NEW YORK, NY--Columbia researchers have discovered how a genetic defect leads to spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a critical piece of information about the disease that neurologists have been seeking for decades. The discovery suggests a new way to treat SMA—a devastating childhood motor neuron disease that affects 1 in 6,000 children. In the most severe cases, and when left untreated, children born with SMA die within the first two years of life. The researchers also used their finding to develop an experimental therapy that improved survival in mice with severe SMA by ...

“This study was designed to increase the knowledge on the potential of GPCs and in particular GPC1 as a biomarker in cancer diagnosis and prognosis.”  BUFFALO, NY- March 22, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on March 21, 2023, entitled, “Attenuation of cancer proliferation by suppression of glypican-1 and its pleiotropic effects in neoplastic behavior.” Glypicans (GPC1-6) are associated with tumorigenic processes and their involvement in neoplastic behavior has been ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Clean geothermal energy—the heat beneath our feet—has the potential to be cost competitive with other renewables and even fossil fuels if we can drill deep enough to access the mother lode of the resource. That’s according to one speaker at a geothermal conference last month held by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Other speakers addressed growing interest in the field by the oil and gas sector, key challenges it faces, and solutions to help solve those challenges.    Geothermal 2023: Realising the Ambition was organized by the Aberdeen, ...

When natural habitats are cleared to make way for cities, roads and agriculture, this often leaves behind “islands” of fragmented habitat that can place species at risk of extinction. Species are at risk when they find it hard to move among habitat patches to find resources and reproduce. By combining lab experiments and mathematical modelling, researchers at McGill University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology have found a way to predict the movement of species that could guide conservation efforts to reconnect fragmented habitats.   The ...

Scientists have gained new insights into the part of the brain that gives us a sense of direction, by tracking neural activity with the latest advances in brain imaging techniques. The findings shed light on how the brain orients itself in changing environments – and even the processes that can go wrong with degenerative diseases like dementia, that leave people feeling lost and confused. “Neuroscience research has witnessed a technology revolution in the last decade allowing us to ...

PHILADELPHIA – The members of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) have elected Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, PhD (hc), as the AACR President-Elect for 2023-2024. LoRusso will become President-Elect on Monday, April 17, during the AACR’s Annual Business Meeting of Members at the AACR Annual Meeting 2023 in Orlando, Florida. She will assume the Presidency in April 2024 at the AACR Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. LoRusso is a professor of medicine (medical oncology); chief of experimental therapeutics; associate cancer center director for experimental therapeutics; and leader of the Phase I disease aligned research ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2023 MINNEAPOLIS – People who have low bone density may have an increased risk of developing dementia compared to people who have higher bone density, according to a study published in the March 22, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that low bone density causes dementia. It only shows an association. “Low bone density and dementia are two conditions that commonly affect older people simultaneously, especially as bone loss often increases due to physical inactivity and poor ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2023   MINNEAPOLIS – A new study has found that people with epilepsy have an increased risk of early death and the increased risk varies depending on where they live, the number of medications they take and what other diseases they may have. The study is published in the March 22, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our research found an increased risk even among those who do not have ...

Air flow in a room can impact the transmission of viruses like COVID-19. A Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist is studying how heating, ventilation and air conditioning, HVAC, system configurations and building designs could mitigate the spread of microorganisms, including viruses, that are detrimental to human health. Maria King, Ph.D., director of the Center for Agricultural Air Quality Engineering and Science in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, recently received a $400,000, two-year National ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Memory B cells play a critical role to provide long-term immunity after a vaccination or infection. In a study published in the journal Immunity, researchers describe a distinct and novel subset of memory B cells that predict long-lived antibody responses to influenza vaccination in humans. These effector memory B cells appear to be poised for a rapid serum antibody response upon secondary challenge one year later, Anoma Nellore, M.D., Fran Lund, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Emory University report. Evidence from transcriptional and epigenetic profiling shows that the cells in this subset differ from ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Chemical and isotopic analysis of copper artifacts from southern Africa reveals new cultural connections among people living in the region between the 5th and 20th centuries according to a University of Missouri researcher and colleagues. People in the area between northern South Africa and the Copperbelt region in central Africa were more connected to one another than scholars previously thought, said Jay Stephens, a post-doctoral fellow in the MU Research Reactor (MURR) Archaeometry Lab. “Over the past 20 to 30 years, most archaeologists ...

Have you ever marveled at the vast diversity of life on our planet, from tiny creatures living only a few hours to majestic beings that can survive for centuries? These differences in lifespan, size, and reproductive age are known as life-history strategies, and they have evolved over time as organisms adapt to their environments. Evolutionary biologists have long been interested in understanding the factors that contribute to the evolution and maintenance of multiple alternative life-history strategies (ALHS) within species that lead to adaptation and novel traits. A new study published in Science Advances has not only revealed that an ALHS in Colias ...

  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 22, 2023   THE PROTEIN SOCIETY ANNOUNCES ITS 2023 AWARD RECIPIENTS LOS ANGELES, CA – The Protein Society, the premier international society dedicated to supporting protein research, announces the winners of the 2023 Protein Society Awards, which will be conferred at the 37th Anniversary Symposium, July 13 – 16, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts. Plenary talks from select award recipients will take place throughout the 3.5-day event. The scientific accomplishments of the awardees, highlighted here as described by their nominators, demonstrate their lasting impact on protein science. The Carl Brändén Award, sponsored by Rigaku ...

