Birmingham researchers have shown PEPITEM, a naturally occurring peptide (small protein) holds promise as a new therapeutic for osteoporosis and other disorders that feature bone loss, with distinct advantages over existing drugs. PEPITEM (Peptide Inhibitor of Trans-Endothelial Migration) was first identified in 2015 by University of Birmingham researchers.  The latest research, published today in Cell Reports Medicine, show for the first time that PEPITEM could be used as a novel and early clinical intervention to reverse the impact of age-related musculoskeletal diseases, with ...

About The Study: This cohort study of Japanese older adults identified that upward and downward socioeconomic status transitions were associated with risk of dementia and the length of dementia-free periods over the lifespan. The results may be useful to understand the association between social mobility and healthy longevity.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Hiroyasu Iso, Ph.D., email iso@pbhel.med.osaka-u.ac.jp. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.12303) Editor’s Note: Please see ...

Osaka, Japan – Upward social mobility may ward off dementia, according to a new study. Dementia, a collective term for conditions marked by memory loss and diminished cognitive functioning, strains healthcare systems and devastates quality of life for patients and their families. Research thus far has found correlations between socioeconomic status (SES) – Parent’s asset, education level, income, and work status – and susceptibility to dementia, and SES changes throughout a person’s life, known as social mobility, seem to influence this risk; however, scientific ...

Scientists discover ‘zoned development’ in dinosaur skin, with zones of reptile-style scales and zones of bird-like skin with feathers New dinosaur skin fossil found to be composed of silica – the same as glass Discovery sheds light on evolution from scales to feathers Palaeontologists at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland have discovered that some feathered dinosaurs had scaly skin like reptiles today, thus shedding new light on the evolutionary transition from scales to feathers. The researchers studied a new specimen of the feathered dinosaur Psittacosaurus from the early Cretaceous ...

Surgical teams at NYU Langone Health performed the world’s first genetically modified pig kidney transplants into a human body in September and November 2021, and then transplanted two pig hearts in the summer of 2022. These procedures were done in patients declared dead based on neurologic criteria (decedents) and maintained on ventilators with the consent of their families. Demonstrating the field’s progress, NYU Langone in April 2024 transplanted a pig kidney into a living patient. Now two new analyses, one published online on May 17 in Nature Medicine and the other May ...

SRI’s Targeted Antigen Loaded Liposomes (TALL) — a treatment that expands the benefits of immunotherapy such as check-point inhibitors — has been granted Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA). As a result, SRI’s future strategic partners can gain tax credits for qualified clinical trials and potentially receive market exclusivity for a period of seven years after the drug’s approval, among other benefits. “FDA's orphan drug designation brings worthy attention to the demonstrated impact of SRI's TALL biotherapeutic for pancreatic cancer,” said Kathlynn Brown, ...

The human genome consists of around 3 billion base pairs and humans are all 99.6% identical in their genetic makeup. That small 0.4% accounts for any difference between one person and another. Specific combinations of mutations in those base pairs hold important clues about the causes of complex health issues, including heart disease and neurodegenerative diseases like schizophrenia. Current methods to model or correct mutations in live cells are inefficient, especially when multiplexing — installing multiple point mutations simultaneously across the genome. Researchers from the University of California San Diego ...

Cigarette smoke has been studied for years, revealing a multitude of contaminants, including toxic metals. But exactly which of those metals can be traced to secondhand or thirdhand smoke? Solving this problem has been a challenge for the research community because many of the metals found in tobacco smoke could also come from industrial or naturally occurring pollutants contaminating indoor and outdoor air. Now, a recent study by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has identified 28 trace metals in tobacco smoke. The findings reported in the journal ...

TMDU researchers have developed a technique that allows a detailed analysis of periodontitis development over time Tokyo, Japan – Periodontal disease, represented by periodontitis, is the leading cause of tooth loss and affects close to one in five adults worldwide. In most cases, this condition occurs as a result of an inflammatory response to bacterial infection of the tissue around teeth. As the condition worsens, the gums begin to pull away, exposing teeth roots and bone. Notably, the incidence of periodontitis becomes more prevalent with age and with populations worldwide living ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – In a study of nearly 5,000 screening mammograms interpreted by an FDA-approved AI algorithm, patient characteristics such as race and age influenced false positive results. The study’s results were published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). “AI has become a resource for radiologists to improve their efficiency and accuracy in reading screening mammograms while mitigating reader burnout,” said Derek L. Nguyen, M.D., assistant professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. ...

SAN ANTONIO — May 21, 2024 —As a leader in fuels and lubricants research, Southwest Research Institute is home to a world-class tribology laboratory and expert staff that are developing advanced techniques and technology to study wear, friction and lubrication. SwRI tribologists will share their expertise at the 2024 Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE) Annual Meeting May 19-23 in Minneapolis. The STLE Annual Meeting and Exhibition invites members of the lubricant industry ...

Hope for a cure for visceral leishmaniasis, an often fatal infectious disease     A discovery by Simona Stäger’s team could help come up with a treatment to the most serious form of leishmaniasis.   Leishmaniasis is a tropical disease affecting a growing number of people worldwide. Each year, between 700,000 and 1 million new cases are reported. Caused by a protozoan parasite of the genus Leishmania, which is transmitted to humans by the simple bite of a sand fly, leishmaniasis comprises three clinical forms, of which the visceral ...

