advance in technology Archives - Amazing Health Advances

New Israeli Tech Doubles IVF Success Rates

The AHA! Team — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 05:03:06 +0000

Zachy Hennessey via Israel21c – The new method accurately identifying high-quality sperm cells without using potentially harmful chemical dyes. A recent Israeli advancement in fertility science may hold the key to combating the ongoing global decline in fertility rates, by nearly doubling the success rate of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The new technology, developed in the lab of Tel Aviv University Prof. Natan T. Shaked, takes advantage of the light-conducting properties of cells, allowing embryologists to visualize and analyze the internal structure of live sperm cells with extreme accuracy. Researchers can now peek into the microscopic world of reproductive cells with unprecedented detail By using advanced imaging techniques that map cellular structures without invasive procedures, researchers can now peek into the microscopic world of reproductive cells with unprecedented detail. This allows for measurements of previously unattainable parameters like cell mass, volume and structural integrity. Until now, embryologists have had to rely on subjective criteria when evaluating the viability of a given sperm sample — the cells’ external appearance or motility. One commonly used method involves the use of chemical dyes, which better enable the inspection of sperm cells but risks damaging the cells in the process. “Currently, about 90 percent of sperm cells that appear suitable to embryologists actually fail to meet internal morphological criteria,” explained Shaked. “Our technology changes that, offering a new tool to significantly improve IVF outcomes.” The result is an increase in IVF success rates from 34% to 65% — nearly twice the amount. In a clinical trial at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, the technology resulted in 20 pregnancies out of 31 embryo transfers, compared to just 14 pregnancies out of 41 transfers in the control group. The technology is currently being implemented in clinics throughout Israel (in Ashkelon, Kfar Saba, Ramat HaHayal, Afula and Nahariya), as well as internationally in California and Japan. Dozens of couples have enrolled in clinical trials. Shaked describes it as providing “a new and essential tool to identify sperm cells that meet the World Health Organization criteria for IVF labs.” A description of the new method was published in the journals PNAS, Advanced Science, and Fertility and Sterility. No better time to boost births Fertility rates in developed countries have been declining for decades. According to United Nations statistics, the average global total fertility rate has dropped from 4.8 births per woman in 1970 to 2.2 in 2024. This demographic shift threatens to impact economic stability, social structures and the long-term sustainability of many developed nations. “Fertility issues are becoming increasingly critical: one in six couples faces fertility problems, with male-related issues accounting for half of the cases,” explained Dr. Bozhena Saar-Ryss from Barzilai Medical Center. “Over the past few decades, sperm counts in young, healthy men have dropped by approximately 50%. “Additionally, in certain countries like Japan, Korea and Spain, dramatic declines in birth rates are leading to population shrinkage. The causes for this are diverse and include societal trends like career prioritization and delayed marriages, as well as health issues potentially caused by environmental pollutants,” Saar-Rhys added. These statistics highlight the need for innovative reproductive technologies like the one developed at Tel Aviv University. Selecting the best swimmers Backed by Tel Aviv University’s investment fund and technology transfer company Ramot, the technology is being commercialized through QART Medical, a startup that aims to bring this solution to fertility clinics worldwide. Following the initial success of their research, Shaked and his team are currently developing an additional method to detect DNA fragmentation in sperm cells. “Our goal is to provide embryologists with a technology that enables individual sperm selection based on three essential criteria: motility, internal structure and unfragmented DNA,” says Shaked. “This will allow embryologists to select the best sperm cell for fertilization and dramatically improve success rates in this vital procedure.” To read the original article click here.

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The AI Tech That Can Spot Serious Illness Before the Doctor

The AHA! Team — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 06:16:00 +0000