If you live near a busy road you might feel like the constant sound of roaring engines, honking horns and wailing sirens makes your blood pressure rise. Now a new study published today in JACC: Advances confirms it can do exactly that. Previous studies have shown a connection between noisy road traffic and increased risk of hypertension. However, strong evidence was lacking, and it was unclear whether noise or air pollution played a bigger role. The new research shows that it is exposure to road traffic noise itself that can elevate hypertension risk. “We were a ...

A team of researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have found a drug with the potential for curbing painful hyperinflammation from osteoarthritis, according to results of an animal study. The findings, published March 22nd in Science Translational Medicine, indicate that a drug compound, R805/CX-011, may modulate an important cell receptor in the body’s immune system, GP130, that signals when antibodies should attack a virus or infection. The animal model studies showed that the drug compound can disrupt the receptor’s over-activation of inflammation, and still manage pain ...

The first year of the COVID pandemic saw significant increases in drug overdose deaths across the USA, with rates higher than recent trends could have predicted. Research published in the open access journal PLOS Global Public Health, reports trends in drug overdose deaths between 2013-20 across four major drug categories by gender, race and geography. It finds high levels of heterogeneity in overdose patterns across different demographic groups and that the gap in overdose fatalities between black and white individuals continues to widen. Drug prevention and mitigation campaigns should therefore be tailored to specific at-risk groups. Drug overdose deaths have been ...

Mutations in genes that form the desmosome are the most common cause of the cardiac disease arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM), which affects one in 2000 to 5000 people worldwide. Researchers from the group of Eva van Rooij now discovered how a mutation in the desmosomal gene plakophilin-2 leads to ACM. They found that the structural and functional changes in ACM hearts caused by a plakophilin-2 mutation are the result of increased desmosomal protein degradation. The results of this study, published in Science Translational Medicine ...

Average crop yields in Africa are consistently far below expected, and one significant reason is the prevalence of counterfeit seeds whose germination rates are far lower than those of the genuine ones. The World Bank estimates that as much as half of all seeds sold in some African countries are fake, which could help to account for crop production that is far below potential. There have been many attempts to prevent this counterfeiting through tracking labels, but none have proved effective; among other issues, such labels have been vulnerable to hacking because of the deterministic ...

Clearing a path for non-invasive muscle therapy for the elderly Controlling inflammation enables injured aged muscle recovery via non-invasive mechanical loading, offering promise for the future of mechanotherapies for elderly patients. By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Mechanotherapy, the concept of using mechanical forces to stimulate tissue healing, has been used for decades as a form of physical therapy to help heal injured muscles.  However, the biological basis and optimal settings for mechanotherapies are still poorly understood, ...

Stuttgart, Linz, Boulder – Artificial muscles are a progressing technology that could one day enable robots to function like living organisms. Such muscles open up new possibilities for how robots can shape the world around us; from assistive wearable devices that can redefine our physical abilities at old age, to rescue robots that can navigate rubble in search of the missing. But just because artificial muscles can have a strong societal impact during use, doesn’t mean they have to leave a strong ...

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. Journal scan Mixed ancestry study provides clues to genetic traits A new multi-institutional study led by scientists at the Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Program at UCLA has found that individuals of mixed ancestry, such as African Americans, inherit a mosaic of ancestry segments from ...

Nitroxoline is the name of the new drug candidate that could potentially be used to treat mpox. It was identified by scientists at Goethe University and the University of Kent as part of a multi-site study. The results of their research will now allow clinical trials to begin soon. The current mpox outbreak is the first of this size to occur outside of Africa and also the first mpox outbreak caused by human-to-human transmission. People with immunodeficiencies are particularly at risk from the disease. Although antiviral agents have already been shown to inhibit the replication ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide (1.1 million in the United States) and severely harmed many millions more, though vaccines and antiviral treatments measurably reduced the potential loss of life and health.  A Commonwealth Fund report, for example, estimated COVID-19 vaccines alone prevented more than 18 million additional hospitalizations and 3.2 million additional deaths in the U.S. The pandemic has never been simple or easy. For example, the emergence of viral variants, in particular recent versions of the Omicron, fueled new surges of infection and disease throughout 2022 and into 2023. “There were real concerns ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- A model system created by stacking a pair of monolayer semiconductors is giving physicists a simpler way to study confounding quantum behavior, from heavy fermions to exotic quantum phase transitions. The group’s paper, “Gate-Tunable Heavy Fermions in a Moiré Kondo Lattice,” published March 15 in Nature. The lead author is postdoctoral fellow Wenjin Zhao in the Kavli Institute at Cornell. The project was led by Kin Fai Mak, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Jie Shan, professor of applied and engineering physics in Cornell Engineering ...

Indiana University School of Medicine is accepting nominations until May 1 for the 2024 August M. Watanabe Prize in Translational Research. The Watanabe Prize is one of the nation’s largest and most prestigious research awards recognizing senior investigators focused on shepherding scientific discoveries into new therapies for patients. Nominees should be members of the scientific or medical communities who have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in translational research. The winner will receive $100,000 and will spend Sept. 18-20, 2024, in Indianapolis as a vising dignitary, sharing insights and knowledge with audiences at IU School of Medicine and its partner institutions. ...