It’s no secret that cannabis is becoming more accessible and accepted around the world. With its increasing popularity, the market for marijuana is growing at a rapid rate. But how can companies make sure they’re keeping up with this ever-changing industry? Enter: AI-driven marketing.

AI-driven marketing has become an invaluable tool for businesses in almost all industries, and now it’s being used to help promote marijuana products and services. By leveraging the power of machine learning, AI-driven marketing can help businesses stay ahead of their competition by targeting users with relevant content and offers tailored specifically to their needs.

If you’re curious about how AI-driven marketing can be used to market marijuana products and services, then read on! In this article, we’ll discuss how businesses can use AI technology to optimize their campaigns and boost their profits. We’ll also explore the potential implications of using artificial intelligence in this rapidly changing industry and what it means for the future of cannabis marketing.

Definition

It’s no coincidence that marketing marijuana with AI is becoming a popular topic. With the number of states legalizing the drug for recreational and medicinal purposes, it’s clear that society is becoming more open to its use. But what exactly does it mean to market marijuana with AI?

AI stands for artificial intelligence, which simply means that computers have been programmed to automatically carry out certain tasks. In this case, marketers are using AI algorithms to better understand their customers and target them with relevant advertising. For example, AI can identify people who have an interest in cannabis and target them with specific ads. Additionally, AI can track customer behavior and adjust campaigns accordingly.

AI also helps marketers ensure their messaging is effective by analyzing customer data such as age, location, interests, and purchasing behaviors. This allows companies to tailor their campaigns to reach the right audiences and maximize ROI. Ultimately, this opens up opportunities for businesses to make informed decisions about how they should market their products.

Benefits Of AI

Having discussed the definition of marketing marijuana with AI, let’s explore some of the benefits it can bring. Firstly, AI technology enables businesses to optimize their campaigns and target specific audiences more effectively. By analyzing customer data and preferences, AI can help businesses create personalized content for customers that is tailored to their interests and needs. This leads to increased customer engagement and increased sales.

Another advantage of using AI in marketing marijuana is that it allows businesses to automate their processes. By using AI-powered systems, companies are able to quickly produce high-quality content and track performance metrics in real time. This helps them measure the success of their campaigns more accurately, allowing them to make informed decisions about where they should be focusing their efforts.

Finally, AI also helps businesses save costs by automating mundane tasks such as data entry or customer support inquiries. This means that businesses can focus more resources on developing innovative strategies for reaching their target audience without worrying about wasting time on tedious tasks. With AI technology in place, companies are better equipped to maximize profits while minimizing time spent on manual work.

Challenges Of Marketing Cannabis

Marketing cannabis presents unique challenges that must be addressed with the utmost care and attention. The industry is still relatively new and faced with intense regulation, leaving marketers in a difficult situation. It can be hard to approach this topic successfully without running into legal issues or due to lack of knowledge.

The first challenge of marketing cannabis is understanding the various regulations imposed by state governments and local municipalities. Different states have different rules for advertising, packaging, labeling, and sales practices for cannabis products. Companies must comply with all relevant laws in order to operate legally.

Another challenge is the stigma attached to cannabis use, which can make it difficult for some people to accept its use even if it’s legal. Marketers need to be aware of this issue and create campaigns that focus on education and destigmatization efforts instead of simply selling the product itself.

Finally, there’s the challenge of using artificial intelligence (AI) to effectively market cannabis products. AI can help companies better understand their target audiences and develop more effective campaigns. However, AI also comes with its own set of ethical considerations that need to be taken into account before implementing it in any marketing strategy.

In order to market cannabis successfully, companies need to:
* Understand local regulations
* Promote destigmatization efforts
* Keep up-to-date on changing regulations
* Utilize AI responsibly
* Focus on customer education

* Leverage influencers and advocates

Current Strategies Used By Cannabis Companies

Cannabis companies have been utilizing a variety of strategies to market their products. Traditional advertising tactics are utilized to reach consumers, such as print and television advertising, radio, billboards, mailers and more. Social media has also become an effective tool for cannabis brands, allowing them to target specific demographics and create an engaging presence on the platform. Additionally, influencer marketing has become increasingly popular amongst cannabis companies, with influencers helping to promote products on their own channels.

In addition to traditional marketing tactics, cannabis companies have begun leveraging data-driven technologies in order to better understand their target audience. By collecting consumer data through surveys and other sources, they can gain insights into what potential customers are looking for in terms of product offerings and preferences. This allows them to tailor their messaging and create targeted campaigns that will resonate with their desired demographic.

By using these various strategies together, cannabis companies can reach a wider audience and increase brand awareness. They can also use the data collected from these campaigns to optimize future marketing efforts in order to maximize customer engagement and drive sales. As the industry continues to grow and evolve, it is essential for cannabis brands to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in order to remain competitive in this rapidly changing environment.

Potential Applications For AI In The Cannabis Industry

As the cannabis industry continues to expand, companies are looking for ways to make the most of their operations and maximize profits. Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a unique set of opportunities for cannabis businesses to innovate and deliver an enhanced customer experience. AI can be used to make decisions quickly and accurately, analyze customer behavior, improve customer engagement, and optimize marketing efforts.

When it comes to using AI in the cannabis industry, there are several potential applications worth considering:
– **Inventory Management**: AI can be used to streamline inventory management processes by monitoring stock levels in real time and predicting demand. This could help businesses plan inventory needs more efficiently and reduce costs associated with overstocking or understocking merchandise.
– **Marketing & Advertising**: AI can be used to create personalized campaigns that target specific customers based on their preferences. AI-powered marketing tools can also analyze customer data in order to identify trends in consumer behavior and create targeted campaigns that will reach more people with greater effectiveness.
– **Customer Engagement**: AI can be used to improve customer service by providing customers with quick answers to questions or personalized recommendations based on their past purchases. This could help build strong relationships with customers and increase loyalty for your business.

