As parasites adapt to a warming world, an infectious disease expert at Rochester Institute of Technology has his eye on the tsetse fly in sub-Saharan Africa. The biting fly transmits Trypanosomiasis, or “sleeping sickness,” to cattle there and could someday migrate to northern climates, including to the United States. RIT researcher Bolaji Thomas is leading a $650,000 study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Agriculture ...

CAR-T cell therapy is a last hope for many patients with blood, bone marrow or lymph gland cancer when other treatments such as chemotherapy are unsuccessful. A limiting factor of this otherwise very effective and safe therapy is that the cells used in the process quickly reach a state of exhaustion. Researchers at the University of Freiburg have now been able to prevent this exhaustion and thus significantly improve the effect of the therapy in a preclinical animal model. The new results have been published in the journal Nature Immunology. Using the body’s own defences ...

A team of University of Maryland researchers developed a nasal spray vaccine that delivers the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into cells of the airway in mice and hamsters, triggering an immune response that significantly reduced infection and spread of COVID-19. The technology can be adapted to induce immunity to other respiratory illnesses, such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections. A nasal vaccine for respiratory viruses would be a significant improvement over intramuscular shots, because they are less invasive and stop viral particle replication in the airway, before a virus can enter the bloodstream. This could improve the rate ...

Simon Fraser University researchers studying the evolutionary history of flu viruses have found that a new quantitative analysis of how they evolved may help predict future strains. The research draws on a field known as phylogenetics, which focuses on how groups of organisms are evolutionarily related, and is published in the journal Science Advances. Researchers used large phylogenetic ‘trees’ to predict which strains are most likely to grow during the upcoming flu season, and determined that this approach was moderately effective in detecting future strains of the influenza virus, and could be another tool in the toolbox to guide seasonal ...

(SAN ANTONIO, NOVEMBER 6, 2023) — The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) associate professor of psychology Joe Houpt, is part of a team that has earned a one-year, $50,000 grant from the Mays Cancer Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio). The project, “Surviving is Not Enough: Enhancing Cognitive Function in Cancer Survivors through Movement and Introspection,” aims to measure and enhance the cognitive functioning of cancer survivors at the Mays Cancer ...

Samantha Viano, Assistant Professor, Education, received funding from the National Science Foundation for the project: "CAREER: Second Chance STEM: Uncovering school policies structuring access to and engagement in high school STEM credit recovery."   Viano will conduct three individual studies as part of this research. The first study will be located in 14 schools in a large and demographically changing suburban school district. This work will be followed by a survey of optimal policy/practice ...

Kirin Furst, Assistant Professor, Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering, is set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for the project: "Disinfection Resiliency and Microbial Risk in Drinking Water Distribution Systems During Extreme Heat Disasters." Furst and Katherine E. Graham, Assistant Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, will evaluate the effect of extreme heat on disinfection efficacy and failure risk in drinking water distribution systems, and evaluate a novel engineering solution to improve ...

Aditya Johri, Professor, Information Sciences and Technology; Khondkar Islam, Professor, Associate Chair, Undergraduate Studies, Information Sciences and Technology; and Vivian Motti, Associate Professor, Information Sciences and Technology, are set to receive $299,486 from the National Science Foundation for the project: "EAGER: Education DCL: An Embedded Case Study Approach for Broadening Students' Mindset for Ethical and Responsible Cybersecurity in AI."  Using prior research on situated learning and perspectival thinking, the project team will create a series of four ...

Ruixin Yang, Associate Professor, Geography and Geoinformation Science/Assistant Director, Center for Earth Observing Spatial Research (CEOSR), received $8,000 from the International Food Policy Research Institute for the project: "Climate Risk Profile Studies For Africa." Yang is producing hazard maps by major crops and by seasons. He is conducting an extensive review of existing hazard development methods employed by the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Yang is also developing a Python program that focuses on mapping and identifying ...

Sam Lebovic, Professor, History, received funding for: "Visiting Research Scholarship at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University."  His project will focus on the law and politics of public employee speech, focusing particularly on how a modern bureaucratized American government should manage the speech of its employees while balancing competing democratic values. The project will explore such problems as academic freedom, administrative law, public sector employment law, transparency, and whistleblowing regulation. It will seek to generate new understandings of legal ...

The Pandemic-related Traumatic Stress Scale (PTSS) can be used to effectively measure stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic and identify children and adults with higher levels of stress who may need additional mental health support, according to a new study funded by the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Program (ECHO) at the National Institutes of Health. The study included 17,830 children and adults from 47 ECHO Cohort study sites representing all 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. Researchers split the sample into four groups ...

Dr. Dragomir Milovanovic, a neuroscientist at DZNE’s Berlin site, has been awarded an European Research Council (ERC) “Starting Grant” worth 1.5 million euros to investigate biophysical phenomena relevant to brain diseases in a groundbreaking research project. Ultimately, the goal is to better understand the behavior of aberrant protein inclusions in neurodegenerative diseases. Human cells are complex entities comprising proteins, lipids and a wide number of other molecular spieces, some of them forming organized compartments, while others virtually float around. “The cell interior ...

Over the past few decades, algae have been slowly edging corals out of their native reefs across the globe by blocking sunlight, wearing the corals down physically, and producing harmful chemicals. But in recent years, a new type of algal threat has surfaced in tropical regions like the Caribbean—one that spreads quickly and forms a crust on top of coral and sponges, suffocating the organisms underneath and preventing them from regrowing. In an article publishing in the journal Current Biology on November 6, a team of marine biologists report that peyssonnelioid alga crusts, or PACs, ...

