Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 14:00 BST / 09:00hrs ET Wednesday 4 October 2023 Peer reviewed Observational and experimental studies People and cells   A research team at the Francis Crick Institute and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH)/UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health have identified new potential treatments for children with rare genetic conditions of blood vessels, which cause severe, lifelong, and disabling symptoms like seizures and impaired development.   Through two papers published today in the Journal of Investigative ...

Developing brains become shaped by the sights, sounds, and experiences of early life. The brain’s circuits grow more stable as we age. However, some experiences later in life open up opportunities for these circuits to be rapidly rewired. New research from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Associate Professor Stephen Shea helps explain how the brain adapts during a critical period of adulthood: the time when new mothers learn to care for their young. Shea’s work in mice shows how this learning process ...

After a yearlong and extensive nationwide search, the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS), the nation’s largest professional organization of bariatric and metabolic surgeons and integrated health professionals, has named healthcare association veteran Diane M. Enos MPH, RDN, CAE, FAND, to serve as its new executive director. Before joining ASMBS, Enos, a registered dietitian and certified association executive with a master’s degree in public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, was Chief Learning Officer of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, ...

A team led by researchers from Mass General Brigham reports promising results for a monoclonal antibody that takes aim at a new target for Alzheimer’s disease. Inspired by their previous identification of a genetic variant in the APOE gene that provides extreme resistance against Alzheimer’s disease, the team, which includes investigators from Mass Eye and Ear and Massachusetts General Hospital, developed a therapy that mimics the behavior of this genetic variant in a preclinical model, reducing ...

The potential for exposure to fluctuating light has necessitated that plants evolve protective mechanisms for when the light intensity exceeds photosynthetic capacity. Under these conditions, reactive oxygen species cause photoinhibition, which hinders photosynthetic efficiency. To counter this loss in photosynthetic efficiency, chloroplasts evolved thioredoxin (Trx) proteins that regulate redox balance within the photosynthetic apparatus and provide a photoprotective function. These proteins allow plants to modulate photosynthesis in response to variations in light intensity. ...

A probable early driver of Alzheimer's disease is the accumulation of molecules called amyloid peptides. These cause cell death, and are commonly found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have now shown that yeast cells that accumulate these misfolded amyloid peptides can recover after being treated with graphene oxide nanoflakes. Alzheimer’s disease is an incurable brain disease, leading to dementia and death, that causes suffering for both the patients and their ...

Scientists have created a new zebrafish xenograft platform to screen for novel treatments for an aggressive brain tumor called glioblastoma, according to a new study by the Gerhardt and De Smet labs published in EMBO Molecular Medicine. Joint press release – Max Delbrück Center, VIB, and KU Leuven Glioblastoma is an aggressive and difficult-to-treat brain tumor in adults. On average, patients survive for only 1.5 years. The standard of care treatment for this disease, which includes surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy, has not changed in 18 years. That’s partly because the cancer is ...

Researchers have produced an engineered tissue representing a simplified cerebral cortex by 3D printing human stem cells. When implanted into mouse brain slices, the structures became integrated with the host tissue. The technique may ultimately be developed into tailored repairs to treat brain injuries. A breakthrough technique developed by University of Oxford researchers could one day provide tailored repairs for those who suffer brain injuries. The researchers demonstrated for the first time that neural cells can be 3D printed to mimic the architecture of the cerebral cortex. The results have been published today in the ...

Premature babies in neonatal care units are extremely vulnerable, and susceptible to life-threatening infections. To help keep these babies safe the risk of infection needs to be kept as low as possible. A particular problem is late onset sepsis that starts from three days after birth, when bacteria get into the blood and grow. This can be very dangerous and babies with late onset sepsis end up staying in hospital longer, need more treatment with antibiotics and can be left with life-long effects on their health. Bacteria from the Staphylococcus family are the most common causes ...

An educational and social support intervention for caregivers reduced elder mistreatment of older adults with chronic illness, including dementia. That’s the result of a recent double-blind, randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Elder mistreatment is defined as “an intentional act or failure to act by a caregiver or another person in a relationship involving an expectation of trust that causes or creates a risk of harm to an older adult.” Through the Comprehensive Older Adult and Caregiver Help (COACH) intervention tested in this trial, coaches met with caregivers weekly for up to 12 sessions to listen to their ...

Research published in the European Journal of Neurology indicates that COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination have negligible effects on migraine severity. Among 550 adults who had received migraine-related care at a Spanish headache clinic, 44.9% (247) reported COVID-19 at least once and 83.3% (458) had been vaccinated; 61 patients (24.7%) reported migraine worsening since COVID-19 and 52 (11.4%) since vaccination. In participants who perceived that their migraines worsened, those who had been infected were 2.5-times more ...

A new analysis reveals that rates of opioid prescribing to US adolescents have decreased in recent years, primarily limited to non-surgery indications. Opioid prescription rates for surgery have remained stable. The analysis, which is published in Pediatric Anesthesia, assessed data from the 2015–2020 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, which are nationally representative, large-scale surveys conducted annually by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Among 26,909 children aged 10–19 years, 4.7% underwent a surgical procedure in 2015–2020. ...

Policies that provide public financing for political campaigns have gained popularity in the United States. One example is the Democracy Vouchers program that was implemented in Seattle, Washington in 2017 to potentially reduce candidates' reliance on large donations. Research published in Contemporary Economic Policy studied the effects of this program on voter registration and turnout. In Seattle’s Democracy Vouchers program, every registered voter in the city receives $100 worth of publicly funded vouchers to donate to candidates for municipal office, and candidates ...