AI has the potential to revolutionize the cannabis industry by improving operational efficiency, increasing profits, and enhancing customer satisfaction. With its ability to automate mundane tasks, provide accurate insights into consumer behavior, and generate personalized marketing campaigns, AI has a lot of potential when it comes to helping businesses succeed in this rapidly growing market. By leveraging the power of AI, cannabis companies can position themselves for long-term success while paving the way for a new age of innovation within this exciting industry.

Automation And Personalization Strategies

In order to maximize the potential of the marijuana industry, AI-driven automation and personalization strategies are essential for successful marketing. Automation allows for marketers to save time and effort by automating mundane tasks such as email campaigns, social media posts, and ad targeting. This streamlines marketing efforts and can save considerable costs. Personalization then takes automation one step further by using customer data to create a more tailored experience for each user. Through personalization, marketers can create content that speaks directly to the interests of an individual user, leading to more effective engagements and higher conversion rates.

AI-driven technology can also be used to develop better segmentation strategies. By gathering customer data, marketers can divide users into distinct groups based on their behaviors and interests. This allows them to create targeted campaigns that are more likely to receive positive results from the right audience. Additionally, AI-driven segmentation helps marketers understand their customers better so they can make informed decisions about how best to reach them with relevant messaging.

Overall, utilizing AI-driven automation and personalization strategies is a great way for marketers in the marijuana industry to efficiently reach their target audience with personalized experiences that generate positive results. With these tools at their disposal, marketers can easily access valuable customer insights while also saving time and money in the process.

Machine Learning And Predictive Analytics

It’s often said that data is the new oil and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the new engine – but what does that mean for the marijuana industry? Can AI be used to help boost marketing efforts, better target customers and improve customer experience? The truth is that AI has immense potential to revolutionize the way companies in this sector market their products.

Below are five ways machine learning and predictive analytics can be utilized to help cannabis businesses:

– **Predictive Analytics**: Predictive analytics can be used to analyze customer purchasing patterns and preferences, allowing businesses to tailor marketing campaigns accordingly. For example, if a customer buys a product from a certain brand regularly, marketers can use predictive analytics to create customized offers or promotions for them.

– **Customer Segmentation**: AI-driven segmentation can be used to identify customer segments with similar interests, needs, demographic characteristics or behaviors. This helps marketers create targeted campaigns that are tailored specifically for those particular segments.

– **Sentiment Analysis**: Sentiment analysis uses natural language processing algorithms to analyze text data from sources such as customer reviews and social media posts. It then uses this data to understand how customers feel about specific products or services.

– **AI Chatbots**: AI chatbots are an effective way of interacting with customers in real time on websites and social media platforms. By using natural language processing algorithms, these bots can respond quickly and accurately to customers’ queries and support requests.

– **Personalized Content**: Personalized content is an effective way of engaging customers through personalized emails or messages that contain information relevant to their interests or previous purchases. Machine learning algorithms can be used to automate the process of creating personalized content based on customer profiles.

By leveraging machine learning technologies such as predictive analytics, sentiment analysis and AI chatbots, cannabis businesses have the opportunity to increase engagement with their current customers while also attracting new ones. With more data at their disposal than ever before, marketers in this sector have unprecedented access into understanding their audience – allowing them to tailor campaigns appropriately for maximum effectiveness.

AI-Driven Content Creation

AI-driven content creation is revolutionizing the way marijuana marketers reach their target audiences. By leveraging natural language processing (NLP) algorithms and machine learning models, marketers can rapidly generate content that is specifically tailored to communicate with their customer base. AI-driven content takes the guesswork out of marketing for cannabis companies, allowing them to quickly create personalized content that resonates with their customers.

AI-driven content also enables marketers to monitor and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns in real time. By utilizing data from various sources, AI algorithms can assess user engagement metrics such as click-through rate and conversion rate to determine which messages are most effective in driving customer action. This valuable insight allows cannabis marketers to adjust their tactics on the fly and maximize ROI from their campaigns.

By taking advantage of AI-driven content creation, marijuana marketers can unlock a new level of control over their campaigns and make sure they are reaching the right people at the right time with the right message. With this powerful tool at their disposal, cannabis companies can confidently craft compelling messages that drive customer engagement and build brand loyalty.

Tracking And Measuring Performance

Using AI to track and measure performance is essential to the success of any marijuana marketing campaign. AI can help marketers identify potential customer segments, understand their preferences, and craft targeted messages that will be most effective in driving conversions. AI also provides insights into how customers interact with different campaigns, allowing marketers to adjust their strategies for maximum impact.

At the same time, tracking and measuring performance is a process that requires ongoing monitoring and analysis. By leveraging AI to automate this process, marketers can save time and resources while ensuring accurate results at all times. With detailed reports on campaign performance metrics such as reach, engagement, leads generated, sales conversions etc., marketers can easily identify areas of improvement and make adjustments accordingly.

Ultimately, Tracking and Measuring Performance with AI helps marketers ensure they are making the most of their marketing efforts while achieving maximum ROI. AI’s ability to provide timely insights into customer behavior allows marketers to make informed decisions quickly and easily- giving them greater control over their campaigns than ever before.

Ethical Considerations

Now that we’ve discussed tracking and measuring performance in marketing marijuana with AI, let’s move on to a related yet equally important topic: ethical considerations.

