(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – July 03, 2023) Gene therapy that alters hemoglobin genes may be an answer to curing sickle cell disease (SCD) and beta thalassemia. These two common life-threatening anemias afflict millions of individuals across the globe. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard used a next-generation genome editing technology, adenosine base editing, to restart fetal hemoglobin expression in SCD patient cells. The approach raised the expression of fetal hemoglobin to higher, more stable, and more uniform levels than other genome editing technologies that use ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (EMBARGOED UNTIL JULY 3, 2023 AT NOON ET) – The median length of survival after diagnosis of glioblastoma is 14 months, but some of these brain tumors are more aggressive and resistant to treatment than others, and a new study from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine suggests reactivation of an ancient retrovirus may be at least partly to blame. “Our lab found that an evolutionary dormant retrovirus from 6 million years ago – HML-2, a subtype of HERV-K– contributes to brain tumor formation. We demonstrated for the first time that this virus, when reactivated, ...

Scientists have for the first time observed the early universe running in extreme slow motion, unlocking one of the mysteries of Einstein’s expanding universe. Einstein’s general theory of relativity means that we should observe the distant – and hence ancient – universe running much slower than the present day. However, peering back that far in time has proven elusive. Scientists have now cracked that mystery by using quasars as ‘clocks'. “Looking back to a time when the universe was ...

IHME/Mass General Brigham study finds rates highest for Black population; largest increase seen in American Indian and Alaskan Native populations High rates of maternal mortality found in northern Mountain states and the Midwest in addition to the South, a region traditionally known to have high rates Study is the first such analysis for every state, showing differences in each by racial and ethnic groups A new study by investigators from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of ...

Brigham researchers mapped lesions related to epilepsy to a common brain circuit This study points to a novel role of deep brain circuits in the cause and control of epilepsy New findings highlight the possibility of using this brain circuit to guide brain stimulation treatments for epilepsy Focal epilepsy affects over 30 million patients worldwide and is commonly caused by brain lesions, such as stroke. However, it is unclear why some lesion locations cause epilepsy while others do not. A new study by investigators from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, found ...

About The Study: Food insecurity was associated with slightly faster memory decline among middle to older–age individuals, suggesting possible long-term negative cognitive function outcomes associated with exposure to food insecurity in older age.  Authors: Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri, Ph.D., of Columbia University in New York, 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.2023.21474) Editor’s ...

About The Study: While maternal mortality remains unacceptably high among all racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., American Indian and Alaska Native and Black individuals are at increased risk, particularly in several states where these inequities had not been previously highlighted. Maternal mortality persists as a source of worsening disparities in many U.S. states and prevention efforts during this study period (1999 to 2019) appear to have had a limited impact in addressing this health crisis. Authors: Gregory A. ...

About The Study: Childhood diabetes is an increasing global health challenge with rising incidence. Results of this study suggest that despite the global decline in deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), the number of deaths and DALYs remains high among children with diabetes, especially in low Sociodemographic Index regions. Improved understanding of the epidemiology of diabetes in children may facilitate prevention and control.  Authors: Xiaodong Sun, M.D., Ph.D., and Ningning Hou, M.D., of the Affiliated Hospital of Weifang Medical ...

About The Study: The results of this study suggest that from 1999 to 2020, death rates due to poisonings, firearms, and all other injuries increased substantially in the U.S. The rapid increase in deaths due to unintentional poisonings and firearm homicides is a national emergency that requires urgent public health interventions at the local and national levels.  Authors: Wayne R. Lawrence, Dr.P.H., of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, is the corresponding author. To ...

·    Use of successful medications to break up blood clots rose from 4% to 14% due to new approach Suspected stroke victims now bypass emergency room for CT scanner and nurse stroke experts, who support patient care team Community educators went to beauty and barber shops, churches and water distribution centers to deliver stroke-awareness talks  Approach can be duplicated by other communities to improve treatment   CHICAGO --- The use of thrombolysis, medications to break up blood clots, for acute ischemic stroke reduces post-stroke disability, but it is underutilized. This particularly affects Black individuals, who experience ...

Our body’s fat metabolism plays a vital role in energy production in our body. A research team at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has discovered a molecular switch that regulates lipid metabolism in our cells. This switch controls the storage or conversion of lipids into energy. All organisms need energy to live. We get energy from various components of our food. Our body uses a part of this energy directly and stores the rest. While glucose serves as an immediately available energy source, fats are stored as energy reserve in form of lipid droplets within our cells. When the body needs energy from these fat stores, lipids are transported ...

Artificial intelligence can predict on- and off-target activity of CRISPR tools that target RNA instead of DNA, according to new research published in Nature Biotechnology. The study by researchers at New York University, Columbia Engineering, and the New York Genome Center, combines a deep learning model with CRISPR screens to control the expression of human genes in different ways—such as flicking a light switch to shut them off completely or by using a dimmer knob to partially turn down their activity. These precise gene controls could be used to develop new CRISPR-based therapies.  CRISPR is a gene ...

It’s estimated that around 25% of patients who have a cardiac arrest and receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in a normal hospital setting will survive. Those odds shoot up to 50% for patients who receive CPR during or in the immediate period following surgery, where they are closely monitored by specialists who know their medical history and can intervene without delay. But it’s unclear whether that trend applies to frail patients, who are often older and at a higher risk of experiencing CPR-related trauma and complications. Such uncertainty has led some doctors ...

