Kanpur: Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur on Tuesday announced the development of a bio-inspired artificial muscle for next-generation space robots and medical prostheses.Encouraged by the industry demand and growth in the field of miniature, light weight, non-magnetic gear-free actuators, shape memory alloy (SMA) based actuators have emerged with an excellent power-to-weight ratio as a suitable alternative to the conventional actuators.However, existing SMA actuators have limited scope in terms of higher force or torque output due to the relatively simple architecture of the actuation mechanism. To address this limitation, the team from Smart Materials, Structures and Systems (SMSS) Lab at IIT Kanpur expanded the design space of the SMA actuator by leveraging the characteristics of bi-pennate muscle architecture with about 70 per cent enhanced muscle force output per unit weight.This will result in the creation of a new class of space robots which will reinforce Indian space technology, the team wrote in the paper published in Nature Scientific Reports."This invention will not only result in the development of next-gen space robots and medical prostheses, but will also help aviation and some other industries. In a way, it will help make multiple sectors self-reliant and more advanced in the long run," said Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director at IIT Kanpur in a statement.The primary goal of an actuator is to generate mechanical output, such as force and displacement, by transforming electrical energy. SMAs are a class of smart materials that can restore their shape after being exposed to high temperatures.The interesting property of the customisable multi-stage hierarchy of the SMA-based bio-inspired muscle design will also encourage researchers in the domain of bio-mechatronics to develop adaptive robotic prostheses for bio-medical application in the country. This will significantly reduce (one third of the current cost) the cost of bio-medical devices and increase the affordability of high performance systems like MRI scanner, CT scanner and surgical robots. The technology will also enable development of patient rooms with low maintenance and quieter operation. —IANS

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur on Tuesday announced the development of a bio-inspired artificial muscle for next-generation space robots and medical prostheses.

IIT Kanpur Team Develops Bio-Inspired Artificial Muscle For Space Robots

Washington: Neuromuscular disorders affect millions of people worldwide. Now a discovery made at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute of Montreal (IRCM) opens the door to the development of targeted therapies.
Published in the journal Nature Communications, the development caps several years of research by doctoral student Viviane Tran under the direction of Universite de Montreal medical professor Dr. Jean-Francois Cote, the IRCM's president and scientific director, with international partners.
The formation of muscles, a complex process, requires the action of specialized cells, the myoblasts. In order for skeletal muscle to develop and regenerate, myoblasts must align with each other, move towards each other, and touch each other until their membranes are joined. This is called the myoblast fusion stage and is the basis for the formation of muscle fibers.
During embryogenesis, myoblast fusion is crucial, with mutations in certain genes resulting in the extremely rare clinical myopathy called Carey-Fineman-Ziter syndrome.
In adults, an army of satellite cells is responsible for muscle growth and regeneration. In response to activation signals, satellite cells proliferate, differentiate and fuse to repair damaged myofibers. The proteins and signaling pathways that control this fusion are still being identified.
'We didn't think it possible'
"Until recently, myoblast fusion was the subject of only basic research," said Dr. Cote.
"We weren't interested in it in the context of disease; we didn't think it was possible to use this process to cure certain diseases. Yet, understanding in detail all the factors involved in this fusion could contribute to the development of targeted therapies."
In what was a key experiment, the researchers created a mouse model in which a protein involved in fusion is expressed in its active form in the mammal. During muscle development and regeneration, an increase in myoblast fusion was observed. "We also observed that this mouse model, when crossed with a mouse modeling limb-girdle muscular dystrophy 2B, can improve disease phenotypes," said Tran. —ANI

Neuromuscular disorders affect millions of people worldwide. Now a discovery made at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute of Montreal (IRCM) opens the door to the development of targeted therapies.

