The study, a collaboration between researchers at Imperial College London and GNS Science, suggests that reducing plastic pollution by 5% per year would stabilize the level of microplastics – plastics less than 5 mm in length – in the surface oceans. However, the modelling shows that even reducing pollution by 20% per year would not significantly reduce existing microplastics levels, meaning they will persist in our oceans beyond 2100. Microplastics have been found to be circulating in all of the Earth’s oceans and some of the greatest concentrations of them are thousands of miles from land. These tiny particles ...

The DRIVE-RM consortium, led by Professor of Experimental Nephrology Marianne Verhaar from UMC Utrecht, has been awarded €37.5 million under the prestigious NWO SUMMIT program. The SUMMIT grant recognizes world-class collaborations, while further strengthening these partnerships. The DRIVE-RM collaboration involves UMC Utrecht, Utrecht University, Eindhoven University of Technology, Maastricht University, and the Hubrecht Institute, focusing on smart materials that assist the body in healing. Regenerative medicine involves repairing or replacing damaged tissues and organs by leveraging the body's own healing processes. DRIVE-RM ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (MAY 23, 2024) – The treatment landscape for multiple myeloma, the second most common blood cancer, is shifting rapidly, with newly diagnosed patients increasingly being treated with a four-part drug combination that includes a new immunotherapy agent. Over the last decade, options have evolved from double, to triple to quadruple combination therapies. What do these new options mean for patients, and how will treatment change in the future? C. Ola Landgren, M.D., Ph.D., will ...

JST has selected winners for the third Marie Sklodowska Curie Award for young female researchers. For the third Marie Sklodowska Curie Award, we accepted applications from October 2 to December 11, 2023. Through document screenings and interviews with external experts, we have selected one Grand Prize winner and two Inspiration Prize winners. JEOL Ltd. will award 1M yen for the Grand Prize and 500K yen for each Inspiration Prize. JST recognizes the importance of initiatives designed to promote the activities of female researchers in science, technology, and innovation, and based on this belief we established the “Marie ...

Life-changing events like the birth of a child, the purchase of a new home, or a lottery win could threaten the survival of a new business venture, research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) has found. A recent study led by ECU’s Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Pi-Shen Seet with Associate Professor Wee-Liang Tan from the Singapore Management University found that positive family events had a comparatively greater influence, albeit negatively, on the survival of a new venture, compared with negative events. “A positive family event, like the birth of a child, often has an emotional spin-on effect for an entrepreneur ...

Robert Wagner, associate laboratory director for the Energy Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been selected to receive the George Westinghouse Gold Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or ASME. The award recognizes his work to advance state-of-the-art clean power generation systems through research on combustion, fuel technologies and controls.  Wagner will be presented the award in October during ASME’s ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (MAY 23, 2024) – A new treatment approach using an older drug may enable more patients with high-risk blood cancers to receive transplanted stem cells from unrelated, partially matched donors, according to a study conducted by researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and colleagues. Results to be presented at the annual meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the European Hematology Association suggest the new approach may expand the donor pool, with patients from underrepresented racial and ethnic ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (May 23, 2024) – Coral Olazagasti expected a relatively smooth transition when she moved to New York to start her residency after graduating from medical school in her native Puerto Rico. But that proved wishful thinking. She not only experienced major culture shock, but also her superiors and colleagues often chastised her for speaking too loudly and joked about her accent. “Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory so when I moved to New York, I thought it wasn’t going to be a big change,” said Olazagasti, ...

The 2024 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) will take place in Chicago and online May 31-June 4.   Below are highlights of Fred Hutch Cancer Center research to be presented at the conference and experts available to comment on news. You can follow Fred Hutch on social media for additional updates and check out Fred Hutch booth #14018 in the exhibit hall.  For interview requests with Fred Hutch experts, please contact media@fredhutch.org.      Prostate cancer  Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States and, according to the National Cancer Institute, ...

Scientists have known for years that a lattice of blood vessels nourishes cells in the retina that allow us to see – but it’s been a mystery how the intricate structure is created. Now, researchers at UC San Francisco have found a new type of neuron that guides its formation. The discovery, described in the May 23, 2024, issue of Cell, could one day lead to new therapies for diseases that are related to impaired blood flow in the eyes and brain. “This is the first time anyone has seen retinal neurons using direct contact with blood vessels as a way of guiding them to form these precise 3-D lattices,” said ...

The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) Women in Plant Biology Committee recently named 25 Inspiring Women in Plant Biology to celebrate their achievements and inspire future generations of female plant biologists. This committee, dedicated to addressing particular concerns to women scientists and promoting the inclusion of female plant biologists throughout the Society and profession, created this list with input and nominations from the community.  “This initiative was inspired by two things: First, our desire to improve recognition of inspiring women scientists. We have had ...

Speaking at the World Health Assembly, authors of a new Lancet Series call for urgent global action on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and ensuring sustainable access to antibiotics through:   Intensifying efforts to promote vaccination, access to safe water and sanitation, and hospital infection control, thereby reducing infections and the use of antibiotics, which protects their long-term effectiveness.  Expanding access to existing and new antibiotics, which could save many lives lost to bacterial infections.  Increasing investment in new antibiotics, vaccines and diagnostics that are designed to be affordable and ...

Inadequate access to simple elective surgery in developing countries is storing up future health problems for patients and may create a spiral of future health complications putting more people’s lives at risk, a new study reveals. Analysing the experience of more than 18,000 patients in 640 hospitals across 83 countries, researchers, experts used hernia repair to represent elective health care, concluding that such treatments are essential to prevent over-reliance on emergency systems. The study reveals ...

