bioelectronic medicine

Biotech May 7, 2018

How to speak cytokine: a bioelectronics breakthrough

By GREGORY ZELLER // You can bet they didn’t use secret decoder rings. In a major feat of bioengineering and neurological science, a team of doctors at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institute for Medical Research has intercepted and decoded specific signals the human nervous system uses to communicate immune and inflammation status to the brain – a potentially ginormous forward leap for bioelectronic medicine. This latest bioelectronic breakthrough at what has become the international nerve center…

Invention November 21, 2017

Northwell innovators think outside the box, and in

By GREGORY ZELLER // Bioelectronics and “smart” tech won the day in the Northwell Health 2017 Innovation Challenge. The challenge, which invited the New Hyde Park-based health system’s 63,000-plus employees to submit groundbreaking healthcare ideas for a shot at project-development funding, eventually came down to two champions at Northwell Health’s Made For Big Ideas Showcase in October – a bioelectronic device designed to reduce premature births and a “smart” laboratory container that knows when a…

Health August 1, 2017

Feinstein, Hofstra concussion study exposes a nerve

By GREGORY ZELLER // With concussions and other traumatic brain injuries continuing to make headlines on and off the playing field, Long Island researchers may be closing in on a unique treatment method. Scientists at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and the Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine have published the results of a nerve-stimulation study with broad-ranging implications for many neurological conditions, including severe TBIs. Published online by the international science journal Nature, the…

Medical devices July 10, 2017

Knapp gift locks Feinstein bioelectronics on diabetes

By GREGORY ZELLER // A new research program will focus the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research’s considerable bioelectronic resources on a main antagonist of American health: diabetes. The research and development division of the Northwell Health system has received a $1 million gift from The Knapp Foundation, enough to kick off a four-year effort to explore bioelectronic medicine-based treatments for the chronic disease, which affects more than 29 million Americans – just under 10 percent…

Biotech March 9, 2017

Northwell, drug-maker ink bioelectronics partnership

By GREGORY ZELLER // Bioelectronic medicine has taken another forward leap, thanks to the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research’s latest professional alliance. The research-and-development arm of the Northwell Health system announced Thursday that it will apply its cutting-edge bioelectronics and cell-therapy technologies to cardiology and hypertension cases through a new “strategic partnership” with United Therapeutics Corp. Financial terms were not disclosed, but United Therapeutics will “fund Northwell’s efforts in four research-and-development tracks” while ushering new…

Health September 19, 2016

Feinstein eyes bioelectronic BP breakthrough

A new study by the head of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research may open the door to bioelectronic treatments for hypertension and high blood pressure. In a study published this month by the prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Biotechnology, researchers from the Feinstein Institute – the R&D arm of the Northwell Health system – and the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden’s top medical university, discuss findings regarding T-cells and their ability to produce neurotransmitters that can…

Biotech August 18, 2016

Feinstein researchers nab major NIH awards

Two cutting-edge Feinstein Institute for Medical Research projects have been selected for an elite National Institutes of Health funding program. Kevin Tracey, the institute’s president and CEO, and Ping Wang, Feinstein’s chief scientific officer, will continue their groundbreaking research into bioelectronic medicine and sepsis, respectively, with help from the NIH’s Maximizing Investigators’ Research Awards program. Through the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences – which supports “basic research that increases understanding of biological processes…

Biotech July 10, 2016

Study is big news for Vagus pioneer Tracey

By GREGORY ZELLER // Medical science has taken an enormous step toward “using electronics to replace drugs.” Kevin Tracey’s words sound downright science-fictional. And no, researchers cannot wave a medical tricorder and instantly cure ailments like “Star Trek” medic “Bones” McCoy. But they’re getting closer to a world where high-tech implants – not pharmaceuticals – are the most effective treatments for inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson’s disease. A recent clinical trial in the…

Biotech May 31, 2016

Feinstein’s Tracey to head bioelectronics summit

Feinstein Institute chief and global bioelectronics pioneer Kevin Tracey will headline a September New York Academy of Science conference on bioelectronic medicine. Tracey, Feinstein’s president and CEO and the brains behind bioelectronic startup Sanguistat, will share keynote duties with Peder Olofsson, a longtime Feinstein Institute researcher and Wallenberg Academy Fellow at the Karolinska Institutet. The two will headline Key Symposium 2016: Bioelectronic Medicine – Technology Targeting Molecular Mechanisms, presented by the Feinstein Institute, the Royal…

Economic Development January 5, 2016

Cuomo unveils giant LI infrastructure package

Long Island builders and planners are understandably thrilled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s ambitious plan to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into Long Island’s infrastructure – though local leaders acknowledge there are many political dogfights waiting between here and fruition. Cuomo’s proposals, unveiled Tuesday before an appreciative audience of MTA officials and regional rainmakers at the Long Island Association’s January meeting, covers everything from sewers to airports, a controversial third track for the LIRR and…

Biotech November 22, 2015

The Debrief: Chris Czura has the pulse of the future

Healthcare and data-driven tech are the cornerstones of the innovation economy, making the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, the R&D wing of the North Shore-LIJ Health System, the public face of Long Island’s best economic hope. More than that, it’s a hotbed of really cool science – and none cooler than the “neural tourniquet,” a nerve-stimulation device that promises to change how doctors staunch blood loss in the field and the operating room. As the…

Biotech October 10, 2015

NYIT’s Farajivadar lands NIH neural research grant

NYIT professor and neural-stimulation expert Aydin Farajivadar has won a federal grant to help fund development of a wireless, implantable system to study the human body’s gastric system. Early-stage work by Farajivadar at the NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Science’s Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Center has earned a $457,000 National Institutes of Health grant. Ultimately ticketed to help track medical data inside human patients with stomach disorders, the tiny implant will first be tested…

Analysis September 26, 2015

Answering our ‘pent-up need’ for new industry

By JOHN L. KOMINICKI // A proposed $300 million center on bioelectronic research would get a $50 million jolt if Albany follows recommendations made this week by a group of business and government leaders. The group, which includes both country executives, Long Island Association chief Kevin Law and five other members, was formed to suggest ways to spend $550 million in state funding that has been earmarked for “transformative” projects downstate. Topping their list was a…

Biotech June 4, 2015

Feinstein, Battelle partner on ‘Neural Tourniquet’

North Shore-LIJ’s Feinstein Institute is partnering with Ohio health giant Battelle on a so-called Neural Tourniquet that will reshape the way doctors staunch blood loss, from the battlefield to the operating room. The technology is an outgrowth of research pioneered by Feinstein director Kevin Tracey, whose discoveries have helped fuel the bioelectronic medicine field, which combines molecular medicine, bioengineering and neuroscience to develop nerve-stimulating and sensing technologies to regulate biological processes. Tracey’s discoveries have already…