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have a great impact on biology and medicine, and they are expected to improve regenerative medicine. Since 2014 when a sheet of retinal pigment epithelial cells derived from iPS cells was transplanted into patients with age-related macular degeneration, clinical trials have been conducted with various cell types derived from iPS cells. While iPS cells derived from healthy individuals have been used so far, it is expected that transplantation therapy using iPS cells can be enhanced through genetic modification in the future.   Therefore, we addressed this possibility by utilizing a Fabry disease mouse model, ...

Research Background The era of Big Data features intelligence, ubiquity, and interconnection of all things. It comes with other advanced information technologies, such as the Internet, Cloud Computing (CC), Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) . Human society has also gradually entered the Ternary Space from the Binary Space. That is, from the Social Space (the sum of human behavior and social activities) to the Information Space (the computer, Internet, and data information built on physical space and social space) . The Ternary Space maps and digitally connect the urban physical and social ...

Bluetongue virus, an incurable cattle and sheep-killing disease, is spread by tiny flies once thought to disappear in winter. New research demonstrates that though they are harder to find when it’s cold, they remain active.  Bluetongue virus is common in cattle throughout most of the United States, particularly in the southwestern U.S. with nearly 20% of some California cattle herds infected. Due to concerns about spread of this virus, exports of U.S. cattle and cattle products to parts of Europe and Asia have been restricted to prevent contamination.   However, not all infected animals die. The main symptoms are elevated temperatures, lethargy, ...

Prof. Claudia Felser is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Germany, Prof. B. Andrei Bernevig is a Professor of Physics at Princeton University in the United States and Visiting Ikerbasque Professor at Donostia International Physics Center in Spain. The Prize will be presented on Wednesday 6th September 2023, during the Awards Session of the 30th General Conference of the EPS Condensed Matter Division (CMD30), to be held in Milan (joint organization with FisMat in Italy). This prize has been awarded since 1975 (this is the 40th edition) and is one ...

The effort is led by Dr. David Talan, a professor of emergency medicine and infectious diseases in the UCLA Department of Emergency Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.   Summer 2022 saw an outbreak of the disease that infected people in several countries across the globe. That outbreak receded by the following fall after widespread public attention and vaccination of high-risk individuals, prompting the World Health Organization on May 11, 2023 to declare an end to mpox as a global health emergency.   But a recent outbreak among 20 people in Chicago, including some vaccine breakthrough ...

WASHINGTON—The Endocrine Society’s Journal of the Endocrine Society (JES) received its first Impact Factor score in 2022, while the Society’s other journals maintained high rankings on the prestigious measure of scholarly publishing. The 2022 Impact Factors were released June 28 by Journal Citation Reports, an annual publication of Clarivate Analytics. JES, which launched in 2017, is an open access journal providing rapid publication of clinical research, clinical practice information, and basic research in all areas of endocrinology. The publication also ...

Resource managers and conservationists have been offered an innovative, new approach to selecting coral species for reef restoration. An international team of scientists worked together to develop this approach during a workshop organized by the University of Melbourne (U Melbourne) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). In a study published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology, this international team of scientists, led by a University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa researcher, revealed a strategy for choosing a set of key ...

Brain damage caused by oxygen deficiency at birth is one of the main causes of death in newborns worldwide. Using a small animal model, researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and DZNE tested treatment with 25 different active agents. Seven substances proved to be more effective than the standard therapy of artificial cooling: caffeine performed best. The results, published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports, could pave the way for new treatment options for newborns. Children, who experience ...

A new online platform to explore computationally calculated chemical reaction pathways has been released, allowing for in-depth understanding and design of chemical reactions. Advances in computational chemistry have proven a great boon in the field of reaction design, leading to the discovery of new reaction pathways for the synthesis of high-value compounds. Computational chemistry generates much data, and the process of organizing and visualizing this data is vital to be able to utilize it for future research. A team of researchers from Hokkaido University, led by Professor Keisuke Takahashi at the Faculty of Chemistry and Professor Satoshi ...

Recurrent cystitis (RC) is a frequent infection of the urinary tract and bladder, which is highly prevalent among postmenopausal women. Under healthy circumstances, the human vagina is home to a host of beneficial intestinal bacteria, such as Lactobacilli. However, in the case of urinary tract infections (UTIs), there is a decrease in the abundance of Lactobacilli and an increase in pathogenic bacteria, such as Escherichia coli (E. coli). Previous studies have shown that changes in vaginal microbiota are a key underlying reason for the development of UTIs. Further, a few clinical trials have demonstrated the utility of Lactobacillus-containing vaginal ...

Amazon river dolphins are under threat from fishing and proposed new dams and dredging, research shows. Scientists used satellite tags to track eight dolphins in the Peruvian Amazon, to discover where they went in relation to fishing areas and proposed dams and dredging sites. On average, 89% of the dolphins’ home “range” (the area they live in) was used for fishing. Dolphins were found to be an average of 252km from the nearest proposed dam and 125km from the nearest proposed dredging site. While these are significant distances, the dolphins’ ranges ...

A study involving more than 745,000 adolescents from 41 countries across Europe and North America identified an increase in the amount of teenagers who underestimate their body weight.   Tracking data from 2002 to 2018, the peer-reviewed findings, published today in Child and Adolescent Obesity, demonstrate a noticeable decrease in those who overestimate their weight too.   The team of international experts, who carried out the research, warn these shifting trends in body weight perception could reduce the effectiveness of public health interventions aimed at weight reduction in young people.   “During this impressionable age, body weight perception ...