(MIAMI, FL, FEB. 21, 2023) – To create the most effective, personalized treatment plans for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma or other cancers, scientists and clinicians need the clearest picture of the genetic changes leading to the cancer’s development. That picture, say scientists at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center in the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, comes into much better focus when whole genome sequencing – rather than the current standard, exome sequencing – is used to identify changes driving the cancer. Exome sequencing, which reads only protein-coding genes, can detect some specific mutations and other variants that propel cancers, ...

Written by Kay Ledbetter, 806-547-0002,  skledbetter@ag.tamu.edu Imagine your favorite cured meat like beef jerky, pepperoni or bacon without any added sodium nitrite from any source currently necessary for color and shelf life. Wes Osburn, Ph.D., is doing exactly that.   At center, Wes Osburn, Ph.D., Texas A&M University meat scientist, is working in his lab with students Tanner Wright and Arlie Reeves on a new no nitrite-added cured meat system. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo ...

Eurasian spruce bark beetles (Ips typographus) burrow into the bark of Norway spruce (Picea abies) trees where they mate and lay their eggs. Major outbreaks in Europe have decimated millions of hectares of conifer forests. The beetles preferentially attack trees that are already infected with symbiotic fungi (such as Grosmannia penicillata), which is thought to weaken host trees and break down their chemical defenses, allowing the beetles to successfully develop in the bark. To investigate the chemical signals ...

The mass outbreaks of bark beetles observed in recent years have caused shocking amounts of forest damage throughout Germany. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office in July 2022, more than 80% of the trees that had to be felled in the previous year were damaged by insects. The damaged timber felled due to insect damage amounted to more than 40 million cubic meters. One of the main pests is the European spruce beetle Ips typographus. In the Thuringian Forest and the Harz Mountains, for example, the beetle, which is only a few millimeters long, encountered spruce monocultures that had already been weakened by high temperatures and extended ...

Takeaki Ozawa and his team from the University of Tokyo reveal the metabolic reactions upon activating an enzyme called Akt2. In doing so, they reveal the inner workings of insulin-regulated metabolism. The findings lead the way for Akt2-targeting therapeutics for diabetes and metabolic disorders.  It takes energy to do anything—even to exist. You can metabolize food to convert glucose into energy: thanks to many cascades of molecular reactions within your cells. As soon as you eat, your pancreas secretes insulin hormone, which starts ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—February 21, 2023—Of all the known genetic risk factors for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, the strongest is a gene for the protein called ApoE4. People with one copy of this gene are 3.5 times more likely, on average, to develop Alzheimer’s than others, and those with two copies face a 12-fold increased risk. However, exactly how ApoE4 boosts the risk of Alzheimer’s remains unclear. Multiple types of cells in the brain make ApoE4—some of it is produced by neurons, but other brain cells called glia make it in higher quantities. For that reason, most prior research on this protein has focused on ...

University Professor Douglas Rhoads has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. As one of only 20 fellows representing the Section on Agriculture, Food & Renewable Resources, Rhoads was chosen by his peers and colleagues for advancing science and its applications in service to society. The organization elected a total of 505 fellows across 24 scientific sections. Rhoads is director of the Interdisciplinary ...

Researchers from Oregon Health & Science University and institutions across the country have identified a pill used to treat a common skin disease as an “incredibly promising” treatment for alcohol use disorder. The study was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. On average, the people who received the medication, called apremilast, reduced their alcohol intake by more than half — from five drinks per day to two. “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said co-senior author Angela Ozburn, Ph.D., associate professor of behavioral neuroscience in the OHSU School of Medicine and a research biologist ...

The University of Ottawa's Dr. Mamta Gautam is the first awardee of the AFMC Wellness Award, a new national honour that recognizes an individual in Canada who has shown dedication to the promotion and advancement of the wellness of physicians, medical students, and others. “I am truly humbled and honoured. Promoting physician wellbeing is an area that I have been passionate about for over 30 years. To have the AFMC create an award to recognize contributions in this area lends further credibility to the importance of this topic,” ...

A solar radio burst with a signal pattern, akin to that of a heartbeat, has been pinpointed in the Sun’s atmosphere, according to a new study. In findings published in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of researchers has reported uncovering the source location of a radio signal coming from within a C-class solar flare more than 5,000 kilometers above the Sun’s surface. Researchers say the study’s findings could help scientists better understand the physical processes behind the energy release of solar flares — the solar system’s most powerful explosions. “The ...

Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (The U) is pleased to congratulate three of our newest endowed chairs. A chair appointment recognizes excellence, while providing academic distinction and funding for future research. Alana Welm, PhD, received a five-year extension in her current role as Ralph E. and Willia T. Main Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research, Aik Choon Tan, PhD, was named the Jon and Karen Huntsman Presidential Professor in Cancer Research, and Brad Cairns, PhD, was named ...

Today, there are many emerging applications for small satellite constellations, ranging from space-borne networks to environmental monitoring. However, small satellites have special needs when it comes to transmitter (TX) technology. For one, they have stringent limitations on power consumption as they draw energy from solar panels and cannot easily dissipate generated heat. Moreover, small satellites need to communicate with fast-moving targets that can be over a thousand kilometers away. Thus, they require efficient and precise beam steering capabilities to direct most of the transmitted power ...

