WASHINGTON (October 27, 2023) – Boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) have a clinically proven, new treatment option with the Food and Drug Administration’s approval Thursday of vamorolone, a steroidal-type, anti-inflammatory drug developed based on research performed at Children’s National Hospital.    Created by ReveraGen BioPharma Inc., vamorolone has a molecular structure similar to traditional corticosteroids, which are currently used to treat DMD. Yet its structure was found to be chemically different enough to reduce unwanted side effects, including brittle bones and reduced stature. Nearly two decades ago, ReveraGen leaders – President and ...

Researchers who are working to find alternatives to lithium-ion batteries have turned their attention to potassium-ion batteries. Potassium is an abundant resource and the technology functions in much the same way as lithium-ion batteries, but these batteries have not been developed at a large scale because the ionic radius causes problems in energy storage and substandard electrochemical performance.   To solve this problem, researchers are considering NiCo2Se4, a bimetallic selenide, to create sphere-shaped electrodes. The spheres are constructed with NiCo2Se4 nanotubes, which improve ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Childhood trauma is a key risk factor for future substance use disorder, overdose, and suicide. This is particularly problematic in rural areas where children experience higher rates of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). ACEs are commonly defined as physical and emotional abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, parental separation or divorce, intimate partner violence, and having household members with serious mental illness, substance use disorder, or a history of incarceration. Now, a three-year, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant awarded to the University of Missouri will help virtually train various members of the workforce — ...

Proteins are key to all processes in our cells and understanding their functions and regulation is of major importance. “For many years, we have known that nearly all human proteins are modified by a specific chemical group, but its functional impact has remained undefined”, says professor Thomas Arnesen at the Department of Biomedicine, University of Bergen. He explains: “One of the most common protein modifications in human cells is N-terminal acetylation, which is an addition of a small chemical group (acetyl) at the starting tip (N-terminus) of a protein. The ...

Researchers have discovered a protein that seals plant roots to regulate the uptake of nutrients and water from the soil, the discovery could help develop climate proof crops that require less water and chemical fertilizers. Researchers from the University of Nottingham identified new components of the lignin barrier in plant roots and the specific function of dirigent proteins (DPs), located in the root endodermis that control water and nutrient uptake. Their findings have been published today in Science Direct. Plant roots function by absorbing ...

Research on the trillions of microorganisms that make up a person’s microbiome can lead to medical breakthroughs to treat diseases like inflammatory bowel syndrome and diabetes. According to Alyssa Bader, a Tsimshian Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University, microbiome samples from Indigenous communities have the potential to further Western medicine, but those same communities often have been excluded from the research process and may miss out on the benefits that result from their contributions to science. ...

LOS ANGELES — An international Phase 3 clinical trial found that metastatic colorectal cancer patients with a rare genetic tumor mutation called KRAS G12C experienced superior progression-free survival rates compared to standard of care when offered a combination treatment of KRAS inhibitor sotorasib and monoclonal antibody panitumumab. City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, was a participating site and a City of Hope researcher is the lead author of the The New England Journal of Medicine study published this week. Standard ...

A research team has synthesized a new polyoxometalate-based metal-organic complex that they then tested as a catalyst for the oxidation reactions of various sulfides. They found that the complex possesses excellent catalytic performance, good reusability, and structural stability.   The team’s work is published in the journal Polyoxometalates on October 19, 2023.   Scientists in many fields have explored the selective oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides. Sulfoxides are organic compounds that contain sulfur and oxygen. These sulfoxides are high value-added chemicals in pharmaceuticals, agrochemistry, ...

Sunscreen usage is climbing, but so are melanoma and skin cancer rates: this, researchers say, is the sunscreen paradox. “The problem is that people use sunscreen as a ‘permission slip’ to tan,” said Dr. Ivan Litvinov, an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and Chair of the Dermatology Division at McGill University and co-author with Dr. Sandra Peláez, Dr. Richie Jeremian and Dr. Pingxing Xie of two recent studies that explore the sunscreen paradox. “People think they are protected from skin cancer ...

Polyoxometalate (POM)-based nanohybrids potentially offer a step-change in sustainability across a wide variety of industries, but research into the substances is in its infancy. A group of researchers has produced a comprehensive review of the sector’s progress and challenges yet to be overcome.   A new class of nanoscale hybrid materials has the potential to improve sustainability across energy systems, transport, biosensors, water purification and even 3D printing, but the field is still very young. A group of researchers has produced a detailed overview ...

A clinical trial led by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN) demonstrates how diversity among study participants is vital for reducing outcomes disparities. Among the vast group of women participating in the TMIST breast cancer screening trial--nearly 93,000 so far--21% self-identify as Black or African American. This diversity offers hope that once the trial reaches its enrollment goal of nearly 129,000 women, its results can better inform and tailor future breast cancer screening for all women.    The TMIST breast cancer study is investigating whether screening for breast cancer ...

Severe Combined Immunodeficiencies (SCIDs) are a group of debilitating primary immunodeficiency disorders, primarily caused by genetic mutations that disrupt T-cell development. SCID can also affect B-cell and natural killer cell function and counts. Left untreated, SCID proves fatal within the first year of life. The conventional treatment for SCID patients involves allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), but the challenges of finding compatible donors and potential complications like graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) pose significant hurdles ...

A collaborative study involving researchers from Karolinska Institutet has charted the prevalence of severe physical symptom burden amongst Scandinavians for up to two years after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Most affected were people who had a severe COVID-19 infection, while the researchers found no elevated prevalence of long COVID in those who had never been bedridden. The study is published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe. By mid-October 2023, over 771 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). An estimated 10 to 20 per cent of the affected have persistent symptoms. Close to 65,000 participants In the present ...

Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan created and improved artificial intelligence (AI) designs to synthesize a candidate compound for a new gastric acid inhibitor with a better binding affinity than existing drugs. Their findings, published in Communications Biology, suggest a new way to work in tandem with AI to develop pharmaceuticals.  Stomach acid is a crucial component of food digestion. However, when the balance of gastric mucosal secretion is disturbed, stomach acid can cause discomfort and, in severe cases, conditions such as gastric ulcers and reflux esophagitis. Therefore, many people turn to gastric acid suppressants, most of which target the gastric ...

The optical frequency comb is an important tool in modern physics research and applications. In 2005, Theodor W. Hänsch and John L. Hall were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work on optical frequency comb technology. This sparked a great interest among researchers in the field, leading to a series of studies on optical frequency combs. Advanced nanophotonic technology has enabled integrated microresonators with ultrahigh Q factors and chip-scale microcombs. Among various comb dynamic states, a chaotic comb has high nonlinearity. In a chaotic comb, each comb tooth exhibits a chaotic dynamic ...

Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan and their collaborators have used a biomarker based on microbubbles to evaluate the success of near-infrared photoimmunotherapy (NIR-PIT) treatment. Using ultrasound to track the microbubbles, they were able to identify areas where cancer therapy had not been fully applied. Their findings suggest ways to improve NIR-PIT and make it a viable alternative treatment for various types of cancer.     NIR-PIT is an innovative cancer treatment that combines the use of antibodies and near-infrared light to ...

Up to 1.7 million people could be living with dementia in England and Wales by 2040 – over 40% more than previously forecast – finds a new UCL-led study. Previous studies, based on data up to 2010, showed that dementia incidence had declined in high-income countries. However, the new research, published in The Lancet Public Health, indicates that dementia incidence started to increase in England and Wales after 2008. Based on this estimated upward incidence trend, researchers project that the number of people with dementia in England and Wales may be significantly higher than expected in the future. According to previous research* in England ...

Lancet Psychiatry study shows for first time that younger children are no more likely to lose ADHD diagnosis over time than older classmates Experts in charge of study examined data from more than 6,500 patients with ADHD 360 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with the condition according to WHO – with around a third under the age of 18   Children who are the youngest in their class to be identified with ADHD are just as likely to keep the diagnosis as older pupils in their year group, scientists have found. Experts from the University of Southampton ...

A drug candidate, based on pioneering UCL and Moorfields Eye Hospital research and currently under development by SIFI S.p.A., has been found to be highly effective in treating a rare sight-threatening eye infection in a new international clinical trial. The findings, published in Ophthalmology, describe the efficacy and safety of the first drug candidate for the treatment of Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK), applying a novel and evidence-based treatment protocol. AK is one type of microbial keratitis (corneal infection) – a condition ...

Quantum physicists at Delft University of Technology have shown that it’s possible to control and manipulate spin waves on a chip using superconductors for the first time. These tiny waves in magnets may offer an alternative to electronics in the future, interesting for energy-efficient information technology or connecting pieces in a quantum computer, for example. The breakthrough, published in Science, primarily gives physicists new insight into the interaction between magnets and superconductors. Energy-efficient substitute "Spin waves are waves in a magnetic material that we can use to transmit information," explains ...

One of the most common injuries sustained by military personnel in recent conflicts has been traumatic brain injury, or TBI. In response to this, and the fact that military operations are increasingly being conducted by small teams in far-flung areas, researchers in the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson’s Department of Psychiatry are working on a portable virtual reality system to assess TBI in the field. Psychiatry professor William “Scott” Killgore, PhD, and his team in the Social, ...

Treatment with datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd), a novel Trop-2 directed antibody-drug conjugate, was found to significantly improve progression-free survival in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, an improvement that was primarily driven by patients with non-squamous tumors. These results from the TROPION-Lung01 Phase III trial, which compared the standard of care in second-line docetaxel, a type of chemotherapy, with Dato-DXd, an antibody drug conjugate, in patients with pretreated metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology 2023 Congress by Dr. Aaron ...

A University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) researcher is a member of a prestigious team that has just received a highly competitive Endeavor Award totaling $3 million from The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research. Liza Makowski, PhD professor in Hematology and Oncology at the UTHSC Center for Cancer Research, is a co-principal investigator on the award, which funds collaborative projects tackling complex challenges in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Entitled “Inflammatory Drivers of The Obesity-Cancer Connection”, the project is led by principal ...

A new study from the University of Wisconsin–Madison suggests that chemotherapy may not be reaching its full potential, in part because researchers and doctors have long misunderstood how some of the most common cancer drugs actually ward off tumors. For decades, researchers have believed that a class of drugs called microtubule poisons treat cancerous tumors by halting mitosis, or the division of cells. Now, a team of UW–Madison scientists has found that in patients, microtubule poisons don't actually stop cancer cells from dividing. Instead, these drugs alter ...

TURKU, Finland – October 27, 2023 – The SynGAP Research Fund 501(c)(3) announced a $100,000 grant to researchers Pekka Postila and Olli Pentikäinen from the Institute of Biomedicine and InFLAMES Flagship at the University of Turku. Prof. Pentikäinen’s research focuses on molecular modeling and computer-aided drug discovery. Assoc. Prof. Postila is an expert on advanced molecular dynamics simulations of complex biomolecular systems. The dual research team was formed to study the structural effects of missense variants on the SynGAP protein, whose normal functioning ...