As marketers, it is our responsibility to ensure that any digital campaigns we craft are thoughtful, respectful and consider the implications of our work. To do this, here are four key points to keep in mind when crafting marketing campaigns for marijuana with AI:

– Respect consumer privacy: Make sure you comply with all applicable data protection laws and regulations when collecting customer data.
– Avoid deceptive practices: Be transparent about how customer data is being used and never make false or exaggerated claims about products or services.
– Prioritize safety first: Ensure your campaigns prioritize public health by providing accurate information about the risks associated with marijuana use.
– Follow industry standards: Familiarize yourself with best practices in the cannabis industry, such as responsible dosing guidelines for edibles and topicals.

These points provide a framework for creating marketing campaigns that are ethical, responsible, and respectful of the customer’s rights and safety. Furthermore, they will help protect your business from potential legal action if something goes wrong. It is also worth noting that while AI can be used to identify trends more quickly than humans can, marketers should still take care to review their campaigns manually before launching them to ensure accuracy and compliance with relevant regulations. Ultimately, taking these steps will help you create effective marketing campaigns while remaining mindful of ethical considerations.

To conclude, AI is an invaluable tool when it comes to marketing marijuana. It can help cannabis companies save time, money and resources while improving customer engagement and satisfaction. There are certainly challenges that must be addressed before the full potential of AI can be realized in the cannabis industry, but with the right strategies and considerations in place, AI could revolutionize the way marijuana is marketed.

But what will be the ultimate impact of AI on the cannabis industry? Only time will tell as more companies adopt this technology and begin leveraging its capabilities. What we do know is that AI has the potential to greatly improve marketing efforts within this ever-growing sector.

By taking advantage of machine learning, predictive analytics, and AI-driven content creation, cannabis companies can create more targeted campaigns and deliver a better experience for their customers. This can lead to increased sales and improved customer loyalty. With so much promise for the future of marketing marijuana with AI, it’s certainly worth exploring further.

Dawn McCoy

Dawn N. McCoy is from San Diego and has always been interested in amazing new things and that led her to geekdom. Dawn researches and reports on medical advances. She also enjoys her scooter and Youtube .

nerdnewsnightly.com/

Brentwood, Tenn.-based LifePoint Health inked a five-year partnership with health tech company Eon to launch a new program for identifying patients’ conditions and diseases earlier, according to an April 14 news release.

The Healthy Person Program aims to provide timely notification of findings to providers and patients and support earlier detection of several diseases. The program builds on LifePoint and Eon’s partnership, which began in 2018, when the health system began using Eon’s patient management platform for tracking and identifying patients at risk for lung cancer.

LifePoint piloted the Healthy Lung Program in three of its communities before expanding it to all 88 of its hospital campuses across the U.S. LifePoint and Eon plan to roll out the new program this year starting with identifying aortic aneurysms and then expanding to programs focused on detection and disease management of thyroid, pancreatic and breast cancers.

Eon’s platform uses artificial intelligence technologies and computational linguistics to extract abnormal findings and information from radiology reports and automate redundant tasks for low-risk patients, while triaging high-risk patients for provider review.

resource:  beckershospitalreview.com

Ellen Chamberlain

Ellen Chamberlain is from Arlington VA and has always been interested in figuring out new things and that led them to science reporting. Ellen researches and reports on new tech and AI related news. She also enjoys video games and reading.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

The first genetically modified mosquitoes that will be allowed to fly free outdoors in the United States have started reaching the age for mating in the Florida Keys.

In a test of the biotech company Oxitec’s GM male mosquitoes for pest control, these Aedes aegypti started growing from tiny eggs set out in toaster-sized, hexagonal boxes on suburban private properties in late April. On May 12, experiment monitors confirmed that males had matured enough to start flying off on their own to court American female mosquitoes.

This short-term Florida experiment marks the first outdoor test in the United States of a strain of GM male mosquitoes as a highly targeted pest control strategy. This strain is engineered to shrink local populations of Ae. aegypti, a mosquito species that spreads dengue and Zika (SN: 7/29/16). That could start happening now that the GM mosquitoes have reached mating age because their genetics makes them such terrible choices as dads.

The mosquitoes now waving distinctively masculine (extra fluffy) antennae in Florida carry genetic add-ons that block development in females. No female larvae should survive to adulthood in the wild, says molecular biologist Nathan Rose, Oxitec’s chief of regulatory affairs. Half the released males’ sons, however, will carry dad’s daughter-killing trait. The sons of the bad dads can go on to trick a new generation of females into unwise mating decisions and doomed daughters (SN: 1/8/09).

The trait is not designed to last in an area’s mosquitoes, though. The genetics just follow the same old rules of natural inheritance that mosquitoes and people follow: Traits pass to some offspring and not others. Only half a bad dad’s sons will carry the daughter-killing trait. The others will sire normal mosquito families.

Imagined versions of live-mosquito pest control in Florida have been both glorified and savaged in spirited community meetings for some time (SN: 8/22/20). But now it’s real. “I’m sure you can understand why we’re so excited,” said Andrea Leal, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, at the mosquito test (virtual) kickoff April 29.

The debate over these transgenic Ae. aegypti mosquitoes has gone on so long that Oxitec has upgraded its original more coddled version with one that is essentially plug and play. The newer strain, dubbed OX5034, no longer needs a breeding colony with its (biting) females and antibiotics in easy reach of the release area to produce fresh males.

Instead, Oxitec can just ship eggs in a phase of suspended development from its home base in Abingdon, England, to whatever location around the world, high-tech or not, wants to deploy them. Brazil has already tested this OX5034 strain and gone through the regulatory process to permit Oxitec to sell it there.