University of Oxford news release Strict embargo until Monday, 6 November, 2023.  11.00 (ET) or 16.00 (GMT)   Domestic cats introduced from the Near East and wildcats native to Europe did not mix until the 1960s, despite being exposed to each other for 2,000 years, according to two research papers published today in Current Biology. An international team has found new archaeological and genetic evidence which transforms our understanding of the history of cats in Europe. The team sequenced and analysed both wild and domestic cats, including ...

This huge step forward in understanding how neurons communicate through extremely short proteins called neuropeptides will help scientists understand how our emotions and mental states are controlled, as well as widespread neuropsychiatric conditions like eating disorders, OCD and PSTD.   The map, which details 31,479 neuropeptide interactions between the worm’s 302 neurons, shows where each neuropeptide, as well as each receptor for those peptides, acts in the animal’s nervous system. Neuropeptides allow communication between neurons that are not immediately ...

Reykjavik 6. November 2023. Epidemiology and Genetics of Clonal Hematopoiesis, a Premalignant Hematopoietic Stem Cell Condition A comprehensive new study from deCODE genetics, a subsidiary of Amgen, published today in Nature Genetics, provides insights into the epidemiology and somatic and germline genetics of clonal hematopoiesis. Whole genome sequence data from Iceland and the UK Biobank, combined with a unique somatic mutation Barcoding strategy, was used to investigate clonal hematopoiesis at the population scale. Clonal hematopoiesis is a condition that arises when a single clonal lineage ...

About The Study: In this study of 185 women with breast cancer, high neighborhood deprivation was associated with differences in tissue DNA methylation and gene expression among Black women. These findings suggest that continued investment in public health interventions and policy changes at the neighborhood level may help to remedy biological alterations that could make minoritized populations more susceptible to chronic diseases.  Authors: Stefan Ambs, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, ...

Irvine, Calif., Nov. 6, 2023 — Agriculture is one of the hardest human activities to decarbonize; people must eat, but the land-use practices associated with growing crops account for roughly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions evaluate a new solution to this problem, one that eliminates farms altogether. In a study published today in Nature Sustainability, the UCI-led team of scientists assess the potential for widescale synthetic production of dietary fats through chemical and biological processes. The raw materials for this method are the same as those used by ...

Keeping an eye on the regions when it comes to climate change Up to now, the results of climate simulations have sometimes contradicted the analysis of climate traces from the past. A team led by the physicist Thomas Laepple from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam and the climatologist Kira Rehfeld from the University of Tübingen has therefore brought together experts in climate models and climate tracks to clarify how the discrepancies come about. The surprising result has now been published in the journal Nature Geoscience: in a way, both sides ...

BOSTON – In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, effectively ending 50 years of federal protections to abortion care. As of October 2023, twenty-six states have since enacted laws to ban or restrict abortion access, with 14 states completely banning the procedure. Today, an estimated 25 million American women of childbearing age, or about one third of women ages 15 to 45, live in areas where abortion care is severely restricted. Historically, many states were able to restrict access to abortion even before 2022 through Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws; these laws decrease ...

Multiple sclerosis patients whose blood tests reveal elevated NfL, a biomarker of nerve damage, could see worsening disability one to two years later, according to a new study spearheaded by researchers at UC San Francisco.     The study is the first to quantify the timeframe preceding disability worsening in which injury to the central nervous system takes place, said co-first author Ahmed Abdelhak, MD, of the UCSF Department of Neurology and the Weill Institute for Neurosciences.    Almost 1 million Americans ...

Article in Nature Communications demonstrates that with 96% sensitivity, AI diagnostic MSIntuit™ CRC can  rule  out  almost  half  of  the  MSS population of colorectal cancer patients unlikely to respond to checkpoint inhibitor therapy from additional screening. Such AI-enabled solutions have the potential to improve lab efficiency, addressing global pathology shortages and reducing testing burden to match the right patients to the right therapies.  Paris and New York., 6 Nov 2023 – In a peer-reviewed study published today in Nature Communications, a team of scientists ...

New research shows that European food consumption draws unnecessarily excessively on global resources, which is why researchers are calling for political action. Many of the foods that are consumed in Europe are produced in countries outside Europe. Food loss – and waste later in the chain, (read more on waste terms below) – occurs along the food supply chain, from the primary agricultural sector in Europe or rest of the world, until it feeds mouths in Europe. “Halving Europe’s food loss and waste, together with a redistribution of global food resources, could solve the challenges of food shortages in the ...

A new virtual brain bank spanning five Chicago academic medical centers and led by University of Illinois Chicago will create a powerful new resource for clinical care and research on epilepsy, brain tumors and neurological disorders.  A $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will create a network of brain tissue research at UIC, Northwestern University, Lurie Children’s Hospital, Rush University and University of Chicago. The institutions will utilize a data platform developed at UIC called INTUITION that combines tissue data with clinical, functional, genetic and 3D imaging information to assist clinicians treating patients and help researchers better understand ...

Interaction between machines and humans is paramount to the development of the new technologies of the metaverse, which are designed to augment the human experience through cloud computing and extended reality (XR). Graphene, a two-dimensional carbon material, has emerged as an ideal candidate for wearable sensor technology, paving the way for a new era of seamless human-machine interaction (HMI).   A team of material scientists led by Tian-Ling Ren from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China recently outlined the state of graphene-based HMI sensor technology ...