April12, 2021 - Gray wolves are among the largest predators to have survived the extinction at the end of the last ice age around11,700 years ago. Today, they can be found roaming Yukon's boreal forest and tundra, with caribou and moose as their main sources of food. A new study led by the Canadian Museum of Nature shows that wolves may have survived by adapting their diet over thousands of years---from a primary reliance on horses during the Pleistocene, to caribou and moose today. The results are published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. The research team, led by museum palaeontologist Dr. Danielle Fraser and student Zoe Landry, analysed evidence preserved in ...

HOUSTON -- Early phase clinical trials conducted by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center show promising results for patients with RET fusion-positive cancers, high-grade (HGG) and low-grade glioma (LGG) and ovarian cancer. The results, presented today at the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021, showcase the researchers' ongoing efforts to advance clinical studies and expand potential indications of approved drugs to develop a platform for more effective treatments and to improve patient outcomes. FDA-approved selpercatinib shows clinical benefits for RET fusion-positive ...

PHILADELPHIA--Giving early-stage pancreatic cancer patients a CD40 immune-stimulating drug helped jumpstart a T cell attack to the notoriously stubborn tumor microenvironment before surgery and other treatments, according to a new study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania. Changing the microenvironment from so-called T cell "poor" to T cell "rich" with a CD40 agonist earlier could help slow eventual progression of the disease and prevent cancer from spreading in more patients. The data--which included 16 ...

LOS ANGELES -- Early results from a new, pioneering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapy trial led by researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found using a bilateral attack instead of the conventional single-target approach helps minimizes treatment resistance, resulting in long-lasting remission for people with non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma that has come back or has not responded to treatment. The new approach, which will be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting during one of the clinical oral plenary sessions ( END ...

New York, NY (April 10, 2021) - A personalized cancer vaccine developed with the help of a Mount Sinai computational platform raised no safety concerns and showed potential benefit in patients with different cancers, including lung and bladder, that have a high risk of recurrence, according to results from an investigator-initiated phase I clinical trial presented during the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021, held April 10-15. "While immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of cancer, the vast majority of patients do not experience a significant clinical response with such treatments," said study author Thomas Marron, MD, PhD, Assistant Director for Early Phase and Immunotherapy Trials ...

HOUSTON - Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that mutant KRAS and p53, the most frequently mutated genes in pancreatic cancer, interact through the CREB1 protein to promote metastasis and tumor growth. Blocking CREB1 in preclinical models reversed these effects and reduced metastases, suggesting an important new therapeutic target for the deadly cancer. The findings were published today in Cancer Discovery and presented at the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021 by Michael Kim, M.D., ...

Research from Queen Mary University of London has revealed novel insights into the effects of chemotherapy on the tumour microenvironment (TME). The study, published today in Cancer Immunology Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, found that chemotherapy enhances the anti-tumour actions of immune cells within the TME and their ability to support immune responses against cancer. Cancers are not just a mass of cancerous cells, but are rogue organs made up of many different cell types, including cells that form connective tissue and blood vessels, and immune cells. These non-cancerous cells have been recruited and corrupted by the cancer to help it grow and spread, and constitute what ...

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose cancer cells have low levels of aneuploidy - an abnormal number of chromosomes - tend to respond better to immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs than patients with higher levels, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers will report at the virtual AACR Annual Meeting 2021. In analyzing data from hundreds of patients with NSCLC who were treated with these drugs, the researchers found that those whose cancer receded tended to have less aneuploidy in their tumor cells than those whose disease remained stable or worsened. These findings suggest that aneuploidy testing can have an important role in determining which ...

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have shown that a quantity known as "thermoelectric conductivity" is an effective measure for the dimensionality of newly developed thermoelectric nanomaterials. Studying films of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes and atomically thin sheets of molybdenum sulfide and graphene, they found clear distinctions in how this number varies with conductivity, in agreement with theoretical predictions in 1D and 2D materials. Such a metric promises better design strategies for thermoelectric materials. Thermoelectric devices take differences in temperature between different materials and generate electrical energy. The simplest example is two strips of ...

From power grids and telecommunications to water supply and financial systems, digital data controls the infrastructure systems on which society relies. These complex, multi-tier systems depend on layered communications to accomplish their tasks - yet every point of contact becomes a potential target, every path of information a potential weak spot for malicious actors to attack. A team of researchers from the University of Calabria in Italy has developed the first predictive control scheme that can help distributed networks with multiple agents not only identify these ...

Active surveillance leads to improved quality of life Men with low health literacy seven times less likely to accept active surveillance Prostate cancer and active surveillance patient education is needed Tumor gene profiling is a tool that can help patients with a cancer diagnosis make informed decisions about treatment. In predominantly white populations, among men with early stage, favorable-risk prostate cancer, these tools have been shown to increase patient acceptance of active surveillance -- a common, evidence-based approach to monitor the tumor before a more aggressive treatment, like surgery or radiation. However, ...

A new study finds older adults who received positive airway pressure therapy prescribed for obstructive sleep apnea may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of dementia. Researchers from Michigan Medicine's Sleep Disorders Centers analyzed Medicare claims of more than 50,000 Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older who had been diagnosed with OSA. In this nationally representative study, they examined if those people who used positive airway pressure therapy were less likely to receive a new diagnosis of dementia or mild cognitive impairment over the next 3 years, compared to people who did ...