Biological cells contain in-built "housekeeping" mechanisms for taking care of damaged cellular structures. This includes the ubiquitin‒proteasome system (UPS), which selectively tags unwanted proteins with the ubiquitin molecule, and then clears them. When the UPS mechanism fails, cells activate a compensatory protein clearance process called "aggrephagy," in which protein aggregates are degraded by the cell in a controlled manner. However, thus far, the mechanism behind aggrephagy has been unknown. Now, a landmark paper published on 1 September ...

Residing in a more walkable neighborhood protects against the risk of overall obesity-related cancers in women, specifically postmenopausal breast cancer, but also ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, and multiple myeloma, according to a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Obesity has been linked to increased risk for 13 types of cancer in women, and physical activity, independent of body size, lowers risk for some of these cancers. Neighborhood walkability ...

Australia’s emerging pattern of severe mega bushfires and heavy rainfall may be driving platypuses from their homes, a new study by University of Melbourne researchers has shown.   Analysis of platypus DNA in rivers and creek water samples collected before and after the Black Summer 2019-2020 megafires suggest Australia’s beloved semi-aquatic monotremes might be abandoning severely bushfire-affected areas for up to 18 months after a fire, especially if heavy rainfall has followed the fire.   The study uses the recent technique of environmental DNA sampling, where animal DNA is collected from water, soil, air, or snow ...

A research group has created a new model to calculate the probability of the occurrence of localized clusters caused by novel coronavirus infections. Led by Shingo Iwami at Nagoya University with collaborators in the United Kingdom and South Korea model, they revealed that screening of infected persons by antigen testing is effective in significantly reducing the probability of cluster occurrence. However, their findings also suggest that it is not sufficient to prevent clusters caused by highly infectious mutant strains, such as Omicron.   With the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and population immunity, countries around the world are seeking to ...

For reasons of food security and economic incentive, farmers continuously seek to maximize their marketable crop yields. As plants grow inconsistently, at the time of harvesting, there will inevitably be variations in quality and size of individual crops. Finding the optimal time to harvest is therefore a priority for farmers. A new approach making heavy use of drones and artificial intelligence demonstrably improves this estimation by carefully and accurately analyzing individual crops to assess their likely growth characteristics. Some optimistic science fiction stories talk about a post-scarcity future, where human needs are catered for and hard labor ...

A new study published today, analysing wastewater samples from several aged care and retirement homes in Adelaide, has uncovered worrying signs of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in at least one facility. High levels of bacterial resistance against three common antibiotics – ceftazidime, cefepime and ciprofloxacin – were identified in one aged care residential home. A second facility recorded above average levels of antimicrobial resistance to gentamicin, putting residents’ health at risk. The listed antibiotics are used to treat a variety of bacterial infections, including pneumonia, ...

Parrots are exceptional talkers. They can learn new sounds during their entire lives, amassing an almost unlimited vocal repertoire. At the same time, parrots produce calls so they can be individually recognized by members of their flock—raising the question of how their calls can be very variable while also uniquely identifiable. A study on monk parakeets conducted by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona might have the answer: individuals have a unique tone of voice, known as a voice print, similar to that in humans. This finding in a wild parrot raises the possibility that a voice print ...

Researchers from The University of Queensland and The Alfred hospital in Melbourne have identified gene variants which may contribute to people being at higher risk for nodular melanoma. Dr Mitchell Stark from UQ’s Frazer Institute said nodular melanoma only accounts for around 14 per cent of invasive melanoma cases, but the aggressive subtype is the largest contributor to melanoma deaths. “Melanoma is highly curable by surgery when diagnosed early, but nodular melanoma is often detected ...

Public health initiatives to understand and tackle these inequalities should be prioritised, say the researchers. The aortic valve keeps blood flowing from the heart's lower left chamber (left ventricle) to the aorta—the main artery bringing blood from the heart to the body. Aortic stenosis occurs when the aortic valve narrows as a result of calcium build-up, impeding normal blood flow. This causes shortness of breath, light headedness, and chest pain (angina). Aortic valve replacement (AVR) not only relieves these symptoms, but increases life expectancy, and improves quality of life, say the researchers, adding that up to 1 in 4 of those with severe or very severe aortic stenosis ...

Information on clinical complications is often missing, while key information on the factors behind medical decision-making, the effectiveness of the lethal drugs used, and the extent of palliative care support isn’t even collected, reveals the review. Physician assisted suicide as it’s formally known has been legal in the US state of Oregon since 1997 under the Death with Dignity Act.  The legislation allows terminally ill residents over the age of 18 to hasten their death by taking lethal drugs prescribed by a doctor, providing they are capable of making and communicating healthcare ...

A device has been created that could carry out Clinical Breast Examinations (CBE). The manipulator, designed by a team at the University of Bristol and based at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, is able to apply very specific forces over a range similar to forces used by human examiners and can detect lumps using sensor technology at larger depths than before. This could revolutionise how women monitor their breast health by giving them access to safe electronic CBEs, located in easily accessible places, such as pharmacies and health centres, which provide accurate results.     Precision, repeatability and ...

Agriculture in Syria started with a bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth’s atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra to adopt agricultural practices to boost their chances for survival. That’s the assertion made by an international group of scientists in one of four related research papers, all appearing in the journal Science Open: Airbursts and Cratering Impacts. The papers ...