PITTSBURGH – The University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy’s Program Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU) has received a five-year, $7.8 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to improve quality of care for patients with opioid use disorder across Pennsylvania.   The project will establish the Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEALing) Measures Center at Pitt, which will focus on developing and implementing measurement-based care into 20 community opioid treatment programs across Pennsylvania with the goal of enhancing treatment ...

An international team that includes Rutgers University–New Brunswick scientists has developed a new method to make and manipulate a widely studied class of high-temperature superconductors. This technique should pave the way for the creation of unusual forms of superconductivity in previously unattainable materials. When cooled to a critical temperature, superconductors can conduct electricity without resistance or energy loss. These materials have intrigued physicists for decades because they can achieve a state of ...

A new study may hold a secret for getting your teenager to listen to appreciate  your unsolicited advice. The University of California, Riverside, study, which included “emerging adults” — those in their late teens and early 20s — found teens will appreciate parents’ unsolicited advice, but only if the parent is supportive of their teens’ autonomy. Parents support autonomy by providing clear guidelines for limitations and rules that will be enforced. They ...

Burnout is an occupational phenomenon that results from chronic workplace stress, according to the World Health Organization. Burnout often includes emotional exhaustion, negative feelings or mental distance from one’s job, and a low sense of accomplishment at work. COVID-19 increased feelings of burnout in primary care physicians, and a new study, sought to understand primary care clinicians’ perspectives on burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic, the causes of burnout, and strategies to improve clinician well-being.  Inefficiencies of electronic health records systems and high levels of documentation contribute ...

“We conducted a comprehensive investigation into the potential of XRCC1 as a valuable diagnostic and prognostic indicator in diverse cancer types.” BUFFALO, NY- January 30, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 1, entitled, “XRCC1: a potential prognostic and immunological biomarker in LGG based on systematic pan-cancer analysis.” X-ray repair cross-complementation ...

Scientists from Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University succeeded in regenerating fully functional urinary bladder tissue in a long-term study utilizing a non-human primate model. This unique model initially created by the Sharma Research Group explores long term bladder tissue regeneration at both anatomical and physiological levels. The Group used a novel biodegradable scaffold seeded with stem and progenitor cells from the animal’s own bone marrow, which demonstrated a higher degree of success than intestinal segments ...

With the national opioid epidemic disproportionately affecting American Indians and Alaska Natives, a tribal confederation in Oregon decided to take matters into their own hands. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde not only opened Oregon’s first tribally owned opioid treatment program in Salem in 2021, but a year later, the tribe also began what is believed to be the nation’s first tribally operated mobile medication unit. The mobile bus runs a daily circuit from the tribal reservation in Grand Ronde to McMinnville to Salem, seeing patients and dispensing medications directly to tribal members struggling with an opioid use disorder. The program appears ...

The emergence of successive SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern during 2020-22 created a need to understand the drivers of such growth; this study uses a Bayesian model to reveal how a set of key covariates (the infecting variant, symptom status, age and number of prior exposures) affect viral kinetics at both individual and population levels   ##### In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology:   http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002463 Article Title: Combined analyses of ...

Mutations in the Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase 1 gene SOD1 can cause familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS) in a process that involves dissociation of the SOD1 dimer; this study shows that a novel cyclic thiosulfinate cross-linker has favorable drug-like properties and can stabilize the SOD1 dimer in vivo, with therapeutic implications for fALS ##### In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002462 Author ...

Dr. Jeannine Gerhardt, an assistant professor of stem cell biology in obstetrics and gynecology and in reproductive medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, has received a five-year, $2.1 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health, for the study of repetitive DNA and RNA sequences and the mechanisms by which they cause cell dysfunction and diseases. The NIGMS Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award is intended to support recipients’ research more broadly and flexibly than standard project grants, which must specify proposed research thoroughly in advance. “This award is particularly nice because ...

More than half of the world’s population—4.4 billion people—lives in cities, and that proportion will grow to two-thirds by the year 2050, according to the United Nations. As the world’s population expands, and becomes increasingly urbanized, many have raised concerns about the impact of waste—from house trash to wastewater to greenhouse gas emissions—on the planet. “We as a society tend to ignore the unpleasant side of our production,” says Mingzhen Lu, an assistant professor at New York University’s ...

Scientists at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) developed a green antibiotic alternative to treat the deadly pathogen Streptococcus iniae in hybrid striped bass, the fourth most farmed finfish in the United States, according to a recent study.  S. iniae is the causative agent of streptococcosis, a disease prevalent in aquaculture and causes a worldwide economic loss of $150 million annually. Disease outbreaks can bankrupt fish farms and ...

Peer-reviewed - Survey Rebuilding trust in fisheries governance will be vital to create a sustainable industry post-Brexit England, according to new research.  Strong trust between managers and fishers is essential for achieving sustainable fisheries, but new research from the University of East Anglia has found worryingly low levels of trust in fisheries following the UK’s departure from the European Union.  The survey pioneered a methodology assessing different elements influencing trust. It revealed perceived incompetence, indifference to fishers' livelihoods, and inadequate consultation as major drivers of fishers' distrust towards fishery regulators.  Lead ...