A database updated in 2022 reported around 4,852 active satellites orbiting the earth. These satellites serve many different purposes in space, from GPS and weather tracking to military reconnaissance and early warning systems. Given the wide array of uses for satellites, especially in low Earth orbit (LEO), researchers are constantly trying to develop better ones. In this regard, small satellites have a lot of potential. They can reduce launch costs and increase the number of satellites in orbit, providing a better network with wider coverage. ...

ATP, the compound essential for the functioning of photosynthetic organisms such as plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, is produced by an enzyme called “chloroplast ATP synthase” (CFoCF1). To control ATP production under varying light conditions, the enzyme uses a redox regulatory mechanism that modifies the ATP synthesis activity in response to changes in the redox state of cysteine (Cys) residues, which exist as dithiols under reducing (light) conditions, but forms a disulfide bond under oxidizing (dark) conditions. ...

Bicycles whirr by, students rush to class, staff and faculty are grabbing lunch or coffee on the go — and sheep graze the grassy knolls among the traffic, bleating every now and then. The grazing is their job. The 25 wooly sheep who seasonally — for the past two years — leave their University of California, Davis, barns to nibble on lawns at various central campus locations, are doing much more than mowing, fertilizing and improving the ecosystem. The sheep also are improving people’s mental health. The sheep — four breeds of Suffolk, Hampshire, Southdown and Dorset — first took on this role in 2021, when COVID-19 ...

UCLA Health Tip Sheet Feb. 21, 2023 Below is a brief roundup of news and story ideas from the experts at UCLA Health. For more information on these stories or for help on other stories, please contact us at uclahealthnews@mednet.ucla.edu. Body composition, not BMI, may signal risk for cardiovascular disease  Body mass index has long been a measure of a person’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease, but body composition and its role in the disease have not been well studied. In a new study, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Current state-of-the-art instrumentation being sent to Mars to collect and analyze evidence of life might not be sensitive enough to make accurate assessments, according to a research team co-led by a Cornell University astronomer. In a paper published in Nature Communications, visiting planetary scientist Alberto Fairén, and an international team of researchers, claim that ancient organic material in Martian rocks could be difficult, if not impossible, to detect with current instruments and techniques. Fairén – also a research professor at the Center ...

Different cell types—say, heart, liver, blood, and sperm cells—possess characteristics that help them carry out their unique jobs in the body. In general, those characteristics are hard-wired. Without intervention, a heart cell won’t spontaneously transform into a liver cell. Yet researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, working with collaborators from the University of Texas at San Antonio and Texas Biomedical Research Institute, have prompted marmoset blood cells to acquire the flexibility of stem cells. Then they directed those stem cells to take on the characteristics of sperm ...

When Prof. Markus Scholz, who teaches archaeology and the history of Roman provinces at Goethe University, returned to Bad Ems toward the end of the excavation work, he was astonished: After all, all the photos sent by his colleague Frederic Auth showed but a few pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, Scholz was ill-prepared for what he saw next: a wooden defense construction consisting of sharpened wooden stakes, designed to prevent the enemy’s approach. The martial-looking structure was intended to deter enemies from attacking the camp. Such installations – ...

Elevated levels of air pollutants are associated with bone damage among postmenopausal women, according to new research led by scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The effects were most evident on the lumbar spine, with nitrous oxides twice as damaging to the area than seen with normal aging. The research findings appear in the peer-reviewed journal eClinicalMedicine, part of The Lancet Discovery Science suite of open-access journals. Previous studies on ...

February 21, 2022 – For men undergoing surgery to repair scarring in the urethra (urethroplasty), a new approach to pain management can reduce the need for strong opioid drugs without compromising pain control, reports a study in Urology Practice®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Over-prescribing of opioids for postoperative pain control has been a major contributor to the opioid epidemic,” comments senior author ...

CEE researchers will help the Department of Defense develop better systems to evaluate the structural health of rail lines and modernize pavement design and evaluation procedures in a new project funded by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) and led by Applied Research Associates Inc. Within CEE, Professor Erol Tutumluer and Research Associate Professor J. Riley Edwards (MS 06, PhD 19) are leading the work for this multi-year research project called Advancing Power Projection through Lines of Communication (APPLoC). In the first year, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering will receive $2.1 million in grant funding. As a whole, the ...

Living organisms have a knack for persisting in the face of challenges. For instance, when genes malfunction, organisms may be able to compensate by activating redundant genes with similar functions, called paralogs. One example of such compensation are two genes of the muscleblind-like (MBNL) family of RNA-binding proteins that lose their function in Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1, the most common cause of adult-onset muscular dystrophy. Loss of MBNL1 increases the levels of its paralog MBNL2 in tissues where protein expression is low, allowing MBNL2 to functionally compensate for MBNL1 loss. In animal models, loss of one paralog results in ...

Thanhvu Nguyen, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, is set to receive funding for the project: "CAREER: NeuralSAT: A Constraint-Solving Framework for Verifying Deep Neural Networks."  Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have emerged as an effective approach to tackling real-world problems. However, just like traditional software, DNNs can have bugs and be attacked. This naturally raises the question of how DNNs should be tested, validated, and ultimately verified to meet the ...

Parth Pathak, Associate Professor, Computer Science, and Robert Simon, Professor, Computer Science, received funding for the project: "Airborne and Vehicular Millimeter-wave Wireless Networking."  Pathak and Simon are developing a state-of-the-art unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) mmWave wireless networking and computing software/hardware platform at George Mason University. The platform will consist of battery-powered and gas-electric hybrid hexacopters, vehicular nodes, and ground robots that will be augmented with mmWave ...