John Jeffay via Israel21c – Lavaa Health’s platform can identify disease and hard-to-diagnose illnesses at the earliest stage, allowing doctors to quickly draw up efficient treatment plans. Meet your GP’s new best friend – artificial intelligence (AI). Lavaa Health, an Israeli startup, watches over all patient data, ready to spot early signs of potential health issues, and uses its vast medical database to identify hard-to-diagnose or rare illnesses. It’s a virtual assistant that works in the background to offer help and alerts, but leaves the physician very much in the driver’s seat, from making the diagnosis to drawing up a treatment plan. The company was founded after a family tragedy. Adam Amitai, Lavaa’s CEO, watched helplessly as his 55-year-old mother-in-law succumbed to ovarian cancer. It had taken a year for the doctors to correctly diagnose her, by which time it was too late. She died eight months later. Amitai doesn’t blame the physicians and says they provided excellent care. But he realized they weren’t exploiting the power of AI to get quicker and more accurate insights. And so he interviewed 200 physicians in the United States, to fully understand how AI could best help them. And he drew on his seven years’ experience as an “offensive cyber officer” in the IDF – where a key challenge was sifting vital details from masses of data. Amitai had also continued to work in intelligence afterwards and had set up an automated trading platform for institutional investors. So, he wasn’t from the world of healthcare, but he recognized that it could benefit from advanced systems that had been developed elsewhere. Handling data more efficiently “I understood there was a big problem with data handling in the healthcare industry,” he tells ISRAEL21c. He saw it when each of his three children were born. Every time, the doctor asked for the family’s medical history. And he saw it with the death of his mother-in-law. He believes AI would have suggested ovarian cancer as a diagnosis much sooner. The main problem is in primary care, the people who are in charge of your health on a daily basis “It’s not the physician’s fault, it’s not the care team fault, they’re doing their best, but they just don’t have the tools,” he says. “The main problem is in primary care, the people who are in charge of your health on a daily basis. They’re reactive instead of proactive. They’re trying to solve a single problem, not your whole health.” And they generally lack the resources to understand what the problem is and to diagnose it correctly. Lavaa’s AI-powered Preventive Care Engine Platform assists the physician by offering evidence-based insights. “We are not allowing the computer to try to automatically detect the conditions. We’re using the accepted worldwide care protocols, but we’re using AI to extract the data,” says Amitai. “Physicians cannot go through all of this data by themselves in the amount of time that they have. It’s just impossible, so this is giving them a huge backup. “The number of parameters for a physician to check and the number of possible diseases is infinite, and time is limited. But computers are really good at matching parameters to diseases. “I realized that technology from the intelligence world already did this, so it was a question of applying it to healthcare.” Prevention, intervention Lavaa is all about prevention and early intervention. Its AI platform can generate questions for a particular patient based on what it sees in their records. It may, for example, ask if a female patient remembers the age at which she had her first period – something that’s relevant for breast cancer, but is never recorded in an EMR (electronic medical record). Or it may send targeted messages, questionnaires, or notifications. It acts as an early warning system, designed to prevent the development of chronic or psychological diseases, and cancer. Lavaa currently looks after over 700,000 patients, all in the US, though the company has plans to expand globally. Amitai estimates the technology has so far saved 1,500 lives. “These are people who had a condition that could have been terminal but caught it on time and we managed to alert the physician, which meant the patients got either the right or better drugs, and better treatment, or a referral to the right place,” he says. Lavaa is not the only such AI solution, but Amitai says the healthcare market is big enough for everybody. Some other companies use AI to both inform and to diagnose – unlike Lavaa – or as a “black box” providing a diagnosis but no explanation of its “thinking.” The company has 12 staff members at its offices in Ra’anana, central Israel, and a team working in the US. Lavaa was founded in 2021, has attracted $5 million in investments. A Series A funding round will be launched later this year. “We want to go global,” Amitai says. “Our solution can work anywhere, and we believe it can improve healthcare around the world.” For more information, click here. To read the original article click here.

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Dad’s Quest to Aid Son Leads to Stroke-Recovery Technology

The AHA! Team — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 08:31:39 +0000