PHOENIX — High-grade gliomas are cancerous tumors that spread quickly in the brain or spinal cord. In a new study led by Mayo Clinic, researchers found invasive brain tumor margins of high-grade glioma (HGG) contain biologically distinct genetic and molecular alterations that point to aggressive behavior and disease recurrence. The findings suggest insights into potential treatments that could modify the course of the disease. The study published in Nature Communications, profiled 313 tumor biopsies from 68 HGG patients using genomics (study of genes), ...

Depending on their location, cancer cells within a three-dimensional (3D) tumor structure can have different microenvironments. Cells in the core of the tumor receive less oxygen (hypoxia) and nutrients than those in the periphery. These varying conditions can drive differences in cell growth rates and drug sensitivities, highlighting the need to study 3D tumor models in lab settings. Until recently, conventional methods used to create such tumor spheroids were time-consuming, produced inconsistent results and involved high setup costs. Investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding ...

Ann Arbor, January 30, 2024 – Experiencing a pregnancy from sexual violence is common in the United States, according to research conducted by investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier. Nearly six million women in the United States who were raped, sexually coerced (defined as non-physically forced unwanted penetration), or both became pregnant as a result. This equates to about one in twenty American ...

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) recently inaugurated its new Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences (IQCB) in the presence of Clemens Hoch, the Minister of Science of Rhineland-Palatinate, and Professor Stefan Müller-Stach, JGU's Vice President for Research and Early Career Academics. The IQCB is an interdisciplinary research institute at the interface between the life sciences and neighboring disciplines including mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, and engineering, thus generating new opportunities for research by way of, for example, computer-aided analysis of large amounts of data, computer-based ...

LAWRENCE — Researchers at the University of Kansas hope to better understand intricate mechanisms behind the evolution of galaxies, which travel through a “cosmic web” of different environments during their lifespans. Gregory Rudnick, professor of physics & astronomy at KU, is leading a team that recently earned a $375,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study “gas content and star-formation properties of galaxies” that are altered depending on where they are moving through the cosmos. “The primary objective of this project is to comprehend the impact of environmental factors on the transformation of galaxies,” Rudnick ...

Images   New, nontoxic materials could one day keep solar panels and airplane wings ice-free, or protect first responders from frostbite and more, thanks to a new University of Michigan-led project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.    The research team will study biological molecules used by other living things to survive freezing temperatures. The project officially begins this week and includes researchers from Raytheon Technologies, North Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota.   Existing materials used to accomplish these feats come with serious downsides. For instance, road salts ...

The two most common obesity surgeries – gastric bypass and gastric sleeve – have few short-term complications and are equivalent in that sense. These are the findings of a study conducted at the University of Gothenburg. Every year, around 5,000 obesity surgeries are performed in Sweden. The person undergoing surgery will normally have a BMI of at least 40, or 35 if they also have other serious medical conditions related to obesity. The most common procedures are gastric bypass, where a large part ...

A new study led by researchers at UCLA may change the way clinicians and scientists understand, diagnose and treat placenta accreta spectrum disorder, a serious condition in which the placenta fails to separate from the uterus at birth, jeopardizing the life and health of both mother and baby. Researchers previously believed that certain overly invasive placental cells, called trophoblasts, were responsible for keeping the connection intact. But this new research, which identifies genetic and cellular changes within single cells where the placenta ...

Although the interior of São Paulo state (Brazil) has higher human development indices (HDIs) and fewer Black people as a percentage of the population, they account for a larger proportion of deaths from cancer in the Barretos region than in São Paulo city, the state capital, according to a study supported by FAPESP. An article on the study is published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control. In the 18 cities of the Barretos regional health district (RHD), the number ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Biological systems can behave as siblings in several ways, including by borrowing something and never giving it back. That appears to be what the human immune system did with a protein that now helps bind and regulate the subunits that make up antibodies, according to a multi-institute research collaboration. They found that, before the immune system evolutionarily co-opted it, the protein originally belonged to gene family responsible for directing cells to move to the right location at the right time to address specific functional needs. The researchers, including Kazuhiko Kawasaki, associate research professor of ...

[New York, January 30, 2024] – Sergio E. Baranzini, PhD, a geneticist, neuroimmunologist and data scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, is the winner of this year’s Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research. Dr. Baranzini is being recognized for his pioneering efforts to integrate vast pools of information to understand complex mechanisms that cause MS and to develop more precise approaches to stop the disease and end it by prevention. Baranzini is a Distinguished Professor and holds the Heidrich Friends and Family endowed chair in Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco ...

LA JOLLA (January 30, 2024)—Salk Institute Professor Joanne Chory has been selected by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to receive a Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science for her achievements in plant science. She will receive a 14-karat gold medal and a $10,000 honorarium at the Franklin Institute Awards Ceremony in April 2024. Chory joins other extraordinary scientists and engineers as a Franklin laureate, including Nikola Tesla, Marie and Pierre Curie, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Jane Goodall, among others. “Joanne’s contributions to the field of plant biology have impacted and will continue to impact scientists around the world,” ...