Generative models like diffusion models are one of the most important recent developments in Machine Learning (ML), with models as Stable Diffusion and Dall.e revolutionizing the field of image generation. These models are able to produce high quality images based on some text description. “Our new model for programming quantum computers does the same but, instead of generating images, it generates quantum circuits based on the text description of the quantum operation to be performed”, explains Gorka Muñoz-Gil from the Department of Theoretical Physics of ...

New MBARI research on a field of pockmarks—large, circular depressions on the seafloor—offshore of Central California has revealed that powerful sediment flows, not methane gas eruptions, maintain these prehistoric formations. A team of researchers from MBARI, the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and Stanford University published their findings today in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface. This work provides important information to guide decision-making about responsible use and management of the seafloor off California, including site assessments for the development of offshore wind farms. The Sur Pockmark Field—an area about the size ...

New York, NY [May 21, 2024]—Generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as GPT-4, can help predict whether an emergency room patient needs to be admitted to the hospital even with only minimal training on a limited number of records, according to investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Details of the research were published in the May 21 online issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA/DOI: 10.1093/jamia/ocae103). In the retrospective study, the researchers analyzed records from seven Mount Sinai Health System hospitals, using both structured data, such as vital signs, ...

Highlights: Periodontitis is linked to tooth loss and other health concerns. Past studies suggest that green tea products can act against P. gingivalis, which causes periodontitis. In a new study, researchers tested matcha extract, made from green tea, against the pathogen. Lab studies suggest matcha inhibits the growth of the bacteria. A clinical trial showed that matcha mouthwash inhibited P. gingivalis populations in saliva. Washington, D.C.—Periodontitis is an inflammatory gum disease driven by bacterial infection and left untreated it can lead to complications including tooth loss. ...

WARSAW, POLAND [May 21, 2024] — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®)—a global nonprofit responsible for leading cancer treatment guidelines—is taking part in two events in Warsaw focused on advancing cancer care and highlighting the Poland-US bilateral achievements in health care from May 21-22, 2024. The meetings will be organized by Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology, the Polish Oncological Society, and the Alliance for Innovation. ...

LOS ANGELES — City of Hope®, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, has been awarded $5.4 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to build and fund a stem cell research laboratory on its Duarte, California, campus that will further expand its scientific capabilities. The mission of the unique Stem Cell-Based Disease Modeling Laboratory is two-fold. First, it will advance stem cell-based disease modeling to spur innovation in regenerative medicine. The laboratory leverages City of Hope’s infrastructure ...

Thousands of top nutrition experts will gather next month for a dynamic program of research announcements, policy discussions and award lectures at NUTRITION 2024, the annual flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition. Reporters and bloggers are invited to apply for a complimentary press pass to attend the meeting in Chicago from June 29–July 2.   Explore the meeting schedule and register for a press pass to attend.   Hot topics to be explored at NUTRITION 2024 include:   Diet and cancer ...

A World Health Organization Essential Medicine, ketamine is widely used at varying doses for sedation, pain control, general anesthesia and as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression. While scientists know its target in brain cells and have observed how it affects brain-wide activity, they haven’t known entirely how the two are connected. A new study by a research team spanning four Boston-area institutions uses computational modeling of previously unappreciated physiological details to fill that gap and offer new insights into how ketamine works. “This modeling work has helped decipher likely mechanisms through which ...

How do migrants choose their destinations? Existing models, known as “gravity models,” use population size and travel distance as explanatory variables—and often fail, especially at the neighborhood scale. Many migrants prefer to move to a location near friends, family, or co-nationals. This pattern might be partly driven by factors that repeat (such as the cost of living) and partly driven by homophily, the tendency to interact with similar others. Early migrants tend to reduce uncertainty and provide information for later arrivals. Building on these observations, Rafael Prieto-Curiel and colleagues construct a migration model based on the power of the diaspora to ...

Extreme heat can harm human health, but so can temperature extreme swings. Large daily temperature variation (DTV) has been associated with elevated mortality in studies around the world. Trees and other vegetation can lower DTV, as trees reduce temperature through transpiration during the day and also trap long-wave radiation in the atmosphere under the canopy at night, increasing temperature. But green space is not equally distributed in most cities. Shengjie Liu and Emily Smith-Greenaway examined inequality in DTV exposure in the US, using monthly nighttime and daytime land surface temperature data from satellites. ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Online video game players believe the behavior known as “smurfing” is generally wrong and toxic to the gaming community – but most admit to doing it and say some reasons make the behavior less blameworthy, new research finds.   The new study suggests that debates about toxicity in gaming may sometimes be more complex and nuanced than is often acknowledged, according to the researchers.   Online video games use what are called “matchmaking systems” to pair players based on skill. “Smurfing” is when players cheat these systems by creating new accounts so that they can play against people lower ...

When cells become tumor cells, their metabolism changes fundamentally. Researchers at the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel have now demonstrated that this change leaves traces that could provide targets for cancer immunotherapies. Cancer cells function in turbo mode: Their metabolism is programmed for rapid proliferation, whereby their genetic material is also constantly copied and translated into proteins. As researchers led by Professor Gennaro De Libero from the University of Basel and the University ...

A group of scientists from Nagoya University in Japan has used a specialized microscopic technique to observe the internal reproduction process of the Arabidopsis plant. Their findings, published in EMBO Reports, reveal the mechanism behind a female flower selectively attracting a single male counterpart. These findings provide insights that may help optimize seed production and improve agricultural breeding practices. Angiosperms, commonly referred to as flowering plants, have male and female reproductive organs. In the process of plant reproduction, when a pollen grain that ...