In recent years, cancer immunotherapies, represented by immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), have been highly successful and have become an important basis for the future treatment of cancers. However, the absence of tumoral killer T cells and the complexity of tumor microenvironment can both affect the immunotherapeutic efficacy. Therefore, it is urgent to develop novel anti-tumor agents that can effectively promote effector T cell infiltration in tumors.   ADP-ribosylation factor 1 (Arf1) is a member of the Ras small GTPase family and is ...

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) should be the preferred choice when treating patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as it reduces radiation exposure to the heart and lungs, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.   Results from a long-term secondary analysis of the NRG Oncology-RTOG 0617 Phase III study, with a median follow-up of 5.2 years, revealed that patients receiving IMRT had a more than two-fold reduction in severe lung inflammation (pneumonitis) compared to those who received 3D-conformal radiotherapy ...

Published in Nature Water, the new model has major potential benefits for emergency responses, reducing flood forecasting time from hours and days to just seconds, and enabling flood behaviour to be accurately predicted at super-fast speeds as an emergency unfolds.  University of Melbourne PHD student Niels Fraehr, alongside Professor Q J Wang, Dr Wenyan Wu and Professor Rory Nathan, from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, developed the Low-Fidelity, Spatial Analysis ...

This study is led by Dr Zhihong Lang (Biotechnology Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences). To develop a new bio-breeding resource for glyphosate-resistant maize, a large transgenic maize population was generated with introducing a codon-optimized glyphosate N-acetyltransferase gene, gat, and the enolpyruvyl-shikimate-3-phosphate synthase gene, gr79-epsps, into maize and a transgenic event, designated GG2, was highly resistant to glyphosate in consecutive generations of glyphosate screening. “This result is very encouraging.” Dr Lang says.   The ...

IOP Publishing (IOPP) and the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP) announce that Applied Physics Express (APEX) is to become fully open access (OA). From January 2024, all articles published in APEX, the journal devoted to rapid dissemination of new findings in applied physics, will be immediately and openly accessible for anyone to read. The move reflects the increasing demand for more accessible and open science, and funders’ mandates requiring authors to publish their work in OA journals.   Making APEX open access means that authors will be ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – An Oregon State University-led collaboration of ecologists and art historians has demonstrated that landscape paintings from more than 150 years ago can advance environmental science. Researchers from OSU, the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Vermont and the Smithsonian American Art Museum used 19th-century depictions of preindustrial forests in the northeastern United States to show that historical artwork can reveal information about forests and other landscapes from eras that predate modern scientific investigation. The ...

FINDINGS UCLA-led research finds that among adult congenital heart disease (CHD) transplant recipients, single-ventricle physiology correlated with higher short-term mortality. But 10-year conditional survival was similar for biventricular and most single-ventricle CHD patients, and notably better for biventricular CHD patients compared to non-CHD heart transplant recipients.   BACKGROUND Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a heterogeneous group of structural abnormalities that can be thought of as spectrum from very severe ...

A natural compound found in the culinary spice turmeric may be as effective as omeprazole—a drug used to curb excess stomach acid—for treating indigestion symptoms, suggests the first study of its kind, published online in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. Turmeric is derived from the root of the Curcuma longa plant. It contains a naturally active compound called curcumin thought to have anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties, and has long been used as a medicinal remedy, including ...

Shorter telomeres on the ends of white blood cell chromosomes may signal a heightened dementia risk, suggest the results of a large long term study, published online in the journal General Psychiatry. They are associated with smaller total and white matter brain volume, which helps the body process information, and may be a predictor of future brain health, say the researchers. A telomere–the equivalent of a shoelace cap—is intended to prevent the loss of coded DNA by a chromosome fraying or unravelling when it replicates. Each time a cell divides, chromosomes replicate, and telomeres shorten slightly, ...

Around 1 in 3 UK medical students plans to leave the NHS within 2 years of graduating—either to practise abroad or to abandon medicine altogether—suggest the results of the largest survey of its kind, published in the open access journal BMJ Open. Pay, work-life balance, and working conditions are the key drivers behind the decisions to leave, the responses indicate. The UK has 3.2 doctors for every 1000 people, ranking 25th among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. This figure also represents the lowest number of doctors per head among European ...

Work stress, high workload, and understaffing are the primary factors driving health professionals out of the NHS, suggest the results of a survey published in the open access journal BMJ Open. The findings prompt the researchers to suggest that pay increases alone may not be sufficient to fix NHS staff retention. There are well over 100,000 staff vacancies in the NHS. And worsening retention of NHS health professionals has been attributed to the fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic.  To explore this further, the researchers wanted to assess the relative ...

For significant portions of the globe faced with water shortage problems, a beacon of hope may be on the way: the ability to easily turn hot air into drinking water. For the past few years, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have focused on the moisture present in the air as a potential source of drinking water for drought-stressed populations. In new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they reached a significant breakthrough in their efforts to ...

Milan, Italy: Young people who have used e-cigarettes are more than twice as likely to report experiencing chronic stress, according to research presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Milan, Italy [1].   The study was presented by Dr Teresa To, a senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Canada. She said: “Research is starting to show how vaping affects young people’s physical and mental health. For example, our previous research has shown that those who vape are more likely to suffer an asthma attack. In this study we were particularly interested in the relationship between vaping, ...