The targets for these potential living pest controls will be just their own kind. They represent only about 4 percent of the combined populations of the 45 or so mosquito species whining around the Keys. Other species get annoying, and a more recent invader, Ae. albopictus, can also spread dengue and Zika to some extent. Yet Leal blames just about all the current human disease spread by mosquitoes in the Keys, including last year’s dengue outbreak, on Ae. aegypti.

It’s one of the top three mosquitoes in the world in the number of diseases it can spread, says Don Yee, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, who studies mosquitoes (SN: 3/31/21). His lab has linked at least three dozen human pathogens, including some viruses and worms, to Ae. aegypti. Although most mosquitoes lurk outdoors in vegetation, this one loves humankind. In the tropics, “the adults are literally resting on the walls or the ceiling,” he says. “They’re hanging around the bathroom.” The species bites humans for more than half of its blood meals.

In a long-running battle with this beast, staff in Florida in late April added water to boxes of shipped eggs and set them out at selected suburban private properties on Vaca, Cudjoe and Ramrod Keys. Other spots, with no added mosquitoes, will be watched as controls. All locations were chosen in part because American-hatched females of the same species were already there to be wooed, Rose says.

Males typically don’t billow out of their boxes in a gray cloud but emerge sporadically, a few at a time. If all goes well in this preliminary test, up to 12,000 GM mosquitoes in total across the release sites will take to the air each week for 12 weeks.

Neighboring households will host mosquito traps to monitor how far from the nursery boxes the Oxitec GM males tend to fly. That’s data that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to see. Based on distance tests elsewhere, 50 meters might be the median, Rose estimates.

The distance matters because pest controllers want to keep the free-flying GM mosquitoes away from outdoor sources of the antibiotic tetracycline. That’s the substance the genetic engineers use as an off switch for the self-destruct mechanism in female larvae. Rearing facilities supply the antibiotic to larvae, turning off the lethal genetics and letting females survive in a lab to lay eggs for the next generation.

If GM males loosed in Florida happened to breed with a female that lays eggs in some puddle of water laced with the right concentration of tetracycline, daughters that inherited the switch could survive to adulthood as biters and breeders. The main possible sources in the Keys would be sewage treatment plants, Rose says. The test designers say they have selected sites well away from them.

After the distance tests, bigger releases still start looking at how well males fare and whether pest numbers shrink. Up to 20 million Oxitec mosquitoes in total could be released in tests running into the fall.

Despite some high-profile protests, finding people to host the boxes was not hard, Rose says. “We were oversubscribed.” At public hearings, the critics of the project typically outshout the fans. Yet there’s also support. In a 2016 nonbinding referendum on using GM mosquitoes, 31 of 33 precincts in Monroe County, which comprises the Keys, voted yes for the test release. Twenty of those victories were competitive though, not reaching 60 percent.

The males being released rely on a live-sons/dead-daughters strategy. That’s a change from the earlier strain of Oxitec mosquitoes. Those males sabotaged all offspring regardless of sex. The change came during the genetic redesign that permits an egg-shipping strategy. Surviving sons, however, mean the nonengineered genes in the new Oxitec strain can mix into the Florida population more than in the original version.

Those mixed-in genes from the test are “unlikely” to strengthen Floridian mosquitoes’ powers to spread disease, researchers from the EPA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in a May 1, 2020 memorandum. Many factors besides mosquito genetics affect how a disease spreads, the reviewers noted. Oxitec will be monitoring for mixing.

There may be at least one upside to mixing, Rose says. The lab colonies have little resistance to some common pesticides such as permethrin that the Floridian mosquitoes barely seem to notice.

Pesticide resistance in the Keys is what drives a lot of the interest in GM techniques, says chemist Phil Goodman, who chairs the local mosquito control district’s board of commissioners. During the dengue outbreak in 2009 and 2010, the first one in decades, the district discovered that its spray program had just about zero effect on Ae. aegypti. With some rethinking of the program’s chemicals, the control district can now wipe out up to 50 percent of mosquitoes of this species in a treated area. That’s not great control, at best. Then when bad weather intervenes for days in a row, the mosquitoes rebound, Goodman says.

Since that 2009–2010 outbreak, catching dengue in Florida instead of just through foreign travel has become more common. In 2020, an unusually bad year for dengue, Florida reported 70 cases caught locally, according to the CDC’s provisional tally.

Traditional pesticides can mess with creatures besides their pest targets, and some critics of the GMO mosquitoes also worry about unexpected ecological effects. Yet success of the Oxitec mosquitoes in slamming the current pests should not cause some disastrous shortage of food or pollination for natives, Yee says. Ae. aegypti invaded North America within the past four centuries, probably too short a time to become absolutely necessary for some native North American predator or plant.

For more details on pretrial tests and data, the Mosquito Control District has now posted a swarm of documents about the GM mosquitoes. The EPA’s summary of Oxitec’s tests, for instance, reports no effects noticed for feeding the aquatic mosquito larvae to crawfish.

Yee doesn’t worry much about either crustaceans or fish eating the larvae. “That’s somewhat analogous to saying, well, we’re concerned about releasing buffalo back into the prairies of the Midwest because they might get eaten by lions,” he says. Crawfish and fish, he notes, don’t naturally inhabit the small containers of still water where Ae. aegypti mosquitoes breed.

Still, new mosquito-fighting options are springing up: Radiation techniques might become precise enough to sterilize males but leave them attractive enough to fool females into pointless mating. And researchers are developing other genetic ways to weaponize mosquitoes against their own kind.

One technique that uses no GM wizardry just infects mosquitoes with Wolbachia bacteria that make biting unlikely to spread dengue. The latest data from Mexico and Columbia suggest this infection “could be effective in the southern U.S. and across the Caribbean,” says biologist Scott O’Neil, based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, founder of the World Mosquito Program.

