notes.”

Indiana University: #IDBoardReview Case Studies a Hit on Twitter

Indiana University: #IDBoardReview Case Studies a Hit on Twitter. “Every evening, [Dr. Saira] Butt posts a case study on the @IUIDFellowship account and invites others to guess the diagnosis. (A brief warning: some of the photos that accompany the case studies are graphic, and may disturb the squeamish.) She responds to the suggestions, questions and guesses, and sometimes posts additional information, before finally revealing the correct diagnosis. She says she draws case studies from textbooks, the CDC website, and other Infectious Diseases resources, sometimes making minor alterations to the patients’ histories to further anonymize or vary them.”

Politico: Game-changing coronavirus medicine gears up for production

Politico: Game-changing coronavirus medicine gears up for production. “Amid alarming spikes in infections and a wave of new restrictions announced across Europe, some good news is emerging: Monoclonal antibodies are likely to be the first game-changing therapy against COVID-19. Big drugmakers have ample experience in manufacturing these kinds of medicines, and their existing facilities can readily be converted to produce doses of a future COVID-19 treatment, experts say.”

Chronicle Live: Operating Theatre Live goes online with free lessons for teens during coronavirus lockdown

Chronicle Live: Operating Theatre Live goes online with free lessons for teens during coronavirus lockdown. “Award-winning show Operating Theatre Live is now running free online lessons for teenagers in lockdown. The show – described as the UK’s only touring surgical experience – has launched an educational channel to help 14 to 19-year-olds with distance learning. The viewers will follow the role of a trauma doctor as body systems are dissected and can ask questions during a live stream through social media.”

France24: Medicine shortage looms over coronavirus-hit Europe

France24: Medicine shortage looms over coronavirus-hit Europe. “While the world waits for a coronavirus vaccine, medicines used to deal with the symptoms of the disease are increasingly in critically short supply in Europe, the worst-hit continent. From sedatives needed to intubate patients struggling to breathe to anti-malarial drugs heavily backed by US President Donald Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic is eating up stocks.”

Regulatory Focus: FDA Launches Searchable Purple Book

Regulatory Focus: FDA Launches Searchable Purple Book. “The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday unveiled the first version of its searchable online database of biological product information, known as the Purple Book. Building off the previous PDF lists of biological products, the database now allows for easier searches and includes information on product names (proprietary and proper), the type of biologics license application (BLA) that was submitted, strength of the biologic, dosage form, product presentation, license status, BLA number and approval date.” I didn’t know how a “biological product” was defined. I got educated via this FDA PDF.