A form of gene therapy protects optic nerve cells and preserves vision in mouse models of glaucoma, according to research supported by NIH's National Eye Institute. The findings suggest a way forward for developing neuroprotective therapies for glaucoma, a leading cause of visual impairment and blindness. The report was published in Cell. Glaucoma results from irreversible neurodegeneration of the optic nerve, the bundle of axons from retinal ganglion cells that transmits signals from the eye to the brain to produce vision. Available therapies slow vision loss by lowering elevated eye pressure, however some glaucoma progresses to blindness despite normal eye pressure. Neuroprotective therapies would be a leap forward, meeting ...

Advances in microscopy have enabled researchers to picture loops of DNA strands for the first time. The images reveal how the human genome organises itself in three-dimensional space at much higher resolution than previously possible. The findings, published in a new study in the journal Molecular Cell, also reveal that the process of DNA being copied into RNA - transcription - indirectly shapes the architecture of the genome. An international team led by Pia Cosma at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona and Melike Lakadamyali at the Perelman ...

Manipulating RNA can allow plants to yield dramatically more crops, as well as increasing drought tolerance, announced a group of scientists from the University of Chicago, Peking University and Guizhou University. In initial tests, adding a gene encoding for a protein called FTO to both rice and potato plants increased their yield by 50% in field tests. The plants grew significantly larger, produced longer root systems and were better able to tolerate drought stress. Analysis also showed that the plants had increased their rate of photosynthesis. "The change really is dramatic," said University of Chicago Prof. Chuan He, who together with Prof. Guifang Jia at Peking University, led ...

A new study showed that a wearable computer vision device can reduce collisions for both people who are blind or those who are visually impaired and using a long cane and/or guide dog by 37 percent, compared to using other mobility aids alone. People who have visual impairments are at a significantly higher risk for collisions and falls. Commonly used mobility aids like long canes and guide dogs can offer benefits, but come with limitations in effectiveness and costs, respectively. While some electronic devices are marketed direct-to-consumer claiming to warn wearers of surrounding objects, there has been little evidence of their effectiveness in actual daily mobility settings. This is one of the first randomized-controlled trials to look at the potential benefit of the ...

What The Study Did: This study included 647 patients with untreated nonmetastatic prostate cancer (269 patients during the pandemic and 378 from before the pandemic). During the initial COVID-19 lockdown, only 1% of Black men underwent prostatectomy, while 26% of white patients did. Prior to the pandemic, there was no difference in the rate of prostatectomy between the two races (18% of Black men and 19% of white men). The lessons from this study suggest systemic inequities within health care and are likely applicable across medical specialties. Public health efforts are needed to fully recognize the unintended consequence of diversion of cancer resources to the COVID-19 pandemic to develop balanced mitigation strategies as viral rates continue to fluctuate. Authors: ...

Drought can have a lasting impact on the community of microbes that live in and around roots of rice plants, a team led by UC Davis researchers has found. Root-associated microbes help plants take up nutrients from the soil, so the finding could help in understanding how rice responds to dry spells and how it can be made more resilient to drought. The work is published July 22 in Nature Plants. The root microbiome of irrigated rice plants goes through a sequence of changes as the plants grow and stabilizes when they flower. The sequence of changes in the root ...

Restoration of degraded drylands is urgently needed to mitigate climate change, reverse desertification and secure livelihoods for the two billion people who live there, experts warn in a major new paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Scientists leading the Global Arid Zone Project examined restoration seeding outcomes at 174 sites on six continents, encompassing 594,065 observations of 671 plant species - with the lessons learned important to meeting ambitious future restoration targets. Flinders University Dr Martin Breed, one of three Australian researchers who helped coordinate ...

