UPTON, NY—Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have produced the first atomic-level structure of an enzyme that selectively cuts carbon-hydrogen bonds—the first and most challenging step in turning simple hydrocarbons into more useful chemicals. As described in a paper just published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the detailed atomic level “blueprint” suggests ways to engineer the enzyme to produce desired products. “We want to create a ...

Why do cancer immunotherapies work so extraordinarily well in a minority of patients, but fail in so many others? By analysing the role of neutrophils, immune cells whose presence usually signals treatment failure, scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), from Harvard Medical School, and from Ludwig Cancer Center have discovered that there is not just one type of neutrophils, but several. Depending on certain markers on their surface, these cells can either promote the growth of tumours, or fight them and ensure the success of a treatment. By boosting the appropriate factors, neutrophils could become great agents of anti-tumour ...

Summary Scientists have come up with a new method to study the mechanical properties of developing embryos with unprecedented speed The new method – line-scanning Brillouin microscopy (LSBM) – relies on a microscopy technique based on Brillouin scattering – a phenomenon where light interacts with naturally occurring thermal vibrations within materials. The method, which can be used to non-invasively study developing embryos in three dimensions and across time, was selected as one of The Guardian's ...

                   Buprenorphine initiation in the ER found safe and effective for individuals with opioid use disorder who use fentanyl With historically high overdose death rates in U.S., multi-site NIH study reinforces importance of continued, uninterrupted access to addiction medication   Results from a multi-site clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health showed that less than 1% of people with opioid use disorder whose drug use includes fentanyl experienced withdrawal when starting buprenorphine in the ...

A new UC San Francisco-led study brings scientists closer to understanding the causes of a mysterious rash of cases of acute severe hepatitis that began appearing in otherwise healthy children after COVID-19 lockdowns eased in the United States and 34 other countries in the spring of 2022. Pediatric hepatitis is rare, and doctors were alarmed when they started seeing outbreaks of severe unexplained hepatitis. There have been about 1,000 cases to date; 50 of these children needed liver transplants and at least 22 have died. In the study, publishing on March 30 in Nature, researchers linked the disease to co-infections from multiple common viruses, in particular a strain of ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Medical School have designed a new type of nanoparticle that can be administered to the lungs, where it can deliver messenger RNA encoding useful proteins. With further development, these particles could offer an inhalable treatment for cystic fibrosis and other diseases of the lung, the researchers say. “This is the first demonstration of highly efficient delivery of RNA to the lungs in mice. We are hopeful that it can be used to treat or repair ...

About The Study: In this study of 690 patients with early-stage breast cancer, racial disparities in response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy were associated with disparities in survival and varied across different breast cancer subtypes. This study highlights the potential benefits of better understanding the biology of primary and residual tumors.  Authors: Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, M.B.B.S., and Dezheng Huo, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Chicago, are the corresponding authors.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.3329) Editor’s ...

About The Study: Declines in smoking prevalence and increases in the age of smoking initiation occurred more slowly for young adults with less formal education, widening existing education disparities between 2002 and 2019. Black young adults had lower smoking prevalence and older age of smoking initiation than white young adults. However, declines in smoking prevalence and increases in the age of smoking initiation occurred more slowly for this group.  Authors: Alyssa F. Harlow, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California ...

HOUSTON ― A novel approach to administer intrathecal (IT) immunotherapy (directly into the spinal fluid) and intravenous (IV) immunotherapy was safe and improved survival in a subset of patients with leptomeningeal disease (LMD) from metastatic melanoma, according to interim analyses of a Phase I/Ib trial led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The study, published today in Nature Medicine, represents the first-in-human trial of concurrent IT and IV nivolumab (anti-PD-1) in melanoma patients ...

White blood cells called neutrophils have an unappreciated role in eradicating solid tumors, according to a surprise discovery from a team led by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists. In the study, published March 30 in Cell, the researchers investigated how a T cell-based immunotherapy was able to destroy melanoma tumors even though many of the tumor cells lacked the markers or “antigens” targeted by the T cells. They found that the T cells, in attacking the tumors, activated a swarm of neutrophils—which in turn killed the tumor cells that the T cells couldn’t ...

INDIANAPOLIS – The pandemic has highlighted the importance of increasing the flow of information on infectious diseases from electronic health records (EHRs) to public health agencies. Less attention has been paid to the value of EHR data for chronic disease surveillance. At the HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) Global Health Conference & Exhibition (HIMSS23), Brian Dixon, PhD, MPA, of Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and Lorna Thorpe, PhD, MPH, of NYU Grossman School of Medicine, will ...

Exploiting dark autoionizing states for enhancing the extreme ultraviolet laser power A research team unravels a new optical phenomenon involving dark autoionizing states, enhancing the power of an extreme-ultraviolet laser. An international research team led by Professors Tsuneyuki Ozaki and François Légaré at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), has developed a unique method to enhance the power of a laser source emitting extreme ultraviolet light pulses. The underlying mechanism of the newly observed phenomenon involves the ...

Hydrogen production powered by wind and solar energy is still too expensive if it is to play a role in the clean transition via energy storage and to help decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors. Much effort in reducing its cost focuses on enhancing production efficiency by improving the performance of iridium-based catalysts that can speed up the oxygen-related part of the electrochemical reaction involved in splitting water into its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen. A new review of the state of the field discusses its recent progress and challenges and identifies research gaps that need to be filled before such ...