He has no plans for working in the United States but is instead focusing on places with much worse dengue problems. His version of the Wolbachia strategy just makes bites less dangerous (SN: 6/29/12). The mosquito population doesn’t shrink or grow less bloodthirsty, so this approach might not appeal to Floridians anyway.

Resource:  sciencenews.org

Aaron McCorkle

nerdnewsnightly.com/

Developing a new generation of artificial muscles and soft nanorobots for drug delivery are some of the long-term goals of 4D-BIOMAP, an ERC research project being undertaken by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M).This project develops cross-cutting bio-magneto-mechanical methodologies to stimulate and control biological processes such as cell migration and proliferation, the organism’s electrophysiological response, and the origin and development of soft tissue pathologies.

“The overarching idea of this research project is to influence different biological processes at the cellular level (i.e., wound healing, brain synapses or nervous system responses) by developing timely engineering applications,” explains 4D-BIOMAP’s lead researcher, Daniel García González from the UC3M’s Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis.

The so-called magneto-active polymers are revolutionizing the fields of solid mechanics and materials science. These composites consist of a polymeric matrix (i.e., an elastomer) that contains magnetic particles (i.e., iron) that react mechanically by changing their shape and volume. “The idea is that the application of an external magnetic field leads to internal forces in the material. These forces result in alterations of its mechanical properties, such as stiffness or even shape and volume changes which may interact with the cellular systems'”, explains Daniel García González.The researcher recently published a scientific article in Composites Part B:Engineering about this topic with his colleagues from the UC3M’s Department of Structural Analysis and the Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering. In this cross-cutting collaboration, motivated on original experiments, they propose a model that provides theoretical guidance to design magneto-active structural systems that could be applied in epithelial wound healing stimulation.

The magneto-mechanical response is determined by the material properties of the polymeric matrix and magnetic particles. If these processes are controlled, other engineering applications could be developed, such as soft robots that can interact with the body or a new generation of artificial muscles, notes the researcher, who explains the potential of this technology with a comparison: “Let’s imagine someone who is on the beach and wants to step forward quickly. However, the sand (the mechanical environment) makes it a little more difficult for them to move forward than if they were stood on tarmac or an athletic track. Similarly, in our case, if a cell is on a substrate that is too soft, it will make it more difficult to move. So, if we are able to alter these substrates instead and create this athletic track for cells, we will make all of these processes develop more efficiently.”

4D-BIOMAP (Biomechanical Stimulation based on 4D Printed Magneto-Active Polymer) is a five-year project funded with 1.5 million Euros by the European Research Council through an ERC Starting Grant within the Framework Program for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020 (GA 947723). This research project is being approached from a multidisciplinary perspective, involving knowledge from disciplines such as solid mechanics, magnetism, and bioengineering. In addition to this, computational, experimental, and theoretical methodologies will be combined.

Source:  https://phys.org/

Ellen Chamberlain

Ellen Chamberlain is from Arlington VA and has always been interested in figuring out new things and that led them to science reporting. Ellen researches and reports on new tech and AI related news. She also enjoys video games and reading.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

Researchers at the University of Southampton have developed a new way of using nanomaterials to identify and enrich skeletal stem cells – a discovery which could eventually lead to new treatments for major bone fractures and the repair of lost or damaged bone.

Working together, a team of physicists, chemists and tissue engineering experts used specially designed gold nanoparticles to ‘seek out’ specific human bone stem cells – creating a fluorescent glow to reveal their presence among other types of cells and allow them to be isolated or ‘enriched’.

The researchers concluded their new technique is simpler and quicker than other methods and up to 50-500 times more effective at enriching stem cells.

The study, led by Professor of Musculoskeletal Science, Richard Oreffo and Professor Antonios Kanaras of the Quantum, Light and Matter Group in the School of Physics and Astronomy, is published in ACS Nano – an internationally recognized multidisciplinary journal.

In laboratory tests, the researchers used gold nanoparticles – tiny spherical particles made up of thousands of gold atoms – coated with oligonucleotides (strands of DNA), to optically detect the specific messenger RNA (mRNA) signatures of skeletal stem cells in bone marrow. When detection takes place, the nanoparticles release a fluorescent dye, making the stem cells distinguishable from other surrounding cells, under microscopic observation. The stem cells can then be separated using a sophisticated fluorescence cell sorting process.

Stem cells are cells that are not yet specialized and can develop to perform different functions. Identifying skeletal stems cells allows scientists to grow these cells in defined conditions to enable the growth and formation of bone and cartilage tissue – for example, to help mend broken bones.

Among the challenges posed by our aging population is the need for novel and cost-effective approaches to bone repair. With one in three women and one in five men at risk of osteoporotic fractures worldwide, the costs are significant, with bone fractures alone costing the European economy €17 billion and the US economy $20 billion annually.

Within the University of Southampton’s Bone and Joint Research Group, Professor Richard Oreffo and his team have been looking at bone stem cell based therapies for over 15 years to understand bone tissue development and to generate bone and cartilage. Over the same time-period, Professor Antonios Kanaras and his colleagues in the Quantum, Light and Matter Group have been designing novel nanomaterials and studying their applications in the fields of biomedical sciences and energy. This latest study effectively brings these disciplines together and is an exemplar of the impact collaborative, interdisciplinary working can bring.

Skeletal stem cell based therapies offer some of the most exciting and promising areas for bone disease treatment and bone regenerative medicine for an aging population. The current studies have harnessed unique DNA sequences from targets we believe would enrich the skeletal stem cell and, using Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) we have been able to enrich bone stem cells from patients. Identification of unique markers is the holy grail in bone stem cell biology and, while we still have some way to go; these studies offer a step change in our ability to target and identify human bone stem cells and the exciting therapeutic potential therein.”

