Delayed localized hypersensitivity reactions to Moderna COVID-19 vaccine

HOUSTON - The mitochondrial enzyme dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) plays an important and previously unknown role in blocking a form of cell death called ferroptosis, according to a new study published today in Nature by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Preclinical findings suggest that targeting DHODH can restore ferroptosis-driven cell death, pointing to new therapeutic strategies that may be used to induce ferroptosis and inhibit tumor growth. "By understanding ferroptosis and how cells defend against it, we can develop therapeutic strategies to block those defense mechanisms and trigger cell death," said senior author Boyi Gan, Ph.D., associate professor of Experimental ...

LA JOLLA, CALIF. - May 12, 2021 - Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have taken a deep dive into a previously overlooked family of proteins and discovered that they are essential to maintaining the energy that cells need to grow and survive. The proteins, known as lipid kinases, produce messengers that help balance cellular metabolism and promote overall health. The findings, published in Developmental Cell, provide further support to pursue lipid kinases as promising therapeutic targets for diseases that demand excess energy, such as cancer. "Cancer cells are hungry--they grow faster than most cell types and need energy to support their aggressive attempts to metastasize," says Brooke Emerling, Ph.D., assistant professor in the ...

Social anxiety disorder can cause considerable suffering in children and adolescents and, for many with the disorder, access to effective treatment is limited. Researchers at Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet and Region Stockholm in Sweden have now shown that internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy is an efficacious and cost-effective treatment option. The study is published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Social anxiety disorder (SAD, previously known as social phobia) has a typical onset during childhood and is characterised by an intense and persistent fear of being scrutinised and negatively evaluated in social or performance situations. The fear typically leads to avoidance of such anxiety triggering situations or are endured under great ...

The acidity of the atmosphere is increasingly determined by carbon dioxide and organic acids such as formic acid. The second of these contribute to the formation of aerosol particles as a precursor of raindrops and therefore impact the growth of clouds and pH of rainwater. In previous atmospheric chemistry models of acid formation, formic acid tended to play a small role. The chemical processes behind its formation were not well understood. An international team of researchers under the aegis of Forschungszentrum Jülich has now succeeded in filling this gap and deciphering the dominant ...

Long-lasting, quick-charging batteries are essential to the expansion of the electric vehicle market, but today's lithium-ion batteries fall short of what's needed -- they're too heavy, too expensive and take too long to charge. For decades, researchers have tried to harness the potential of solid-state, lithium-metal batteries, which hold substantially more energy in the same volume and charge in a fraction of the time compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries. "A lithium-metal battery is considered the holy grail for battery chemistry because of its high capacity and energy density," said Xin Li, Associate Professor ...

Scientists have developed a brain-computer interface (BCI) designed to restore the ability to communicate in people with spinal cord injuries and neurological disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This system has the potential to work more quickly than previous BCIs, and it does so by tapping into one of the oldest means of communications we have--handwriting. The study, published in Nature, was funded by the National Institutes of Health's Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative as well as the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), both part of the NIH. Researchers focused on the part of the brain ...

Woods Hole, Mass. (May 12, 2021) -- Low-to-mid latitude land surfaces at low elevation cooled on average by 5.8 ± 0.6 degrees C during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), based on an analysis of noble gases dissolved in groundwater, according to a new study published in Nature. Temperature estimates in the study are substantially lower than indicated by some notable marine and low-elevation terrestrial studies that have relied on various proxies to reconstruct past temperatures during the LGM, a period about 20,000 years ago that represents the most recent extended period ...

Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) affects between one and two of every 10,000 new-born babies. This genetic disease leads to the formation of benign tumours which can massively impair the proper functioning of vital organs such as the kidneys, the liver and the brain. The disease affects different patients to varying degrees and is triggered by mutations in one of two genes, the TSC1 or TSC2 gene. An interdisciplinary team of researchers led by biochemists Prof. Daniel Kümmel and Dr. Andrea Oeckinghaus from the University of Münster (Germany) examined the "tumour suppressor protein TSC1" and, for the first time, gained insights into its hitherto unclear functions. The team identified a new mechanism, in a central cellular process, which regulates ...

University of Cincinnati researchers studied the teeth of prehistoric horses and bison in the Arctic to learn more about their diets compared to modern species. What they found suggests the Arctic 40,000 years ago maintained a broader diversity of plants that, in turn, supported both more -- and more diverse -- big animals. The Arctic today is spartan compared to the wildlife-rich landscape during the ice ages of the Pleistocene epoch between 12,000 and 2.6 million years ago when wild horses, mammoths, bison and other big animals roamed the steppes and grasslands of what is now northern Canada, northern Europe, Alaska and Siberia. Short-faced bears, ground sloths and even cave lions called the 49th State home. The Arctic supported greater populations ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University have made what is believed to be the smallest state-of-the-art RFID chip, which should drive down the cost of RFID tags. In addition, the chip's design makes it possible to embed RFID tags into high value chips, such as computer chips, boosting supply chain security for high-end technologies. "As far as we can tell, it's the world's smallest Gen2-compatible RFID chip," says Paul Franzon, corresponding author of a paper on the work and Cirrus Logic Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State. Gen2 RFID chips are state of the art and are already in widespread use. One of the things that sets ...