(WASHINGTON, March 30, 2023) – Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has transformed cancer treatment, yet relatively few studies have investigated the impact of the therapy on longitudinal patient quality of life – an aspect of care that often suffers from receiving traditional intensive cancer medications, such as chemotherapy. A new study published in Blood Advances demonstrates that some effective cancer treatments do improve quality of life, revealing that patients with blood cancers experienced ...

PHILADELPHIA – The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will award E. John Wherry, PhD, with the 2023 AACR-Cancer Research Institute (CRI) Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology during the AACR Annual Meeting 2023, April 14-19 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Wherry is chair of the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, director of the Institute for Immunology, and founding director of the Immune Health Project in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is being honored for ...

LOS ANGELES — A newly published study paves the way for some patients with testicular cancer to avoid chemotherapy and radiation. Seminoma is a slow-growing form of testicular cancer that if untreated, typically metastasizes (spreads) to lymph nodes in an area behind the abdomen lining called the retroperitoneum. The standard treatment for patients at this stage is chemotherapy and radiation to shrink and kill the cancerous lymph nodes.   While effective, chemotherapy and radiation are associated with long-term side effects, such as cardiovascular disease and secondary cancers, that adversely affect a patient’s quality of life. Now, however, the results of a multi-institutional ...

Bratislava, Slovakia, March 21, 2023 BGI Genomics is pleased to announce the launch of COLOTECTTM 1.0 in Slovakia, in collaboration with its local partner, Zentya. Zentya is a Slovak-based healthcare solution provider that is passionate about providing patients with the latest technology in the field of genetic screening, aiming to help identify and facilitate timely treatments of genetic diseases. COLOTECTTM 1.0 is one of the first-ever fecal DNA tests for colorectal cancer that is available in the country. It is a non-invasive fecal DNA test developed by BGI Genomics for detecting ...

PULLMAN, Wash. — Facebook users were more likely to read fake news about the 2020 U.S. presidential election than users of Twitter and other social media websites, a Washington State University-led analysis found.  The study in Government Information Quarterly indicates that fake news consumption and political alignment were the primary forces driving doubt about the integrity of the vote counting process – and surprisingly not the method used to cast votes. The researchers also found that individuals who got ...

Oak Brook, IL – The March special issue of SLAS Discovery deviates from its traditional focus on assay technology, disease area or molecular target to introduce and explore protocol articles – the newly accepted article type for outlining detailed scientific methods and procedures. The six protocol articles featured in this month’s collection cover a range of topics such as 3D imaging, cancer treatments and methods of high-throughput screening. By publishing protocols, SLAS underscores the importance of transparency and rigor ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Once adults reach age 65, the threshold age for the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, the extent of their genetic risk may outweigh age as a predictor of whether they will develop the fatal brain disorder, a new study suggests. The study, published recently in the journal Scientific Reports, is the first to construct machine learning models with genetic risk scores, non-genetic information and electronic health record data from nearly half a million individuals to rank risk factors in order of how strong their association is with eventual development of ...

Biyu J. He receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for her leadership in the field of cognitive neuroscience, and for her groundbreaking discoveries on the biological bases of perceptual cognition and subjective experience. The Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise is a $50,000 prize awarded annually by the Vilcek Foundation as part of its prizes program. Awarded annually since 2006, the Vilcek Foundation prizes recognize and celebrate immigrant contributions to scientific research and ...

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a prestigious Advanced Grant of EUR 2.5 million ($2.6 million) over 5 years to Professor Bernt-Erik Sæther at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Biology. The money will go to find out how we can save species that are in danger of becoming extinct. “The aim is to develop rules of thumb to identify what is needed to prevent a species from dying out in an area in the short term. At the same time, we must ensure that a population’s ability to adapt to ...

Statement Highlights: Primary hypertension—high blood pressure that is not due to an underlying medical condition—occurs in up to 5% of children and adolescents in the U.S. and other countries. Having high blood pressure as a child often leads to high blood pressure in adulthood, which may increase the likelihood of heart disease and stroke, as well as cause damage to the kidneys, eyes and more. Some risk factors that increase the chances for high blood pressure in children are modifiable, while others are not. Regular and appropriate assessment of blood pressure levels in children is important, as there are often no symptoms of high blood pressure. Public health initiatives ...

ROME, ITALY - Cacao of Excellence is proud to unveil its new state-of-the-art cacao R&D laboratory and training centre. Located at Via Baccio Baldini 4 in Rome, the facility will be dedicated to exploring the depths of cacao quality and sensory analysis and revealing the diversity of cacao flavour profiles. The laboratory and training centre will accommodate the processing and evaluation of cacao samples received from over 55 participating origins for the global Cacao of Excellence Awards, and will serve as a cacao quality processing and sensory training centre for cacao-producing origins. Cacao of Excellence’s ...

Osaka, Japan― Tearing their meniscus—a crescent-shaped piece of a soft cushion of cartilage located between the femur and tibia—can be devastating for young athletes. It is easily damaged in people with congenital lateral discoid meniscus or those that are physically active and once damaged, the meniscus cannot repair itself. The most common method has been to remove the damaged portion of the meniscus, but in recent years meniscus-sparing surgeries, that suture the margins of the meniscus at the tear, ...