Medical Technology

Could the use of nanosilver products create another problem for medicine -- strains of bacteria that are resistant to silver? Although silver is not used to treat disease, it is used in hospital settings to speed wound-healing, prevent eye infections in newborns and as a coating for catheters, where it can cut infection rates. Here, too, there is much surmise and not much evidence, although researchers do know there are strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to silver.

Pete Rose found baseball, at its essence, to be a simple game. "See the ball," he said. "Hit the ball." And nobody did that more often than Rose, the sports' all-time hits leader. But what if you can't see the ball? That happened to Baltimore Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons. "My vision just went on me all of a sudden," he said. "I was screwed." Same thing with Oakland's Dan Johnson, who accidentally sprayed sunscreen into his right eye last spring and wound up with double vision.

Researchers from Japan and Wisconsin reported Tuesday that they had reprogrammed mature human cells to behave almost exactly like embryonic stem cells, a biological breakthrough that instantly recasts the field's ethical, scientific and economic landscape. By activating a handful of dormant genes, the researchers were able to coax the cells back in time to a point in embryonic development before they had committed to becoming a particular type of tissue.

A probe by the Department of Justice into makers of orthopedic devices has produced only a handful of subpoenas so far but has raised concerns about the relationship between the companies and the doctors who consult for them. Orthopedic device companies frequently pay physicians for feedback on products and to help them design new ones.

A federal judge fined Boston Scientific Corp. $7.04 million, saying it gained an upper hand over a key medical technology by flouting a 1995 agreement with antitrust enforcers, the Federal Trade Commission said. The fine is the largest civil penalty imposed for violation of an FTC antitrust order, the FTC said. U.S. District Judge Patti Saris ruled that Boston Scientific, based in Natick, Mass.

In an east Pasadena building where Sears, Roebuck & Co. once trained auto mechanics, Stephen O'Connor's team of 60 is working with valves and filters on a significantly smaller scale. O'Connor's 4-year-old company, Nanostream Inc., is developing ways for pharmaceutical companies to quicken the drug discovery process by automating and miniaturizing chemical and biological reactions in the lab.

Q: How does an MRI work and why is it so noisy? A: Magnetic resonance imaging is simply a fancy way to look at the hydrogen atoms, also called protons, that form part of every water molecule in the body, according to biologist Russ Jacobs of Caltech's Beckman Institute. Protons spin on their axes like tops. When they are exposed to a powerful magnetic field, however, they wobble.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a miniature iron lung for newborn mice who have breathing problems. Biologists Chi-Sang Poon and Kumaran Kolandaivelu use it in studies of mice genetically engineered to lack the gene for a key brain protein involved in learning and memory. Lack of the gene also makes it difficult for the mice to breathe, however. The mice are too small to use conventional forced-air breathing.

The Justice Department has begun an antitrust investigation of the American Red Cross centered on its exclusive contract to sell a possible new blood-scrubbing technology, the Associated Press has learned. Competitors fear that if the Red Cross controls the technology for scrubbing HIV and certain other viruses out of plasma, some of the smaller banks that provide half the nation's blood could be forced out of business.