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press releases.

Science13 Jun 2024

MD Anderson Research Highlights: EHA 2024 Special Edition

ABSTRACTS: LB3439, LB3442, S131, S132, S136, S164, S222 MADRID – The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights showcases the latest breakthroughs in cancer care, research, and prevention. These advances are made possible through seamless collaboration between MD Anderson’s world-leading clinicians and scientists, bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic and back. This special edition features presentations by MD Anderson researchers at the 2024 European Hematology Association (EHA) Congress. Triplet therapy significantly improves response rates ...

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Science13 Jun 2024

Bhatia named new head of ITER projects at PPPL

Ravinder Bhatia, a leader and engineer with three decades of experience managing collaborative science initiatives, is the new head of ITER projects at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). In this role, Bhatia oversees the design and fabrication of six diagnostic systems, or sensor systems, that PPPL is building for ITER, the multinational facility under assembly in France to study plasma that can heat itself and sustain its own fusion reactions. The diagnostics will observe the plasma within ITER to measure properties that include temperature, ...

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Science13 Jun 2024

Nanosized blocks spontaneously assemble in water to create tiny floating checkerboards

Researchers have engineered nanosized cubes that spontaneously form a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern when dropped on the surface of water. The work, published in Nature Communications, presents a simple approach to create complex nanostructures through a technique called self-assembly. “It’s a cool way to get materials to build themselves,” said study co-senior author Andrea Tao, a professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at the University of California San Diego. “You ...

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Science13 Jun 2024

APA poll finds younger workers feel stressed, lonely and undervalued

Younger workers are struggling with feelings of loneliness and a lack of appreciation at work and tend to feel more comfortable working with people their own age, according to a survey by the American Psychological Association. The 2024 Work in America survey, conducted online by The Harris Poll of more than 2,000 working U.S. adults, found that three in 10 U.S. workers reported that people in their organization who are not close to their age do not see the value in their ideas (32%). That number was significantly higher for workers aged ...

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Science13 Jun 2024

Shedding light on the state of genetic counseling for hereditary transthyretin-related amyloidosis

Early detection and treatment of hereditary transthyretin-related amyloidosis via genetic counseling are crucial. Yet, not all at-risk individuals seek genetic counseling, and management for presymptomatic carriers remains unclear. To tackle these knowledge gaps, a research team from Japan conducted a retrospective study on over 200 people who sought genetic counseling at a medical center, shedding light on the current advantages and limitations of current practices. Hereditary transthyretin-related amyloidosis (AATRv amyloidosis) is a rare inherited ...

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Science13 Jun 2024

Trametinib shows promise for children with relapsed or refractory JMML

Bottom Line: The MEK inhibitor trametinib (Mekinist) was an effective treatment for pediatric patients with relapsed or refractory juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) enrolled in a phase II clinical trial, with seven of 10 patients alive after a median of two years. Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Authors: The senior author is Mignon Loh, MD, who is the director of the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research and the head of the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, Bone ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Mouse study identifies unique approach for preventing life-threatening complications after spinal cord injury

COLUMBUS, Ohio – In response to stressful or dangerous stimuli, nerve cells in the spinal cord activate involuntary, autonomic reflexes often referred to as “fight or flight” responses. These protective responses cause changes in blood pressure and the release of stress hormones into the blood stream. Normally, these responses are short-lived and well-controlled, but this changes after a traumatic spinal cord injury. A first-ever study published in the journal Science Translational Research identifies a ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Sweetpotato’s sweet revenge

Sweetpotato black rot is a devastating disease caused by the fungus Ceratocystis fimbriata. Since the late 1800s, black rot of sweetpotato has threatened to destroy as much as 30% of the sweetpotato crop in the United States. In 2015, all sweetpotato-producing states in the United States experienced one of the worst outbreaks recorded in history, with up to 60% losses reported. While fungicides can help manage the disease, they are not a sustainable solution, especially with volatile restrictions on fungicide residues among major export markets. An additional ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Pacific coast gray whales have gotten 13% shorter in the past 20-30 years, Oregon State study finds