Richard Oreffo, Professor of Musculoskeletal Science

Professor Kanaras said: “The appropriate design of materials is essential for their application in complex systems. Customizing the chemistry of nanoparticles we are able to program specific functions in their design.

“In this research project, we designed nanoparticles coated with short sequences of DNA, which are able to sense HSPA8 mRNA and Runx2 mRNA in skeletal stem cells and together with advanced FACS gating strategies, to enable the assortment of the relevant cells from human bone marrow.

“An important aspect of the nanomaterial design involves strategies to regulate the density of oligonucleotides on the surface of the nanoparticles, which help to avoid DNA enzymatic degradation in cells. Fluorescent reporters on the oligonucleotides enable us to observe the status of the nanoparticles at different stages of the experiment, ensuring the quality of the endocellular sensor.”

Both lead researchers also recognize that the accomplishments were possible due to the work of all the experienced research fellows and PhD students involved in this research as well as collaboration with Professor Tom Brown and Dr Afaf E-Sagheer of the University of Oxford, who synthesized a large variety of functional oligonucleotides.

The scientists are currently applying single cell RNA sequencing to the platform technology developed with partners in Oxford and the Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS) at Southampton to further refine and enrich bone stem cells and assess functionality. The team propose to then move to clinical application with preclinical bone formation studies to generate proof of concept studies.

The work has been possible through a BBSRC project grant to Professor Oreffo and Professor Kanaras.

Source: www.news-medical.net

Ellen Chamberlain

Ellen Chamberlain is from Arlington VA and has always been interested in figuring out new things and that led them to science reporting. Ellen researches and reports on new tech and AI related news. She also enjoys video games and reading.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

American multinational Procter and Gamble (P&G) is breaking ground in personalized medicine. Committed to delivering consumer-centric creations, researchers at the company’s Singapore Innovation Center (SgIC) have teamed up with the National University of Singapore and the A*STAR – Agency for Science, Technology, and Research, to develop 3D printed customized drug tablets with specific dosages, release durations, and multiple drug combinations. In a new study published in Elsevier’s Journal of Controlled Release, the researchers show a simple, low-cost, and efficient 3D printing method for fabricating bespoke drug pills that are safe for consumption. In the future, this technology could enable broader access to personalized medicine and better treatments for patients, specifically designed for their particular physiology and needs.

For years, there has been growing interest in personalized medicine, which could help overcome the limitations of traditional “trial-and-error” treatment and offer more effective medications for individual patients. In fact, the impressive success of targeted therapies on cancer and several chronic medical conditions is a testament to the possibilities for this emerging healthcare approach. Individualized drug therapies could even disrupt current drug manufacturing protocols for large batch productions and could eventually reduce healthcare costs by addressing the underlying causes of medical problems immediately – in a preventive way.

However, in the study, the research team suggests that for personalized medicine to be effective, the tailored pills need to release the drug doses at different body regions, each with varying pH conditions. This has been challenging in the past, even with 3D printing. P&G SgIC’s Group Head Jaspreet Singh Kochhar and Senior Technologist Jayant Khanolkar, along with the rest of the team and co-authors, explain that 3D printed drug tablets are often designed to involve different structures that change the release profile, dosage, combination of drugs, and tablet shape, for easy swallowing, for example. Nonetheless, fabricating them can be complex, intricate, time-consuming, and imprecise, often leading to tablets with weak mechanical properties.

To overcome these issues, the team devised a method to develop the drug tablets via 3D printed templates instead of printing them directly. Using an UP! Plus 2 3D printer, the researchers first created a template with a specific size and shape, which was then used to make a mold with a cavity of the complementary shape using a silicon-based organic polymer. In order to prepare the tablet, they dissolved the drug and excipient (Evonik’s Eudragit polymer for oral solid dosage forms) in isopropyl alcohol.

An outer coating was prepared in a similar way to complete the process. After printing the template with the specific size and shape and making the complementary silicon mold, white wax was melted and filled into the mold’s cavity. Finally, the drug tablet was obtained by assembling the matrix that consisted of the excipient and the drug with the impermeable and biodegradable coating. The simple design of the tablets delivered the constant and sustained release profile required. The method was tested on three different common, over-the-counter drugs: paracetamol (also known as acetaminophen to treat pain and fever), a nasal decongestant, and an antihistamine traditionally used to relieve allergy symptoms. The researchers also demonstrated the incorporation of multiple drugs in a single tablet.

Overall, this straightforward structure involved only a disc-shaped drug matrix coated with an impermeable layer on all sides except for one surface that is exposed to achieve the required release. The researchers determined that using 3D printed templates is the key to solving the challenges faced by current methods that use 3D printers to print the drug tablets directly, such as clogged nozzles due to the viscous drug solution. Instead, this new method is precise, reproducible, simple, and effective, claim the co-authors.

Aside from being an inexpensive and safe method of producing personalized medicines, each drug containing a section of the multidrug tablet can be customized and optimized separately, such as by changing excipient amounts, based on the expected pH conditions at different regions of the body. This customized release profile will enable the multidrug tablet to deliver the right dosages to the different parts of the body, as specified by the medical treatment designed by the physician. Since the method can be tailored to suit a drug’s physical and chemical properties, patients may only need to take one long-lasting multidrug tablet instead of multiple tablets several times a day. This could be quite a relief for people with multiple chronic conditions, cancer patients, and the elderly, who often take lots of medications to manage each disease.

