WeirdMedical™

NASA…no need to say more.

Some of the most weird and heart-warming stories of 2010…

Mother’s touch revives premature twin pronounced dead…

“Kangaroo Cuddle”

Afghani teen receives nose transplant in California…

Afghani Teen Harmed by Family

All 33 Chilean Miners Survive Ordeal…

All Chilean Minors Survive

…and seven more…

Thank you, AOL, TIME, LWA, AP, Getty Images & Youtube.com!

A marriage of science, art and remarkable skill…

Dr. Larry Over, DMD, MSD, a maxillofacial prosthodontist in Eugene, OR,  rebuilds a mother’s face.

Building a new face

See the American Medical Association’s site at amednews.com for the amazing reconstruction…read on…

Who of us in the medical industry would have the guts to give a neurosurgeon permission to have our infant’s brain glued?

According to the authors – “It was just a few months before the parents noticed Joley’s head was growing rapidly and was unusually larger than [her twin's] Jared’s . Her mother could see the tiny veins in Joley’s head bulging out from her scalp.”

…But crazy glue worked!

Image of glue in Ella-Grace Honeymans brain

Got to love N-butyl-cyanoacrylate…read more at HealthMad.com…

You-Tube video of Jonathan’s Cochlear Implant Activation 8 mo., Rt Ear cont\\’d – April 14, 2008

Beautiful Baby Boy

“Experts have discovered that an extract from the white flower commonly known as Baby’s Breath can boost the efficiency of anti-cancer drugs by a staggering million times,” stated on the British MailOnline website by its Healthcare Section editors.

Apparently this staggeringly significant discovery was made by scientists working for the charity, Leukaemia Busters, based in Southampton, Hampshire. The scientists extracted the molecular substance called saponins from the Gypsophila Paniculata plant. Saponins appears to break down the membrane of cancer cells leaving them vulnerable to antibody-based drugs, known as immunotoxins. Immunotoxins can then more easily attack and kill the cancerous cells.

Baby's Breath Flower Million Star

Leukaemia Busters name and its logo were both devised by Simon Flavell the son of the researchers, Dr David Flavell and his wife Dr Bee Flavell. Drs. Flavell run the charity that was set up in memory Simon who died from the disease aged 10. Simon was a great fan of Ghost Busters.

To learn more about this dedicated research team and their findings read on…

Now this is a good use of our federal tax dollars…

In the northwestern reaches of Washington (D.C. that is) sits a museum that is a “must see” if you like the slightly off-taste, arcane, twisted and in some cases, down-right gross medical oddities. Visit the bricks and mortar “Roadside America of American medicine,” the National Museum of Health and Medicine, America’s oldest taxpayer-funded Cabinet of Curiosities near Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

A row of little skeletons.

At the National Museum of Health and Medicine you can see precariously displayed and disturbingly barely described:

• hanging display of a complete brain and spine, suspended in liquid in an eerily lit glass cylinder
• girl’s head preserved in arsenic
• well-preserved hairball from the stomach of a 12-year old girl who compulsively ate her own hair
• skull with a huge civil war bullet buried in its frontal lobe
• and the list goes on…

To visit…virtually go to the RoadsideAmerica.com Team Field Reporters or National Museum of Health and Medicine, or in real life visit:

6900 Georgia Avenue, Washington, DC

Hours:     M-F 10 am – 5:30 pm, Sa, Su, Hol call ahead

No kidding. This is for real – so when you go to the NMHM in D.C., tell them you want your tax dollars’ worth!

Programming our bodies to heal themselves…

Researchers at the Harvard University have discovered a method to make cancerous tumors self destruct. By implanting a plastic disc with tumor-specific antigens that mimic infection into a mouse, the immune system is reprogrammed to attack the tumor.

“Our immune systems work by recognizing and attacking foreign invaders, allowing most cancer cells — which originate inside the body — to escape detection,” according to Harvard’s David J. Mooney, Gordon McKay Professor of Bioengineering in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, as described in the current issue of the journal Nature Materials. “This technique, which redirects the immune system from inside the body, appears to be easier and more effective than other approaches to cancer vaccination.”

This weird, in vivo technique may prove very effective in human cancer survival.

Causing Cancer to Self-Destruct (Source: Phsyorg.com)

Someday it may be said…“cancer patient, heal thyself!”

Nobel winners uncover a connection…

The 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine went to three scientists who discovered an  enzyme called telomerase that allows cells to divide indefinitely. In general, cells have a limit on the number of times they can divide and over time this causes degradation of organic structures, or aging. In an article published by WIRED Aaron Rowe reveals that the scientists realized that they could persuade cells into producing telomeras.

However, there is a catch.

Currently cells in adults divide roughly 80 times before they die off, which limits susceptibility to cancer. When cells produce telomerase they continue dividing, which eventually leads to a higher probability of developing cancer.

Chromosomes

Mark Muller, a cancer and telomerase researcher at the University of Central Florida, stated that “Ninety percent of all cancer cells are telomerase rich.” Further, he posits that telomerase inhibitors could fight cancer itself and allow the cancer cells to essentially die off.

While currently the telomerase enzyme causes a Catch 22 of immortality and cancer, ethical and other pragmatic issues aside, it may be that in the future drugs may be able to combat cancerous cells without attacking all telomerase-rich cells, allowing mankind to achieve immortality in a safe manner.

Ready to rise above mere mortality?

An awesome feat of medical engineering!

In a brilliant surgical move, physicians in the UK have managed to repair a 42 year old man’s eyesight by implanting material from his tooth into his eye socket.

Martin Jones lost his eyesight in a 1997 construction accident. The reason tooth material was used was to provide a living anchor for a man-made replacement lens to be accepted by the eye.  Read more… , and see below.

Congratulations to Mr. Jones and Dr. Christopher Liu, the corneal specialist and Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon based at Sussex Eye Hospital, Brighton, who performed this surgery!

Blind man sees after tooth implanted into his eye for repair (Source: Daily Mail, UK)