Gray whales that spend their summers feeding in the shallow waters off the Pacific Northwest coast have undergone a significant decline in body length since around the year 2000, a new Oregon State University study found. The smaller size could have major consequences for the health and reproductive success of the affected whales, and also raises alarm bells about the state of the food web in which they coexist, researchers say. “This could be an early warning sign that the abundance of this population is starting to decline, or is not healthy,” said K.C. Bierlich, co-author on the study and an assistant professor at OSU’s ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Pairing shelter dogs has ‘pawsitive’ results

Shelter dogs awaiting adoption fare better with a canine companion than when they’re housed alone, according to new research from Virginia Tech. The study, led by Erica Feuerbacher, associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Animal Sciences, revealed that companiable dogs housed together showed fewer signs of stress and were adopted more quickly than dogs that were housed by themselves. Nearly 4 million dogs enter shelters every year, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The study’s findings offer one possible solution for animal shelters ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Greek Island was home to Bronze Age purple dye workshop

The Greek island of Aegina was home to a Late Bronze Age purple dye workshop, according to a study published June 12, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lydia Berger of Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria and colleagues. Colored dyes were a significant commodity in the Mediterranean region during the Late Bronze Age, and understanding the production of these dyes is valuable for interpretations of culture and trade at the time. In this study, Berger and colleagues describe the site of a purple dye workshop from the 16th century BC located at Aegina Kolonna in the Saronic Gulf. The presence of a dye workshop at this site is inferred from three main lines of ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Housing compatible shelter dogs together could reduce stress and might help them find homes sooner

Housing compatible shelter dogs together could reduce stress and might help them find homes sooner ### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0301137 Article Title: Effects of single- or pair-housing on the welfare of shelter dogs: Behavioral and physiological indicators Author Countries: USA Funding: The current research was funded by a grant to ENF from the Waltham Foundation (grant number) www.waltham.com. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

The gender gap in life expectancy: are eggs and sperm partly responsible?

Osaka, Japan – Women live longer than men. This isn’t unique to humans, either; we see this trend in a wide range of other animals. Biologists have theorized that the discrepancy in life expectancy between sexes might be partly related to reproduction, but how? In a study published in Science Advances, researchers from Osaka University have discovered for the first time that germ cells, the cells that develop into eggs in females and sperm in males, drive sex-dependent lifespan differences in vertebrate animals. The researchers ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

What is the neural mechanism behind helping someone at your own cost?

Using a unique setup, researchers from the Social Brain Lab at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience have researched the neural mechanism behind a universal dilemma: deciding whether to help someone else even when it involves a personal sacrifice. We often have opportunities to give up something we care about to help others. What brain mechanisms help us make those decisions, and why do some people help more than others? Over the years, philosophers and scientists have suggested that the extent to which a person empathizes with the distress of others influences their willingness to help. To explore this hypothesis experimentally, Kalliopi ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Vexas: towards molecular and phenotypic characterization

VEXAS is characterised by predominantly rheumatic and haematologic systemic involvement, and caused by somatic mutation in UBA1 – a gene encoding ubiquitin-activating enzyme 1,1,2 which is necessary for a post-translation modification that affects protein functions ranging from degradation to subcellular localisation and kinase activation.3 The syndrome was first described in 2020, but diagnosis can be challenging as the symptoms overlap with many other inflammatory conditions.1 Hot on the heels of this recent discovery, research is underway to better understand pathogenesis, clinical features, and potential treatment options.1 To support this, ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Location, location, location – does it matter in psoriatic arthritis?

Arthritis affects various joints differently, despite systemic inflammatory cues.2 In people with rheumatoid arthritis, transcriptomic variances identified in synovial fibroblasts from various joint sites have been shown to translate into joint-specific phenotypes with distinct characteristics and responsiveness to cytokines.2,3 These findings suggest that different joints may potentially respond variably to specific immunosuppressive treatments. To expand on this, Ciurea and colleagues set out to investigate whether joints at different anatomical locations in people with PsA might respond differently to treatment with a tumour necrosis ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Stopping the march

