Irvine, Calif., May 28, 2024 — A multidisciplinary research team at the University of California, Irvine has revealed that the circadian clock – the biological pacemaker that governs daily rhythms in physiological processes, including immune functions – can be leveraged to enhance the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy. Checkpoint inhibitors block different proteins from binding to tumor cells, allowing the immune system’s T cells to kill the tumor.   The study, published online ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – May 27, 2024) As gene sequencing technologies become more powerful, our understanding of cellular diversity has grown in parallel. This led scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to create a tool to improve the ease and accuracy with which investigators can study specific subpopulations of cells. The tool, named Conditional Viral Expression by Ribozyme Guided Degradation (ConVERGD), allows researchers to specifically access these subgroups of cells and precisely manipulate ...

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have updated their guidelines on when to neuter 40 popular dog varieties by breed and sex. Their recent paper in Frontiers in Veterinary Science adds five breeds to a line of research that began in 2013 with a study that suggested that early neutering of golden retrievers puts them at increased risk of joint diseases and certain cancers. That initial study set off a flurry of debate about the best age to neuter other popular breeds. Professors Lynette and Benjamin Hart of the School of Veterinary Medicine, the study’s lead authors, set out to add more breed studies by examining more than a decade ...

Music and speech are among the most frequent types of sounds we hear. But how do we identify what we think are differences between the two?  An international team of researchers mapped out this process through a series of experiments—yielding insights that offer a potential means to optimize therapeutic programs that use music to regain the ability to speak in addressing aphasia. This language disorder  afflicts more than 1 in 300 Americans each year, including Wendy Williams and Bruce Willis. “Although music and speech are different in many ways, ranging from pitch to timbre to sound texture, ...

An inexpensive, accurate test that detects infections with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii can provide results within 30 minutes from a finger-prick in a doctor’s office or within an hour from a small blood sample tested in a local medical laboratory. The new test can also identify false positives in other types of commercial diagnostic tests for toxoplasmosis, providing swift reassurance to uninfected pregnant women and their doctors and facilitating timely interventions to protect a fetus against toxoplasmosis in acutely infected pregnant mothers. These findings appear in a study, led by toxoplasmosis specialist Rima McLeod, MD, ...

Within the family of cell membrane lipids known as phosphoinositides and the kinase enzymes that regulate them, phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3Ks) have been cast in a starring role as scientists study their involvement in cancer, diabetes and many cellular activities. The presence of PI3Ks in the scientific limelight has overshadowed other members of this lipid enzyme family, including phosphatidylinositol-5-phosphate 4-kinases (PI5P4Ks). Brooke Emerling, Ph.D., co-director of, and associate professor in, the Cancer Metabolism and Microenvironment Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys, is contributing to a revival of interest in this underappreciated set of enzymes. Emerling and team have ...

Health care workers have reported spikes in feeling burnt out in the time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, with nearly half saying it took a toll in 2022 compared to 32 percent in 2018. But a new study shows that easy-to-use and accessible platforms may help reverse this trend. Regular, automated text message reminders connecting staff to a mental health platform called “Cobalt,” drove significant improvements in both depression and anxiety scores among employees, according to a new JAMA Network Open study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “What we found shows ...

A team of cancer researchers, led by the University of Houston, has discovered a new subset of T cells that may improve the outcome for patients treated with T-cell therapies.   T cell-based immunotherapy has tremendous value to fight, and often eliminate, cancer. The strategy activates a patient’s immune system and engineers a patient’s own T cells to recognize, attack and kill cancer cells. In this way, the body’s own T cells become living drugs.   While T-cell immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment, there is still much to learn. Unfortunately, not all patients ...

Offshore wind could have prevented the Fukushima disaster, according to a review of wind energy led by the University of Surrey.   The researchers found that offshore turbines could have averted the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan by keeping the cooling systems running and avoiding meltdown. The team also found that wind farms are not as vulnerable to earthquakes.  Suby Bhattacharya, Professor of Geomechanics at the University of Surrey’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said:  “Wind power gives us plentiful clean energy – now we know that it could also make other facilities safer and more reliable. The global review finds ...

May 28, 2024 Contact: Jim Erickson, 734-647-1842, ericksn@umich.edu   Graphic Improved refrigeration could save nearly half of the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted each year globally ANN ARBOR—About a third of the food produced globally each year goes to waste, while approximately 800 million people suffer from hunger, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. A new University of Michigan study concludes that nearly half of the food waste, about 620 million metric tons, could be eliminated by fully refrigerated food supply chains worldwide. At the same time, ...

A new paper in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences from researchers at generative artificial intelligence (AI)- and robotics-powered clinical stage drug discovery company Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”) and ETH Zurich reveals the broad potential of TNIK as a therapeutic target for some of the most pervasive aging-related diseases, including fibrosis, cancer, obesity, and Alzheimer’s. The findings could guide the development of new therapeutics. The lead drug in Insilico’s pipeline, INS018_055, is an AI-designed TNIK inhibitor being advanced as a treatment ...

Researchers have discovered that bank voles in southern Sweden (Skåne) carry a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever in humans. This finding was made more than 500 km south of the previously known range. The virus strain discovered in Skåne appears to be more closely related to strains from Finland and Karelia than to the variants found in northern Sweden and Denmark. This is revealed in a new study from Uppsala University, conducted in collaboration with infectious diseases doctors in Kristianstad and published ...

