Postoperative in-hospital morbidity, mortality of patients with COVID-19 compared to patients without

What The Study Did: This modeling study estimates COVID-19-related changes in rates of colorectal cancer screenings and associated outcomes and estimates the degree to which expanded fecal immunochemical testing could potentially mitigate these outcomes. Authors: Rachel B. Issaka, M.D., M.A.S., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.6454) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and ...

Using an innovative protein-based approach, researchers at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and nearby Emory University have found genes and corresponding proteins that could point the way to new depression treatments. Using a proteome-wide association study (PWAS) that integrated genome-wide association study (GWAS) data with human brain proteomic and genetic data, researchers have identified 19 genes that may lead to depression by altering brain protein levels. They also pinpointed 25 such proteins that offer promise as potential targets for new depression treatments. The researchers detail their approach and findings in April 2021 in the journal Nature ...

Both people and tomatoes come in different shapes and sizes. That is because every individual has a unique set of genetic variations--mutations--that affect how genes act and function. Added together, millions of small genetic variations make it hard to predict how a particular mutation will impact any individual. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Zach Lippman showed how genetic variations in tomatoes can influence the way a specific mutation affects the plant. He is working toward being able to predict the effects of mutations on different tomato varieties. In this study, Lippman and his team used CRISPR, a highly accurate and targeted gene-editing tool, on two tomato genes that control fruit ...

An international team today reports the findings of an independent assessment of five commercially-available assays for tumour DNA sequencing - a fast, cheap and less invasive method to diagnose and monitor cancer. The researchers revealed that all assays could reliably detect so-called circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) when it made up 0.5% of the total DNA in blood, a level of sensitivity that allows detection, genetic analysis and monitoring of late-stage and metastatic tumours. Published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the study is a major milestone for the use of ctDNA assays as cancer diagnostics, outlining best-practice guidelines ...

An amber fossil of a Cretaceous beetle has shed some light on the diet of one of the earliest pollinators of flowering plants. The animal's remains were unearthed by researchers at the University of Bristol and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) who were able to study its fossil faecal matter, which was composed solely of pollen. Besides being a visitor of angiosperms - flowering plants - researchers now have conclusive evidence that the new fossil named Pelretes vivificus also fed on their pollen. Details of this discovery have been published ...

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have identified and tested a drug combination that exploits a weakness in small cell lung cancer (SCLC), an aggressive, dangerous cancer. The scientists targeted a vulnerability in how the cancer cells reproduce, increasing already high levels of replication stress ¬¬-- a hallmark of out-of-control cell growth in many cancers that can damage DNA and force cancer cells to constantly work to repair themselves. In a small clinical trial, the drug duo shrank the tumors of SCLC patients. The team reported its findings April 12 in Cancer Cell. While many patients with small cell lung cancer initially respond to chemotherapy, they lack an effective follow-up treatment. These patients usually live a matter of weeks after their ...

A new test that measures the quantity and quality of inactive HIV viruses in the genes of people living with HIV may eventually give researchers a better idea of what drugs work best at curing the disease. Currently no cure exists for HIV and AIDS, but antiretroviral therapy drugs, or ARTs, effectively suppress the virus to undetectable levels. Published today in Cell Reports Medicine, the study discusses how a new test, developed jointly by scientists at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, will ...

While pollinators such as bees and butterflies provide crucial ecosystem services today, little is known about the origin of the intimate association between flowering plants and insects. Now, a new amber fossil unearthed by researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) and the University of Bristol sheds light on some of the earliest pollinators of flowering plants. The study was published in Nature Plants on April 12. Two hundred million years ago the world was as green as today, overgrown with dense vegetation, but it was not as colorful. Flowering plants (angiosperms) that make up over 80% of all plant species today, only began to diversify in the Cretaceous, about 125 million years ago. Some scientists have attributed ...

A new 160-million-year-old arboreal pterosaur species, dubbed 'Monkeydactyl', has the oldest true opposed thumb - a novel structure previously not known in pterosaurs. An international team of researchers from China, Brazil, UK, Denmark and Japan have described a new Jurassic pterosaur Kunpengopterus antipollicatus, which was discovered in the Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning, China. It is a small-bodied darwinopteran pterosaur, with an estimated wingspan of 85 cm. Most importantly, the specimen was preserved with an opposed pollex ("thumb") on both hands. The species name 'antipollicatus' ...

Singapore, 12 April 2021 - Researchers from the Low Energy Electronic Systems (LEES) Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT's research enterprise in Singapore, together with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and National University of Singapore (NUS) have found a method to quantify the distribution of compositional fluctuations in the indium gallium nitride (InGaN) quantum wells (QWs) at different indium concentrations. InGaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) have revolutionised the field ...