The newly released Cass Review on transgender care for young people has been pivotal in the UK, where the prescription of puberty “blocking” drugs outside of research protocols has now ceased. But in the United States, where the treatment-intensive, “gender affirming” model of care is the norm, the impact of Cass’s four-year investigation and final report has been largely ignored, finds journalist Jennifer Block in The BMJ today. The review concluded that the evidence on use of puberty blockers and hormones for children and teens experiencing gender ...

Artificial intelligence software has been developed to rapidly analyze animal behavior so that behaviors can be more precisely linked to the activity of individual brain circuits and neurons, researchers in Seattle report. The program promises not only to speed research into the neurobiology of behavior, but also to enable comparison and reconcile results that disagree due to differences in how individual laboratories observe, analyze and classify behaviors, said Sam Golden, assistant professor of biological structure at the University of Washington School of Medicine.  “The approach allows labs to develop behavioral procedures however they want and makes it possible ...

Barrow Neurological Institute has opened a new cutting-edge research center that is expected to revolutionize neurological research and expand Phoenix’s research footprint into the areas of environmental neurology and health equity.  The Barrow Neuro Analytics Center, located at the Park Central property in the Phoenix Medical Quarter, comprises a 10,099 square-foot dry laboratory housing 10 principal research investigators and their dedicated teams. These experts delve into critical areas such as environmental epidemiology, advanced neuroimaging, global health, neurological drug development, health ...

Integration of pharmacies with physician practices, where on-site pharmacies open at physician practice locations, is a growing trend in cancer treatment. However, little is known about how this integration affects drug utilization or expenditures, along with other aspects of the patient experience. A study published today in JAMA Network Open compared the outcomes of patients treated by oncologists whose practices integrated with pharmacies, to those of oncologists that did not integrate. Researchers found a slight increase in utilization of oral oncology drugs, but no significant change in expenditures on the drugs.  In addition, there were no discernible ...

CHICAGO –  Researchers from Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania will present data on the latest advances in cancer research at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, happening May 31—June 4, 2024 in Chicago and online. Follow @PennMedicine and @PennMDForum for updates. Expert interviews Experts from Penn Medicine are available to comment on a wide range of cancer research and care topics before, during, and after the meeting by video call, phone, or email. To arrange interviews, ...

A groundbreaking study led by UCLA Health has unveiled the most detailed view of the complex biological mechanisms underlying autism, showing the first link between genetic risk of the disorder to observed cellular and genetic activity across different layers of the brain.   The study is part of the second package of studies from the National Institutes of Health consortium, PsychENCODE. Launched in 2015, the initiative, chaired by UCLA neurogeneticist Dr. Daniel Geschwind, is working to create maps of gene regulation across different regions of the brain and different stages of brain development. The consortium aims to bridge the gap between studies ...

DALLAS, May 23, 2024 —According to American Heart Association data, 9 out of every 10 people who experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital die. This is in part because they do not receive immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) more than half of the time. CPR, especially if performed immediately, can double or triple a person’s chance of survival. The American Heart Association and the Buffalo Bills want more people to be confident and capable when faced with a cardiac emergency. Through the HeartBEAT ...

Images Closing in on the theoretical maximum efficiency, devices for turning heat into electricity are edging closer to being practical for use on the grid, according to University of Michigan research.    Heat batteries could store intermittent renewable energy during peak production hours, relying on a thermal version of solar cells to convert it into electricity later.    "As we include higher fractions of renewables on the grid to reach decarbonization goals, we need lower costs and longer durations of ...

Researchers analyzing data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed three galaxies that may be actively forming when the universe was only 400 to 600 million years old. Webb’s data shows these galaxies are surrounded by gas that the researchers suspect to be almost purely hydrogen and helium, the earliest elements to exist in the cosmos. Webb’s instruments are so sensitive that they were able to detect an unusual amount of dense gas surrounding these galaxies. This gas will likely end up fueling the formation of new stars in the galaxies. “These ...

“The massive use of antibiotics and antimicrobials in people and animals has led to these substances appearing in unexpected environmental samples,” said Irantzu Vergara, researcher in the UPV/EHU’s IBeA group. Drugs that do not end up fully metabolised in the body reach the environment through various routes (such as manure, sewage sludge used as fertilisers, etc.), are leached into the soil and may end up transferring to crops or earthworms, which are at the base of the food chain. “Although ...

Collagen, a major component of the extracellular matrix, plays a crucial role in tumor development. During the development of tumors (“tumorigenesis”), collagen fibers become linearized and densely deposited, hindering immune cell infiltration and promoting tumor metastasis. However, quantifying these collagen changes during melanoma progression has been challenging. In-vivo imaging of collagen As reported in Biophotonics Discovery, researchers from the Morgridge Institute for Research and University of Wisconsin – Madison recently addressed this challenge by using quantitative imaging to visualize collagen ...

Noise-canceling headphones have gotten very good at creating an auditory blank slate. But allowing certain sounds from a wearer’s environment through the erasure still challenges researchers. The latest edition of Apple’s AirPods Pro, for instance, automatically adjusts sound levels for wearers — sensing when they’re in conversation, for instance — but the user has little control over whom to listen to or when this happens. A University of Washington team has developed an artificial intelligence system that lets a ...