Camellia ptilophylla, a low-caffeine or decaffeinated tea, is increasingly being recognized for its potential health benefits. However, there is intraspecific diversity in purine alkaloid and catechins components in C. ptilophylla populations. Analyzing the mechanisms behind the accumulation of these metabolites is important for improving tea quality. Beverage Plant Research published online a paper by Associate Professor Binmei Sun and Shaoqun Liu’s team at South China Agricultural University entitled “Differential accumulation mechanisms of purine alkaloids and catechins in Camellia ptilophylla, a natural theobromine-rich ...

Milan, Italy: For the first time, researchers have shown it is possible to repair damaged lung tissue in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) using the patients’ own lung cells.   The European Respiratory Society International Congress in Milan, Italy [1], heard that 17 patients who took part in a phase I clinical trial were able to breath better, walk further and had better quality of life after receiving the experimental treatment.   COPD kills approximately three million people worldwide every year. It is a severe respiratory disease that involves progressive damage to lung tissue. The affected tissue cannot be repaired ...

Milan, Italy: A study of nearly 500,000 people has shown that smoking shortens the end fragments of chromosomes in the white blood cells of our immune systems. The length of these end fragments, called telomeres, is an indicator of how quickly we age and our cells’ ability to repair and regenerate.   In her presentation to the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Milan, Italy [1], Dr Siyu Dai, who is an assistant professor in the School of Clinical Medicine, Hangzhou Normal University, and also an honorary postdoctoral researcher in the department of paediatrics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, said: “Our study shows that smoking status and ...

https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/CVIA.2023.0056 Announcing a new article publication for Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications journal.  Durable left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) offer a viable option for patients with advanced heart failure and have been demonstrated to be superior to optimal medical therapy in terms of both mortality and quality of life, in selected patients. However, durable LVADs can be associated with severe morbidity. Because the rates of cardiac ...

STARKVILLE, Miss.—How can positive experiences seem like the opposite for some? A doctoral student in Mississippi State University’s Clinical Psychology program believes this phenomenon is true, and his recent research is featured in an upcoming issue of The Journal of Behavioral Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. Michael R. Gallagher’s article “A network analytic investigation of avoidance, dampening, and devaluation of positivity” focuses on how behaviors related to processing positive experiences may play a role ...

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a pervasive endocrine disorder that affects millions of women globally, impacting their hormonal balance, fertility and overall well-being. It is notoriously difficult to treat, with widely varying symptoms and mysterious, complex underlying causes. Researchers at the University of Chicago recently unveiled a potential new PCOS treatment that may improve multiple PCOS symptoms by regulating body systems and reducing inflammation. Recently published results demonstrate the promise ...

DURHAM, N.C. – For much of the last century, many cities across the United States and Canada burned their trash and waste in municipal incinerators. Most of these facilities were closed by the early 1970s due to concerns about the pollution they added to the air, but a new Duke University study finds that their legacy of contamination could live on in urban soils. “We found that city parks and playgrounds built on the site of a former waste incinerator can still have greatly elevated levels of lead in their surface soils many decades after the incinerator was closed,” ...

HOUSTON – (Sept. 11, 2023) A new material that packs deadly heat for viruses on its outer surface while staying cool on the reverse side could transform the way we make and use personal protective equipment (PPE), cutting down the pollution and carbon footprint associated with current materials and practices. The composite, textile-based material developed by Rice University engineers uses Joule heating to decontaminate its surface of coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2 in under 5 seconds, effectively killing at least 99.9% of viruses. Wearable items made from the material can handle hundreds of uses with the potential for a single pair of gloves to prevent nearly ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept. 11, 2023 — A machine-learning algorithm demonstrated the capability to process data that exceeds a computer’s available memory by identifying a massive data set’s key features and dividing them into manageable batches that don’t choke computer hardware. Developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the algorithm set a world record for factorizing huge data sets during a test run on Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Summit, the world’s fifth-fastest supercomputer. Equally efficient on laptops and supercomputers, ...

Researchers at the University of Arizona Cancer Center discovered a new class of iron-targeting compounds that hamper the proliferation of cultured malignant cells in a laboratory setting. The results of the study were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. “Cancer cells are what we call ‘addicted’ to iron, and so we are making compounds that are able to interfere with the availability of iron in cancer cells,” said Elisa Tomat, PhD, professor in the Department of Chemistry ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Experimental physicist David Weld’s experimental research interest lies in a question that has been around for a long time, but which we’re only now approaching the ability to investigate.   “There’s a really old interest in the quantum act of measurement,” he said. “It’s something that’s at the foundations of quantum mechanics and has been puzzling people for more than a century.”   Called the “measurement problem” and famously illustrated by Erwin Schrödinger’s ...

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has selected three Oak Ridge National Laboratory research teams to receive funding through DOE’s new Biopreparedness Research Virtual Environment, or BRaVE, initiative. BRaVE, announced earlier this year, aims to build on biopreparedness research that delivered high-impact results in the fight against COVID-19. In the height of the pandemic, DOE national laboratory scientists combined fields such as biology, high-performance computing and manufacturing to bolster the national supply of personal protective equipment and improve virus testing and treatment. “The advances made ...