The estimated prevalence of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) in people with psoriasis ranges widely –between 6% and 42% – but in most cases, skin symptoms precede PsA, thus making skin psoriasis a model for pre-PsA.2 Assuming that there are shared pathways in the pathogenesis, it is possible that stringent treatment of moderate-to-severe psoriasis could reduce progression to clinically overt PsA.3,4 Biologic treatments are effective at controlling psoriasis, but there are no conclusive data that these treatments help prevent people from developing PsA. Several risk factors for transition have previously been identified by a EULAR taskforce.5 ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Testing the thresholds

However, this recommendation is not always followed in practice. This could be because the ASDAS was developed for research, and it is not known how well it performs in daily practice. Possibly, the cut-off of 2.1 as currently endorsed may be too strict in an everyday setting. To address this, Webers and colleagues set out to investigate which ASDAS cut-off values correspond best with treatment intensification in practice. Data were taken from a prospective multi-centre registry for SpA, and treatment ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Hybrid work is a “win-win-win” for companies, workers

It is one of the most hotly debated topics in today’s workplace: Is allowing employees to log in from home a few days a week good for their productivity, careers, and job satisfaction? Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist and one of the foremost researchers on work-from-home policies, has uncovered compelling evidence that hybrid schedules are a boon to both employees and their bosses. In a study, newly published in the journal Nature, of an experiment on more than 1,600 workers at Trip.com — a Chinese company that is one of the world’s largest online travel agencies — Bloom finds that employees who work from home ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Inherited genetic factors may predict the pattern of X chromosome loss in older women

hat: Researchers have identified inherited genetic variants that may predict the loss of one copy of a woman’s two X chromosomes as she ages, a phenomenon known as mosaic loss of chromosome X, or mLOX. These genetic variants may play a role in promoting abnormal blood cells (that have only a single copy of chromosome X) to multiply, which may lead to several health conditions, including cancer. The study, co-led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, was published ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Study on fruit flies could benefit eggs of older women

A Dartmouth study conducted on fruit flies reports the first evidence in any organism that oocytes—the cells that become eggs—regularly rejuvenate the critical protein linkages that bind chromosomes together. The findings are a potentially important step toward helping women reduce their risk of pregnancy complications as they age, the researchers report in the journal Current Biology. Women are born with the oocytes they will have for life, and the cohesive linkages that connect chromosomes are established in those cells prenatally. When they reach childbearing age, ovulation triggers the ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Redefining "hormonal": The new nonprofit empowering women

Hormonally.org is a digital platform that provides free-to-access, evidence-based resources designed to empower women (and all those affected by hormones) to seek the appropriate care, treatment, and support they deserve. Hormonally’s mission is to make access to information on women’s hormonal health a more equitable experience for all. The new nonprofit organization offers accessible information and a safe place to discuss and discover everything from the first period to post-menopause. Hormonally ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Cocaine trafficking threatens critical bird habitats

ITHACA, N.Y. – In addition to its human consequences, cocaine trafficking harms the environment and threatens habitats important to dozens of species of migratory birds, according to a new study. Two-thirds of the areas that are most important to forest birds – including 67 species of migratory birds that breed in the U.S. and Canada and overwinter in Central America – are at increased risk from cocaine trafficking activities, according to the study, “Intersection of Narco-Trafficking, Enforcement and Bird Conservation ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

Does inflammation in mid-life affect late-life mobility?

In a recent study published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, having high inflammation in mid-life was associated with a clinically meaningful slower gait speed—an indicator of mobility—20 years later. In the study, which included 4,758 community-dwelling adults, the link between high inflammation and slower late-life gait speed was especially strong for people with sustained high inflammation over the 20-plus years of follow-up. The association was evident even among the healthiest adults who never experienced other common conditions such as obesity, hypertension, ...

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Science12 Jun 2024

New study suggests kidney function is associated with tooth loss in postmenopausal women

CLEVELAND, Ohio (June 12, 2024)—Kidneys play a critical role in overall health by removing waste products from the blood. When they fail to sufficiently filter out foreign elements, several serious, lifethreatening, medical conditions can result. A new study suggests that chronic kidney disease may also be linked with tooth loss. Results of the survey are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The Menopause Society. A woman’s glomerular filtration rate shows how well her kidneys are functioning. ...

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