Auroral displays continue to intrigue scientists, whether the bright lights shine over Earth or over another planet. The lights hold clues to the makeup of a planet's magnetic field and how that field operates. New research about Jupiter proves that point -- and adds to the intrigue. Peter Delamere, a professor of space physics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, is among an international team of 13 researchers who have made a key discovery related to the aurora of our solar system's largest planet. The team's work was published April 9, 2021, in the journal Science Advances. The research paper, titled "How Jupiter's unusual magnetospheric topology structures its aurora," was written by Binzheng ...

For the first time, researchers have been able to obtain data from underneath Thwaites Glacier, also known as the "Doomsday Glacier". They find that the supply of warm water to the glacier is larger than previously thought, triggering concerns of faster melting and accelerating ice flow. With the help of the uncrewed submarine Ran that made its way under Thwaites glacier front, the researchers have made a number of new discoveries. Professor Karen Heywood of the University of East Anglia commented: "This was Ran's first venture to polar regions and her exploration of the waters under the ice shelf was much more successful than we had dared to hope. We plan to build on these exciting findings ...

Tick-borne encephalitis is a disease just as nasty as it sounds. Once bitten by an infected tick, some people develop flu-like symptoms that resolve quietly but leave behind rampant neurological disease--brain swelling, memory loss, and cognitive decline. Cases are on the rise in Central Europe and Russia with some 10,000 incidents reported each year. Vaccines can provide protection, but only for a limited time. There is no cure.   Now a new study describes antibodies capable of neutralizing the virus transmitted by tick bites. These so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies have shown promise in preventing TBE in mice and could inform the development of better vaccines for humans. ...

Children may not be as infectious in spreading SARS-CoV-2 to others as previously thought, according to new University of Manitoba-led research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Our findings have important public health and clinical implications," writes principal investigator Dr. Jared Bullard, associate professor, pediatrics/child health and medical microbiology/infectious diseases, Max Rady College of Medicine, University of Manitoba and associate medical director, Cadham Provincial Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. "If younger children are less capable of transmitting infectious virus, daycare, in-person school and cautious extracurricular activities may be safe to continue, with appropriate precautions in place, ...

When setting SARS-CoV-2 vaccine priorities, Canada should take a more nuanced approach that considers geographic and occupational risk exposures, as 75% of Canadian adults have at least 1 risk factor for severe COVID-19, argues an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Using risk factors for severe COVID-19 in a strategic vaccination strategy may not offer much refinement because of how widespread these conditions are. More detailed weighting of medical, geographic and occupational risks might be required if vaccination is constrained," writes Dr. Finlay McAlister, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, with coauthors. "In particular, since the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic appears ...

Excessive CO2 emissions are a major cause of climate change, and hence reducing the CO2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere is key to limit adverse environmental effects. Rather than just capture and store CO2, it would be desirable to use it as carbon feedstock for fuel production to achieve the target of "net-zero-emissions energy systems". The capture and conversion of CO2 (from fuel gas or directly from the air) to methane and methanol simply using water as a hydrogen source under ambient conditions would provide an optimal solution to reduce excessive CO2 ...

BOSTON -- Videos of people experiencing severe neurological symptoms, including convulsions and difficulty walking, purportedly after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, have surfaced on Facebook, YouTube and other social media channels. The millions of people watching these videos might conclude that the vaccine is either quite dangerous to produce such symptoms or that the people in the videos are faking their symptoms. Both conclusions are incorrect, according to neurologist and psychiatrist David Perez, MD, MMSc, director of the Functional Neurological Disorders Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). In a JAMA Neurology Viewpoint, the authors explain that the COVID-19 vaccine may precipitate the development of functional neurological disorder (FND), a neuropsychiatric disorder with ...

Study: "How Do Weighted Funding Formulas Affect Charter School Enrollments?" Author: Paul Bruno (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) This study was presented today at the American Educational Research Association's 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting. Main Findings: The adoption of a school funding system in California that increased revenues for schools enrolling higher-need students led to an increase in the rate at which charter schools enrolled low-income students. This effect was concentrated among charter schools initially enrolling low-income students at relatively low rates, suggesting that some charters "cream skim" high achieving, wealthier students, but that such behavior also can be mitigated. Details: For many, the expansion of charter schooling since the early ...

It's time for a more nuanced approach to vaccine prioritization, as more contagious COVID-19 variants become prevalent and a third wave of infections threatens to overwhelm hospitals in some provinces, according to an END ...

Over the past decade, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has revolutionized genetic engineering, allowing scientists to make targeted changes to organisms' DNA. While the system could potentially be useful in treating a variety of diseases, CRISPR-Cas9 editing involves cutting DNA strands, leading to permanent changes to the cell's genetic material. Now, in a paper published online in Cell on April 9, researchers describe a new gene editing technology called CRISPRoff that allows researchers to control gene expression with high specificity while leaving the sequence of the DNA unchanged. Designed by Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman, University of California San Francisco assistant professor Luke Gilbert, Weissman lab postdoc James Nuñez and collaborators, ...

What The Study Did: This survey study examines wh0 U.S. adults believe should be prioritized for access to COVID-19 vaccines. Authors: Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.7943) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media advisory: The ...

What The Study Did: In this observational study, data are used to assess the association of demographic and clinical characteristics with severe COVID-19 illness among hospitalized U.S. pediatric patients with COVID-19. Authors: Alyson B. Goodman, M.D., of the COVID-19 Response Team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.5298) Editor's Note:  Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict ...

What The Study Did: Genome analysis was performed on SARS-CoV-2 RNA from seven patients in a long-term care facility who were asymptomatic at the time of screening. Authors: Baha Abdalhamid, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.7939) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media ...