Association of convalescent plasma therapy with survival in patients with blood cancers, COVID-19

What The Study Did: This study examined whether mandatory daily employee symptom data collection can be used as an early alert surveillance system to estimate COVID-19 hospitalizations in communities where employees live. Authors: Steven Horng, M.D., M.MSc., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, is the 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.2021.13782) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media advisory: The full study ...

What The Study Did: In this survey study, COVID-19 was associated with large reductions in economic security among women at high risk of HIV infection in Kenya. However, shifts in sexual behavior may have temporarily decreased their risk of HIV infection. Authors: Harsha Thirumurthy, Ph.D., of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is the 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.2021.13787) Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, ...

What The Study Did: Researchers estimated survival and other outcomes of very preterm infants in China discharged against medical advice from neonatal intensive care units before complete care can be provided compared with infants who receive full intensive care treatment. Authors: Yun Cao, M.D., Ph.D., and Weili Yan, Ph.D., of Children's Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, are the corresponding authors. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.13197) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest ...

The 'Xpert Ultra' molecular test has a greater capacity than its predecessor ('Xpert MTB/RIF') in detecting tuberculosis cases, either passively (i.e. people who attend the hospital with disease symptoms) or actively (searching for possible cases in the community among contacts of cases). This is the main conclusion of a study performed by ISGlobal, an institution supported by "la Caixa" Foundation, in collaboration with the Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM), published in the European Respiratory Journal. Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death by an infectious agent, worldwide. In 2019, 1.4 million people are estimated to have died and 10 million people fell sick from TB, although only 70% of the cases were diagnosed. ...

Scientists have identified a new class of targeted cancer drugs that offer the potential to treat patients whose tumours have faulty copies of the BRCA cancer genes. The drugs, known as POLQ inhibitors, specifically kill cancer cells with mutations in the BRCA genes while leaving healthy cells unharmed. And crucially, they can kill cancer cells that have become resistant to PARP inhibitors - an existing treatment for patients with BRCA mutations. Researchers are already planning to test the new drug class in upcoming clinical trials. If the trials are successful, POLQ inhibitors could enter the clinic as a new approach to treating a range of cancers with BRCA ...

Many diseases caused by a dysregulated immune system, such as allergies, asthma and autoimmunity, can be traced back to events in the first few months after birth. To date, the mechanisms behind the development of the immune system have not been fully understood. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet show a connection between breast milk, beneficial gut bacteria and the development of the immune system. The study is published in Cell. "A possible application of our results is a preventative method for reducing the risk of allergies, asthma and autoimmune disease later in life by helping the immune system to establish its regulatory mechanisms," says the paper's last author Petter Brodin, paediatrician and researcher at the Department of Women's and Children's ...

The giant rhino, Paraceratherium, is considered the largest land mammal that ever lived and was mainly found in Asia, especially China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan. How this genus dispersed across Asia was long a mystery, however. A new discovery has now shed light on this process. Prof. DENG Tao from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his collaborators from China and the U.S.A. recently reported a new species Paraceratherium linxiaense sp. nov., which offers important clues to the dispersal of giant rhinos across Asia. The study was published in Communications Biology on June 17. The new species' fossils comprise a completely preserved skull and mandible with their associated atlas, ...

The most accurate distance measurement yet of ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG) NGC1052-DF2 (DF2) confirms beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is lacking in dark matter. The newly measured distance of 22.1 +/-1.2 megaparsecs was obtained by an international team of researchers led by Zili Shen and Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University and Shany Danieli, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. "Determining an accurate distance to DF2 has been key in supporting our earlier results," stated Danieli. "The new measurement reported in this study has crucial implications for estimating the physical properties of the galaxy, thus confirming its lack of dark matter." The ...

One of the main reasons for the hold-ups in the mass vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 are the precautions that must be taken regarding the handling of the vaccines and their administration. They have to be transported under very specific conditions and the syringes used for their administration must be prepared at the same vaccination site. Healthcare workers must ensure they avoid any sudden movements of the vaccines so as not to affect the vector they use, messenger RNA molecules in the case of the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. But research led by the Hospital del Mar Pharmacy Department and Neuropharmacology-Neurophar Research Group at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), may lead to changes in ...

The ability to insert desirable genes into animal or human cells is the basis of modern life science research and of widespread biomedical applications. The methods used to date for this purpose are mostly non-specific, making it difficult for scientists to control which cell will or will not take up a gene. For this gene transfer, the target genes are often packaged into "viral vectors." These are viruses in which part of the genetic material has been replaced by the target genes. When researchers add these viral vectors to cells, the vectors introduce the genes into the cells. This is the principle behind some of the current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines such as those from AstraZeneca or Johnson&Johnson. However, it is difficult - even impossible - to control into which cells the ...