In line with P&G’s initiatives to deliver better products to its 4.8 billion consumers worldwide, this promising innovation could be used extensively, potentially paving the way for personalized medicine. As soon as this new tailored technique goes from bench to bedside, patients are expected to benefit the most, circumventing the hassle of taking multiple different drugs for various illnesses and achieving medication compliance much easier and quicker.

Source: 3dprint.com

Ellen Chamberlain

Ellen Chamberlain is from Arlington VA and has always been interested in figuring out new things and that led them to science reporting. Ellen researches and reports on new tech and AI related news. She also enjoys video games and reading.

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A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in Germany has developed a type of gene therapy that could be used to help people with cystic fibrosis. In their paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the group describes how they developed a new class of non-viral gene vectors that could be used to reduce symptoms of cystic fibrosis.

Prior research has shown that CF is caused by mutations in the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) gene, which leads to problems with chloride channels. In this new effort, the researchers developed a non-viral gene vector that they used to insert healthy copies of CFTR into the DNA of epithelial cells (where the mucus is produced), which restored functionality of the defective chloride channels. The researchers carried out their work using transposases via a synthetically produced messenger RNA that was delivered to test mice using an inhalant.

Testing on mice showed increased expression of a CFTR protein in respiratory cells, which, the researchers noted, was long-lasting. The overall results were improvements in chloride channel function and a reduction in the production of thick mucus, presumably leading to reduced risk from infections and longer life spans. The researchers note that their work is far enough along to begin conducting clinical trials to see if the approach would work as well in human patients. They also note that their approach could very well be used to help treat other rare lung diseases.

The research team has been awarded the Adolf Windorfer Prize 2021 for their work, which in addition to recognizing outstanding work in research involved cystic fibrosis, also comes with 5,000 euros in prize money.

Source:  medicalxpress.com

Ellen Chamberlain

Ellen Chamberlain is from Arlington VA and has always been interested in figuring out new things and that led them to science reporting. Ellen researches and reports on new tech and AI related news. She also enjoys video games and reading.

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Advanced simulations showed that SARS-CoV-2’s spikes and shells are vulnerable to ultrasound.

Shortly after COVID-19 lockdowns started to come into force almost exactly a year ago, a wave of novel engineering methods for breaking down the virus were proposed, including ultraviolet light-emitting robots and drones.

Now, researchers are turning to another approach with the same prefix: an MIT study shows that ultrasound waves at medical imaging frequencies can cause the virus shell and spikes to collapse and rupture in advanced simulations.

The spikes, the virus component that latches onto healthy cells, could be vulnerable to ultrasonic vibrations within the frequency used in medical diagnostic imaging, MIT researchers explain in a press statement.

In their simulations, researchers from the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering modeled the virus’s mechanical response to vibrations rippling through its structure across a range of ultrasound frequencies.

They found that vibrations between 25 and 100 megahertz triggered the virus shell and spikes to collapse and start to rupture within a fraction of a second. The simulations showed that the virus would rupture in air and water at the same frequencies.

Potential new ultrasound-based treatment for COVID-19
Though the MIT researchers emphasize that their findings are only preliminary and based on limited data, they say the research does indicate that an ultrasound-based treatment could be developed to fight COVID-19.

“We’ve proven that under ultrasound excitation, the coronavirus shell and spikes will vibrate, and the amplitude of that vibration will be very large, producing strains that could break certain parts of the virus, doing visible damage to the outer shell and possibly invisible damage to the RNA inside,” said Tomasz Wierzbicki, professor of applied mechanics at MIT. “The hope is that our paper will initiate a discussion across various disciplines.”

For their simulations, the MIT team used simple concepts of the mechanics and physics of solids to construct their computational model of the virus’s structure. Limited data, such as microscopic images of the virus’s shell and spikes, were used to inform the model.

Though the exact material properties of the virus’s spike are unknown, the researchers believe their simulation paves the way for further research into a novel treatment for COVID-19.

“We looked at the general coronavirus family, and now are looking specifically at the morphology and geometry of Covid-19,” Wierzbicki said. “The potential is something that could be great in the current critical situation.”

Such a treatment could help individuals who have not taken, or cannot take the vaccine. It could also provide an alternative and a failsafe in the unlikely event that new mutations of the virus bypass the immunity granted by the several COVID-19 jabs out there.

Source: interestingengineering.com

Ellen Chamberlain

Ellen Chamberlain is from Arlington VA and has always been interested in figuring out new things and that led them to science reporting. Ellen researches and reports on new tech and AI related news. She also enjoys video games and reading.

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Clinical trials using magic mushrooms, ecstasy and other psychedelic drugs in potential breakthrough therapies for debilitating mental illnesses will be funded by the federal government as part of global efforts to advance innovative treatments.

There is growing international evidence showing substances such as ketamine, psilocybin and MDMA can successfully treat resistant mental illnesses, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, when used in a controlled environment and supported by psychiatric care.

Many standard treatments for illnesses, including addiction and eating disorders, can have varied efficacy and recovery rates and there have been few advances in novel pharmaceutical discoveries in recent years.

The Morrison government will on Wednesday launch a $15 million competitive grant round to kick-start Australian clinical trials of potential breakthrough combination therapies.

Advocates of psychedelic-assisted therapy – which include former federal trade minister Andrew Robb and retired chief of the defence force Christopher Barrie – have pushed for a national reclassification of the drugs from prohibited substances to controlled drugs, which includes morphine, methadone and oxycodone to advance research.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration last month published an interim decision to not amend its guidelines to give mental health professionals more access to the drugs.

Several of the substances have been granted “breakthrough therapy” status for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder by the US Food and Drug Administration.

