Sho Yano: World’s Youngest Paediatric Neurologist

June 6, 2012

Most children throughout the world go through the regular phases of education whereas some youngsters are born with incredible intelligence that not only sets them apart from the rest, but sets them on an incredibly fast-track through life. Sho Yano is the youngest medical graduate in the world. Recently, at the age of 21, he graduated from the University of Chicago with a full medical degree.

This child genius was reading by the age of two, writing by three and composing music by the age of four. Sho applied to many universities in his quest to study medicine but was turned down by many based on his maturity. Eventually the University of Chicago took Yano on and he was enrolled in the illustrious Pritzker schools’ most rigorous programs in which a student will study for a doctorate and medical degree at the same time. Sho Yano dealt with his fair share of criticism for being a brainiac and had to put up with students making cracks at his expense. Regardless of the negativity, Yano prevailed and left the negative remarks in his dust as he excelled and flew through the program to graduate summa cum laude. Before the world knows it he will be on the board of Paediatrics and probably director of regulatory affairs. Anything is possible with the smartest guy in the world.

As a genius, Sho Yano dealt with his fair share of boredom and frustration and felt it was that college was the right place for him to be challenged. It was during this time that Sho also bonded with his sibling, Sayuri who is also a child prodigy and graduated with a degree in biology from Roosevelt University at the age of 13, as really young university students. Sho and Sayuri went from fighting to being best friends.

Even though Sho’s IQ is above 200 and too high to accurately calculate, the guy is above genius level and people are probably expecting big things from him. Regardless of expectations, Sho Yano is pursuing his first love of medicine. At the age of 21 he will be working as a Paediatric Neurologist and hopefully the world of children’s medicine will be hearing from Sho Yano and seeing the results of his genius through vaccines, medicinal leaps and a Pharmacovigilance job here and there.

New Research Methods May Aid Cancer Research

January 25, 2012

The blood stream carries nutrients throughout the body to aid in the growth and repair of tissues. However, previous cancer research has shown that the same system that helps the body grow also assists the growth of malignant tumours. The faster new blood vessels grow and develop can be an indication of cancer and research has shown that by preventing blood vessels from growing, the tumours can also be prevented from growing. However, in order to better understand how the growth of blood vessels and tumours are linked, scientists need to get a clear image of the network of blood vessels in organs.

The institute of cancer research and other research centres are able to map these networks, but it is a very time consuming process – to map a one centimetre block of tissue can take several months. In this time tumours can grow to a fatal state. However, the latest research by computational neuroscientists in the US details a new system that significantly reduces this time. While the new method was tested using mouse brain samples from medical storage, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be the same when investigating cancer and tumour growth.

The process for this new method involves filling the blood vessels with ink and then embedding the tissue sample in plastic. This is then placed on a vertically moving stage and a diamond knife shaves off a very thin slice, imaging the sample line by line at the tips of the knife. With each tiny movement the camera takes a photo and thus researchers get a full 3D structure of the vascular network.

This new method takes less than two days to produce a complete 3D image of the tissue sample, which could be a massive discovery in terms of understanding and supplying information from their cancer research. Future research is expected use fluorescent imaging when studying the tissue sample delivered by pharma distributors, which will not only provide more insight into cancer research but also how the brain structure links with function.

Medical Technology Association Launches 5 Year Plan

October 20, 2011

Eucomed, the European Medical Technology Industry Association, has launched a new 5 year strategy plan to reform healthcare in the European Union. Through constant innovation, the industry body has declared the goals of providing cost effective healthcare, through various reforms to ensure that all professions from surgeons to clinical assistant jobs are made sustainable and cost effective to the patient for years to come. The Economist Intelligence Unit, released its report “Future Proofing Western Europe’s Healthcare”, which Eucomed endorses, at Med Tech this last week.

The report on medical technology stipulates the urgent need for healthcare systems to be efficient, effective and informed in order to stay at the top of its game of being able to support the growing needs of an aging and growing population. The industry association has pledged its support to helping the productivity of medical technology and assuring that these developments are well supported. The focus needs to be on medical technology focused on sustainable growth that can consistently perform under increasing costs and reduced budgets, a trend see in the industry lately. Through support from Eucomed, it will be focus on industry leaders and clinical manager jobs to ensure that value based innovation are the outcome from the years of research. All of this is going to rely on collaboration between all medical technology stakeholders in the industry.

Eucomed has noted the concerns of the European healthcare industry and has stated that technology, although having one of the smallest expenditures, has the best chance of creating sustainable changes in the industry. For the full story on the reforming strategy proposal by the European Medical Technology Association, click here to view their new website.