John Jeffay via Israel21c – BRAIN.Q helmet’s tailored, low-intensity, low-frequency electromagnetic stimulation aims to enhance and accelerate the brain’s recovery after stroke. Yaron Segal has, like many thousands of enterprising Israelis, identified a problem. And like so many in a country driven by technological innovation, he’s established a startup to find a solution. But he’s not so interested in the payday “exit” that attracts most entrepreneurs in the Startup Nation. His ultimate goal is to find a treatment for his son Lear, born 23 years ago born with familial dysautonomia, a rare and progressive genetic neurological disorder. Segal is not an obvious candidate for the job. He trained as a physicist, specializing in climate, satellites, and three-dimensional models of the atmosphere. But when Lear was diagnosed at the age of three months, Segal decided that he would devote his energy, passion and intellect to finding an effective treatment. Remarkable discoveries He isn’t there yet, but in the long – and often frustrating – process of trying, he has made some remarkable discoveries about the brain’s ability to repair itself, and has developed a treatment that has the potential to help stroke patients live more independent lives. Segal is confident that the same technology will, at some point in the future, also benefit people living with depression, PTSD, ADHD, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries and other brain-related conditions … and familial dysautonomia. His noninvasive, cloud-based “brainwave helmet” activates a low-intensity electromagnetic field around the patient’s head. In clinical trials with stroke patients, it was demonstrated the treatment significantly improved outcomes in the treated group compared to the control group. It is believed that the investigational technology device encourages the growth of new links between brain cells – links that can get broken by a trauma, or in the case of familial dysautonomia, never existed in the first place. BRAIN.Q, the startup Segal cofounded in 2016, now has 25 staff in Israel and the USA and has attracted $50 million in funding. The crazy guy Segal was, as he puts it, “the crazy guy” who became convinced that the adult brain was capable, with encouragement, of repairing itself. Not completely, but significantly. His theory flew in the face of received medical wisdom. “Neuroplasticity” is the brain’s ability to change and adapt throughout a person’s life and reorganize its structure, functions and connections in response to new experiences, learning or environmental changes. But that couldn’t happen fully in damaged parts of the brain where there is no neural activity – until Segal’s breakthrough. He started experimenting in 2010, funded by friends and family, and within two years he’d shown that mice and rats could, with an early form of his treatment, learn to walk and function again after suffering a brain injury or a broken spinal cord. A potential investor showed the raw data from Segal’s experiment to an expert, who simply refused to accept it was possible. The dismissive response, Segal recalls, was: “I don’t believe it happened. You cannot revive links between cells.” Segal was disappointed but not dismayed. The next step was to test his breakthrough on humans. Faster recovery In a clinical trial conducted in India, stroke patients received the BRAIN.Q therapy using an earlier version of the device for 45 minutes a day, for two months. “The data points to faster recovery of the treated group, indicating that BRAIN.Q’s treatment may not only improve the overall recovery after stroke, but also shorten the recovery period. We hope to test this hypothesis in our ongoing clinical trial,” says Segal. “Some recovered dramatically in the first month, some in the second, depending on how injured the brain was. “People regained everyday function so that they didn’t need help with eating or changing clothes or bathing. “After two months of treatment someone who couldn’t move their legs and was in a wheelchair could walk. Sometimes with a stick, but they could walk.” Tools to fix the problem Stroke is a leading cause of adult disability worldwide. BRAIN.Q’s treatment reduces disability and enhances the potential for recovery. “We are affecting the brain directly, but in a non-invasive manner,” says Segal. “We are affecting the ability of the brain to regenerate connections between cells. “I don’t want to push the brain to do something that it can’t do by itself. I want to harness its natural pattern of waves,” he explains. “You can take a tow truck and drive your broken car all around the city. But I want to take it to the mechanic who will use simple tools and fix the problem.” How did he feel when he saw how the first patients had recovered? “I wanted to cry,” he says. He goes on to relate the story of a woman in Israel who suffered a spinal cord injury in a car crash and has regained control of her legs and bowels, thanks to BRAIN.Q. And there are many more examples. BRAIN.Q, based at the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus in Jerusalem, is now conducting trials of the investigational device at patients’ homes after they’ve been discharged from the hospital. “In the beginning I was the CEO because there was nobody else in the company,” says Segal. “Then I became the chief technical officer and now I’m chief of innovation because I think this is where I’m doing the best work I can do.” Can he help his son? Although his son Lear’s diagnosis set him on this journey, Segal eventually honed in on treating strokes because, in neurological terms, they are less complex than familial dysautonomia (also known as Riley-Day syndrome). Familial dysautonomia, particularly prevalent among individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, affects the autonomic nervous system that controls involuntary bodily functions such as breathing, swallowing, digestion, tear production and muscle stability. Lear doesn’t have natural tears, can’t drink liquids, has to eat condensed food, and needs to be held while attempting to walk. In addition, he had spinal fusion surgery at the age of 10. “The most serious situation is when he is in crisis, meaning that whenever he has stress, his autonomic nervous system tries to balance his blood pressure, temperature and chemical balance, and fails. His body goes into ‘panic’ conditions, very similar to those when a normal person is bitten by a snake — he starts to vomit, his blood pressure skyrockets, his temperature increases,” Segal says. “The only way to help him is using medication that brings his autonomic nervous system to a halt, causing it to reset and resume normal operation.” Segal is hopeful that, in time, BRAIN.Q will find a way to re-grow neural links in people with this condition. Meanwhile, he is gratified that the technology can aid stroke patients. For more information, click here. To read the original article click here.

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Saving Lives Faster: World-First Laser Incubator for Blood

AHA Publisher — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 03:18:41 +0000

Monash University via Science Daily – Researchers have developed the world’s first blood incubator using laser technology. This could prevent fatal blood transfusions in critically ill patients and can detect antibodies in pregnant women that can kill a baby in utero. To read the original article and learn more about this world-first blood incubator, click here.

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