A baby’s exposure to air pollution while in the womb is associated with the development of certain mental health problems once the infant reaches adolescence, new research has found. The University of Bristol-led study, published in JAMA Network Open today [28 May], examined the long-term mental health impact of early-life exposure to air and noise pollution. Growing evidence suggests air pollution, which comprises toxic gases and particulate matter, might contribute to the onset of mental health problems. It is thought that pollution could negatively affect mental health via numerous ...

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine propose a novel approach to addressing the pressing issue of a kidney donor shortage through findings that suggest a promising method to expand the pool of available kidney donors by utilizing deceased donors on dialysis for kidney transplants.   The findings, published in the May 23rd issue of JAMA, identifies that while those who received such kidneys experienced a “significant delay” in the function of the transplanted organ compared to those ...

– By Rachel Berkowitz Ammonia is the starting point for the fertilizers that have secured the world’s food supply for the last century. It’s also a main component of cleaning products, and is even considered as a future carbon-free replacement for fossil fuels in vehicles. But synthesizing ammonia from molecular nitrogen is an energy-intensive industrial process, due to the high temperatures and pressures at which the standard reaction proceeds. Scientists from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley ...

The African turquoise killifish lives in ephemeral ponds in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. To survive the annual dry season, the fish’s embryos enter a state of extreme suspended animation or “diapause” for approximately 8 months. Now, researchers have uncovered the mechanisms that enabled the killifish to evolve this extreme survival state. They report May 30 in the journal Cell that although killifish evolved diapause less than 18 million years ago, they did so by co-opting ancient genes ...

WASHINGTON, May 28, 2024 —When plants draw water from their roots to nourish their stems and leaves, they produce an electric potential that could be harnessed as a renewable energy source. However, like all living things, plants are subject to a circadian rhythm — the biological clock that runs through day and night cycles and influences biological processes. In plants, this daily cycle includes capturing light energy for photosynthesis and absorbing water and nutrients from the soil during the day and slowing its growth processes at night. In a study published this week in ...

About The Study: In this national cross-sectional study of privately insured U.S. families, inflation-adjusted health care spending increased from 2007 to 2019, largely owing to increasing contributions to premiums. Annual financial medical burden increased significantly, both overall and among low-income and higher-income families. Mean financial medical burden was more than 26% of postsubsistence income for low-income families, compared with approximately 6% for higher-income families. Corresponding ...

About The Study: The findings of this matched cohort study suggest that women with premenstrual disorders are not at increased risk of early death overall. However, the risk was elevated among young women and for death by suicide. This supports the importance of careful follow-up for young patients and highlights the need to develop suicide prevention strategies for all women with premenstrual disorders.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Marion Opatowski, Ph.D., email marion.opatowski@ki.se. To access the embargoed ...

About The Study: The treatment effect of early direct oral anticoagulant initiation did not differ in people with minor, moderate, or major stroke assessed by brain imaging. Early treatment was not associated with a higher rate of adverse events, especially symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage, for any infarct size, including major stroke. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Urs Fischer, M.D., M.Sc., email urs.fischer@insel.ch. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2024.1450) Editor’s ...

About The Study: Early-life air and noise pollution exposure were prospectively associated with three common mental health problems (psychotic experiences, depression, and anxiety) from adolescence to young adulthood in this longitudinal cohort study. There was a degree of specificity in terms of pollutant-timing-outcome associations. Interventions to reduce air and noise pollution exposure (e.g., clean air zones) could potentially improve population mental health. Replication using quasi-experimental designs is now needed to shed further light on the underlying ...

As the planet has warmed, scientists have long been concerned about the potential for harmful greenhouse gasses to seep out of thawing Arctic permafrost. Recent estimates suggest that by 2100 the amount of carbon dioxide and methane released from these perpetually frozen lands could be on par with emissions from large industrial countries. However, new research led by a team of Colorado State University microbiome scientists suggests those estimates might be too low. Microorganisms are responsible for the process that will generate greenhouse gasses from thawing northern peatlands, which contain about ...

Feeding children peanut products regularly from infancy to age 5 years reduced the rate of peanut allergy in adolescence by 71%, even when the children ate or avoided peanut products as desired for many years. These new findings, from a study sponsored and co-funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), provide conclusive evidence that achieving long-term prevention of peanut allergy is possible through early allergen consumption. The results were published today in the journal NEJM Evidence.  “Today’s findings should reinforce parents’ and caregivers’ ...

Tsukuba, Japan—The nucleus accumbens plays a pivotal role in motivational behavior and sleep regulation, modulated by adenosine A2A receptors (A2AR). Hence, selective A2AR regulation within this brain region could control sleep and motivation. However, A2ARs are distributed across various organs, including the heart, posing challenges for precise brain-specific modulation without genetic interventions. A research team led by Professor Michael Lazarus and Associate Professor Tsuyoshi Saitoh (TRiSTAR Fellow) from the Institute of Medicine and the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine (WPI-IIIS) at the University ...

SAN ANTONIO — May 28, 2024 —Southwest Research Institute has created a comprehensive data analysis tool to help metropolitan areas curb urban heat islands (UHIs) and pursue mitigation methods for especially vulnerable populations. This internally funded project was a collaboration with the City of San Antonio. UHIs occur when dense concentrations of pavement and buildings absorb heat and raise surrounding temperatures. Without green spaces to provide a cooling effect, UHI temperatures can exceed other areas by as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which could be dangerous to residents during summer. “Tackling UHIs goes ...