A Stanford University research team has created a potentially powerful new way to fix damaged corneas. About 100,000 corneal transplants are done annually in the United States — but they require surgery with donated corneas from cadavers. Stanford's strategy is to grow individual cells instead. The team then harvests a few "mother" corneal cells, called progenitor cells, donated from a cadaver. Those cells are then put into a warm broth in petri dishes, where they give birth to many new corneal cells. The Stanford team enlisted a recent technological advance: magnetic nanoparticles. The new cells were magnetized with the nanoparticles, loaded into a syringe and injected into the eye. Then, using an electromagnetic force on a patch held outside of the eye, the team pulled the cells into the middle of the eye, to the back of cornea. Later, the magnetic nanoparticles fell off the cells, exited the eye and were excreted in the patients' urine.

Salmonella no longer tops food poisoning list

The U.S. government's latest report card on food poisoning suggests that a germ commonly linked to raw milk and poultry is surpassing salmonella at the top of the culprit list. The most common bug last year was campylobacter (kam-pih-loh-BAK'-tur). It's mostly a problem in unpasteurized dairy products, but also is seen in contaminated chicken, water and produce. Salmonella was No. 1 for the last 20 years but last year moved down to No. 2. Other causes like listeria, shigella and E. coli trail behind.

Most heart patients don't follow statin plan

People who survive a heart attack are urged to take statin drugs to prevent recurrent disease, but most patients in a large study either took less of the cholesterol-lowering medicines than needed or stopped taking them entirely within two years. The study, in JAMA Cardiology, analyzed data on 29,932 Medicare patients ages 66-75 who had been hospitalized for a heart attack from 2007 through 2012 and had filled a prescription for either Lipitor or Crestor. At six months after their discharge from the hospital, 58.9 percent of them were still taking the medicine with high adherence rates. By two years, only 41.6 percent were taking it as directed; many were taking lower dosages than prescribed, and nearly 1 in 5 had stopped taking the medicine completely.

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