Stem Cells Responsible For Formation Of Skeletal Muscles: Research

London: The UK Space Agency is planning to send two experiments that are aimed to improve understanding of currently incurable child brain tumours and the muscle ageing process, to the International Space Station (ISS).
The 2.6 million pound project, to be launched in 2025, will be supervised by astronauts on board the ISS for up to six months before returning to Earth for the results to be analysed, the space agency said in a statement.
The Institute of Cancer Research's D(MG) 2 project received 1.2 million pounds in funds from the UK Space Agency.
D(MG) 2 aims to understand how to diffuse midline glioma -- one of the most common types of "primary high grade" brain tumour to afflict children. It has, so far, been impossible to cure due to the amount of different cell types it contains.
The space agency awarded University of Liverpool's MicroAge II project 1.4 million pounds to continue to investigate how the microgravity environment of orbit makes astronauts' muscles weaken in space -- much in the same way they do with age on Earth. The research has "huge benefits for mankind and health systems around the world," said George Freeman, Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, in the statement.
"This ground-breaking research highlights the power of space to push through barriers, revolutionise science and enhance our lives," added Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said:
Bate said that D(MG)2 while aboard the ISS will improve the scientists' understanding of how cancer cells interact with each other within three-dimensional structures, and lead to new ideas for disrupting tumour growth that can take forward back in the lab.
The ISS experiment for MicroAge II will use a lab-grown human muscle to observe the effects of microgravity and test whether mitochondria play an important role in muscle loss in space and determine whether applying tension can slow the degeneration process, which could help scientists to rapidly develop therapies to reduce muscle loss as we age.
The space agency also supported MicroAge I, which flew to the ISS in December 2021 to test lab-grown muscle constructs, each the size of a grain of rice.
"We will use newly developed techniques to study the role of changes in mitochondria, tiny structures that are responsible for supplying energy to cells, in driving the loss of muscle mass that occurs in microgravity," said Professor Malcolm Jackson at the University of Liverpool.
"The role that a loss of tension on muscle plays in these mitochondrial changes will be examined using innovative hardware that modifies the amount of tension that the muscle experiences in microgravity.
"This will be used to test whether altered tension on muscle regulates the muscle loss in microgravity and to inform us on the process during muscle loss during ageing on Earth," Jackson said.
Equipment for the experiments is being built by Kaser Space Ltd., a microgravity hardware specialist based in Oxfordshire. The firm is an expert in the design and supply of instruments and systems used in outer space and especially in crewed spaceflight. —IANS

The UK Space Agency is planning to send two experiments that are aimed to improve understanding of currently incurable child brain tumours and the muscle ageing process, to the International Space Station (ISS).

UK To Send Experiments On Child Brain Tumours, Muscle Ageing To Space

Washington: Researchers found the amount of fat in the body's muscle, or muscle adiposity, may predict a person's risk of cognitive decline as they age. A 5-year increase in fat stored in the thigh muscle was found to be a risk factor for cognitive decline in a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. This risk was unrelated to the total weight, other fat deposits, muscle characteristics (such as muscle strength or mass), and traditional dementia risk factors. The study was published in 'Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.' The researchers measured muscle fat in 1,634 adults aged 69 to 79 at years 1 and 6 and cognitive function at years 1, 3, 5, 8, and 10. Increases in muscle adiposity from year one to year six were associated with a faster and more rapid decline in cognitive function over time. The results were comparable for black and white men and women. "Our data suggest that muscle adiposity plays a unique role in cognitive decline, distinct from that of other types of fat or other muscle characteristics," said corresponding author Caterina Rosano, MD, MPH, of the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health. "If that is the case, then the next step is to understand how muscle fat and the brain 'talk' to each other, and whether reducing muscle adiposity can also reduce dementia risk." —ANI

 Researchers found the amount of fat in the body's muscle, or muscle adiposity, may predict a person's risk of cognitive decline as they age

