BiotechMashup

Videoconferences may be known for putting people to sleep, but never like this. A team from McGill University's Department of Anesthesia achieved a world first on August 30, 2010, when they treated patients undergoing thyroid gland surgery in Italy remotely from Montreal, Canada.

(McGill University Health Centre) First there was McSleepy. Now it's time to introduce the first intubation robot operated by remote control. This robotic system named The Kepler Intubation System, and developed by Dr. Thomas M. Hemmerling, McGill University Health Centre specialist and McGill University Professor of Anesthesia and his team, may facilitate the intubation procedure and reduce some complications associated with airway management.

In a world first, a completely robotic surgery and anesthesia has been performed at the McGill University Health Centre. The DaVinci surgical robot, which lets surgeons work from remote locations, was put to work this summer, whereas the anesthesia robot, nicknamed McSleepy, has been providing automated anesthesia since 2008. The two combined to perform the first all-robotic surgery on a prostatectomy patient at the Montreal General Hospital.

(McGill University Health Centre) In a world first, a completely robotic surgery and anesthesia has been performed at the McGill University Health Centre.

(McGill University Health Centre) Malaria kills anywhere from one to three million people around the world annually and affects the lives of up to 500 million more. Yet until now, scientists did not fully understand exactly how the process that caused the disease's severe hallmark fevers began.A team led by Dr. Martin Olivier from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and McGill University in Montreal has solved this mystery.

The brain under general anesthesia isn't "asleep" as surgery patients are often told -- it is placed into a state that is a reversible coma, according to three neuroscientists who have recently published an extensive review of general anesthesia, sleep and coma. This insight and others reported in their review article could eventually lead to new approaches to general anesthesia and improved diagnosis and treatment for sleep abnormalities and emergence from coma.

(McGill University) In the days leading up to World TB Day 2011 on March 24, a team of researchers from McGill University and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) is officially launching the BCG World Atlas: a first-of-its-kind, easy-to-use, searchable website that provides free detailed information on current and past TB vaccination policies and practices for more than 180 countries.

(McGill University) Leading experts from international agencies, NGOs, the food industry and academia will meet at McGill University, in Montreal, October 5-7 to discuss the increasing challenges relating to food security in the world. The 2nd McGill Conference on Global Food Security will focus on the effects of the global economic crisis on food supply and production.

(McGill University) A team of scientists, led by Guillaume Gervais from McGill's Physics Department and Mike Lilly from Sandia National Laboratories, has engineered one of the world's smallest electronic circuits. It is formed by two wires separated by only about 150 atoms or 15 nanometers.