But the Australian Medical Association and Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists have raised concerns about any potential rescheduling of the drugs, saying more research is needed to assess their safety and efficacy.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said early results of trials in Australia and internationally were extremely encouraging but more research was desperately needed before the approaches can be used by psychiatrists outside of controlled clinical trials.

“It is vital that we continue to support the search for new and better treatments for mental illness,” Mr Hunt said.

“This grant opportunity will boost local research into potentially life-saving therapies and offers hope to all those suffering from mental illness, including our veterans and emergency service personnel dealing with the devastating effects of PTSD,” Mr Hunt said.

It is estimated four million Australians experience a mental health disorder every year, and almost half of all Australians will be affected at some point in their lifetime. The most prevalent mental illnesses are anxiety disorders – affecting more than 14 per cent of adults each year – depression and substance abuse disorders. Up to 12 per cent of Australians experience PTSD during their lifetime.

Mind Medicine Australia, a mental health charity, has warned delaying mental practitioners ­access could result in a spike in suicides amid an ongoing national mental health crisis.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, David Coleman, said the issue was one of the government’s highest priorities.

“The prevalence and impact of mental illness is devastating for individuals, families and communities. This bold initiative is about ensuring that we explore every avenue of potential treatment for Australians diagnosed with a mental illness,” Mr Coleman said.

Funding will be through the Medical Research Future Fund’s innovative therapies grants. The government says they will accelerate global efforts by supporting Australian-led research into treating addiction disorders and eating disorders that impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The grants will be available for three years from 2021–22, with project activity up to five years.

Source: smh.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

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THE AGING GLOBAL POPULATION is the greatest challenge faced by 21st-century healthcare systems. Even COVID-19 is, in a sense, a disease of aging.

The risk of death from the virus roughly doubles for every nine years of life, a pattern that is almost identical to a host of other illnesses. But why are old people vulnerable to so many different things?

It turns out that a major hallmark of the aging process in many mammals is inflammation. By that, I don’t mean intense local response we typically associate with an infected wound, but a low grade, grinding, inflammatory background noise that grows louder the longer we live. This “inflammaging” has been shown to contribute to the development of atherosclerosis (the buildup of fat in arteries), diabetes, high blood pressure , frailty, cancer and cognitive decline.

Now a new study published in Nature reveals that microglia — a type of white blood cells found in the brain — are extremely vulnerable to changes in the levels of a major inflammatory molecule called prostaglandin E2(PGE2). The team found that exposure to this molecule badly affected the ability of microglia and related cells to generate energy and carry out normal cellular processes.

Fortunately, the researchers found that these effects occurred only because of PGE2’s interaction with one specific receptor on the microglia. By disrupting it, they were able to normalize cellular energy production and reduce brain inflammation. The result was improved cognition in aged mice. This offers hope that the cognitive impairment associated with growing older is a transient state we can potentially fix, rather than the inevitable consequence of aging of the brain.

REVERSING COGNITIVE DECLINE
Levels of PGE2 increase as mammals age for a variety of reasons — one of which is probably the increasing number of cells in different tissues entering a state termed cellular senescence. This means they become dysfunctional and can cause damage to tissue by releasing PGE2 and other inflammatory molecules.

But the researchers also found that macrophages — another type of white blood cells related to microglia — from people over the age of 65 made significantly more PGE2 than those from young people. Intriguingly, exposing these white blood cells to PGE2 suppressed the ability of their mitochondria — the nearest thing a cell has to batteries — to function. This meant that the entire pattern of energy generation and cellular behavior was disrupted.

Although PGE2 exerts its effects on cells through a range of receptors, the team were able to narrow down the effect to interaction with just one type (the “EP2 receptor” on the macrophages). They showed this by treating white blood cells, grown in the lab, with drugs that either turned this receptor on or off. When the receptor was turned on, cells acted as if they had been exposed to PGE2. But when they were treated with the drugs that turned it off, they recovered. That’s all fine, but it was done in a petri dish. What would happen in an intact body?

The researchers then carried out one of the cleanest experiments it is possible to perform in biology and one of the best reasons for working on mice. They took genetically modified animals in which the EP2 receptor had been removed and allowed them to grow old. They then tested their learning and memory by looking at their ability to navigate mazes (something of a cliche for researchers) and their behavior in an “object location test.” This test is a bit like someone secretly entering your house, swapping your ornaments around on the mantelpiece and then sneaking out again. The better the memory, the longer the subject will spend looking suspiciously at the new arrangement, wondering why it has changed.

It turned out that the old genetically modified mice learned and remembered just as well as their young counterparts. These effects could be duplicated in normal old mice by giving them one of the drugs that could turn the EP2 receptor off for one month. So it seems possible that inhibiting the interaction of PGE2 with this particular receptor may represent a new approach to treating late-life cognitive disorders.

There is a long way to go before we are in a position to start using these compounds in humans — even though the prostaglandin systems are very similar. But this study has shed light on a fascinating set of observations linking diet and cognition.

It has been known for some years that eating blueberries and other fruit and vegetables, such as strawberries and spinach, improves cognition in rodents and older people. These foods are rich in molecules such as resveratrol, fisetin, and in quercetin, which have been shown either to kill or rescue senescent cells.

There is also evidence that they block PGE2 at the cellular level, providing another route by which these compounds may exert their beneficial effects. Until something better comes along, this is one more piece of evidence that a bowl of fruit won’t do you any harm. Though it’s probably wise to go easy on the cream.

Source: inverse.com

Ellen Chamberlain

Ellen Chamberlain is from Arlington VA and has always been interested in figuring out new things and that led them to science reporting. Ellen researches and reports on new tech and AI related news. She also enjoys video games and reading.

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