Muscle Fat Content Predict Risk Of Cognitive Decline: Study

Washington: Researchers found an approach that could help doctors make more precise diagnoses. The study was published in Journal, ' Journal of Clinical Investigation.' It's difficult to tell the difference between the dozens of subtypes of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, a rare, genetic muscle disease characterised by weakness in the hips and shoulders that makes walking and lifting the arms difficult. Until now, determining the subtype was not critical in patient care because no specific treatments were available. But, because gene therapies are on the horizon and are targeted to specific genetic variants, pinpointing the genetic roots of each patient's disease has taken on new significance. Hundreds of genes are associated with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. While genetic testing may identify a handful of rare genetic variants in each patient with the condition, there's no way to know without painstaking, time-consuming additional experiments which, if any, of those variants is responsible for a patient's symptoms. Unfortunately, no comprehensive catalogue exists yet of all the variants of all the genes linked to limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, and whether each of those variants can cause disease or is harmless. "There are people emailing me all the time saying, 'I have this variant. Am I eligible for this experimental therapy?' and much of the time I don't have an answer," said co-author Conrad "Chris" Weihl, MD, PhD, a professor of neurology. Weihl is chief of the neuromuscular diseases section and treats people with muscular dystrophy at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "These patients are in limbo. We can't get them into clinical trials until they have a diagnosis. More than half of all patients with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy are in this position. It's critical that we resolve their diagnoses so we can get them access to necessary therapies as soon as they become available." Weihl and colleagues at Washington University have taken an important step toward creating a catalogue that could help resolve inconclusive diagnoses. For one gene commonly involved in the disease, the researchers created the protein that would be made from that gene's instructions. Then, they made every possible protein variant that could be formed by swapping out one amino acid for another, analyzed the functions of the variants and classified each as harmful or benign. Now, if a patient has a variant of this one gene, doctors can determine its pathogenicity simply by looking up the variant in the catalog. In principle, the same approach could be used to resolve variants of unknown significance for many other genes associated with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, vastly simplifying and speeding up the process of diagnosing this complex disease. "People conflate knowing that there is a variant with knowing the cause of a disease," said corresponding author Gabriel Haller, PhD, an assistant professor of neurosurgery. "That isn't necessarily the case. In this study, most of the variants of unknown significance turned out to be benign. If you find a variant but you don't know its significance, you haven't figured out the answer." Resolving variants of unknown significance is particularly beneficial to members of underrepresented groups. Genetic databases are dominated by people of Western European background and reflect the genetic diversity found in that population. People of other backgrounds are more likely to carry genetic variations that have no match in reference databases and thus get the label "variant of unknown significance." For this study, the researchers comprehensively analysed sarcoglycan beta, one of the genes most often linked to limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. Sarcoglycan beta forms a complex with three other proteins on the surface of muscle cells. For muscles to contract effectively, the complex must form properly and in the right place on the cell. First author Chengcheng Li, PhD, a staff scientist in Weihl's lab, created all 6,340 possible variants of sarcoglycan beta protein. Then, she assessed where each variant protein was located on muscle cells, using a fluorescent antibody. Those variants capable of forming the correct complex at the correct spot -- in other words, variants with normal functional activity -- fluoresced brightly. Those that failed to form the complex properly or were located at the wrong place -- i.e., less functional variants -- fluoresced more dimly. The correlation was perfect. All variants known to cause disease scored low in functional activity, while all known benign variants scored high. Not only that, the degree of functional activity correlated with the severity of the disease. People with the most severe symptoms of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy may need to start using wheelchairs as young as age 7, while people with milder symptoms may not need one until decades later, if ever. In the study, variants with lower functional activity more often appeared in patients with more severe symptoms. "Twenty per cent of the variants of unknown significance turned out to be pathogenic, which means they could be amenable to potential therapies," Weihl said. "My dream is that one day we'll be able to give people a genetic test report that says, 'You have this variant, and it's amenable to this type of therapy,' and we can start them on the best therapy right away. Or we tell them, 'Your variant is benign,' and we keep looking until we find the variant that is responsible for the patient's disease." —ANI

Researchers found an approach that could help doctors make more precise diagnoses

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IIT Kanpur Team Develops Bio-Inspired Artificial Muscle For Space Robots

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