LONDON, 22 July 2021 - DeepMind today announced its partnership with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Europe's flagship laboratory for the life sciences, to make the most complete and accurate database yet of predicted protein structure models for the human proteome. This will cover all ~20,000 proteins expressed by the human genome, and the data will be freely and openly available to the scientific community. The database and artificial intelligence system provide structural biologists with powerful new tools for examining a protein's three-dimensional structure, and offer a treasure trove of data that could unlock future advances and herald a new era for AI-enabled biology. AlphaFold's recognition in December 2020 by the ...

Newly-hatched pterosaurs may have been able to fly but their flying abilities may have been different from adult pterosaurs, according to a new study. Pterosaurs were a group of flying reptiles that lived during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods (228 to 66 million years ago). Due to the rarity of fossilised pterosaur eggs and embryos, and difficulties distinguishing between hatchlings and small adults, it has been unclear whether newly-hatched pterosaurs were able to fly. Researchers from the Universities of Portsmouth and Bristol, along with palaeontologist Darren Naish, found that hatchling humerus bones were stronger than those of many adult pterosaurs, indicating ...

The Alum Shale of Northern Europe not only has an eventful history of formation, connected with the microcontinent Baltica, it also holds great potential as an object of investigation for future research questions. Geologists use the rock to reconstruct processes of oil and gas formation, and even possible traces of past life on Mars can be identified with its help. Researchers at the German Research Centre for Geosciences Potsdam GFZ, together with colleagues from Canada, China, Switzerland and Denmark, have summarised the state of knowledge about the multi-layered rock. Their article was published in July in the journal Earth-Science Reviews. The Microcontinent Baltica "This rock tells a story," says Hans-Martin Schulz when he talks about the Northern European Alum Shale. It is ...

Astronomers using two of the world's most powerful radio telescopes have made a detailed and sensitive survey of a large segment of our home galaxy -- the Milky Way -- detecting previously unseen tracers of massive star formation, a process that dominates galactic ecosystems. The scientists combined the capabilities of the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and the 100-meter Effelsberg Telescope in Germany to produce high-quality data that will serve researchers for years to come. Stars with more than about ten times the mass of our Sun are important components of the Galaxy ...

Around 470 million years ago, plants began to conquer the terrestrial surfaces. The first examples had a small axis terminated by a structure capable of forming spores, almost like current mosses. The appearance of plant organs mediated the explosive radiation of land plants, which shaped the surface of our planet and allowed the establishment of terrestrial animal life. However, evolving such a diversity of organs, such as roots, leaves, or immobile gametes, requires coordinated genetic changes: rise of new genes, repurpose of genetic material, and development of new regulatory programs. In a study published in Nature Plants, a consortium ...

A new study increases knowledge of the genetics behind aortic aneurysm, a disease that can spark life-threatening events like aortic dissections and ruptures. University of Michigan Health-led researchers compared blood samples from more than 1,300 people who had a thoracic aortic aneurysm with more than 18,000 control samples, in partnership with U-M's Cardiovascular Health Improvement Project and its Michigan Genomics Initiative. "After examining nearly the entire human genome for genetic changes that increase risk of aneurysm, we discovered a new change in the genetic code of a transcription factor, ...

Around 50,000 people suffer sudden cardiac arrest in Germany every year. When occurring outside a hospital, the chances of survival are only ten percent. Survivors often suffer from severe permanent neurological damage. On July 21st, 2021, researchers from the Faculty of Medicine - University of Freiburg, Germany, published together with German and US colleagues a review article in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience. They describe the most important therapeutic factors for successful resuscitation. The scientists name the therapy concept based on these factors ...

Key Takeaways A survey of American College of Surgeons members found almost two-thirds treat firearm injuries and more than 85 percent support the organization advocating for policies to reduce firearm-related injuries. Forty-two percent of ACS members keep firearms in their homes and nearly one-third (32 percent) of surgeon firearm owners store firearms unlocked and loaded. Survey findings will enable the ACS to identify ways to engage all members, including gun owners, and advocate for initiatives that prevent firearm-related injuries. CHICAGO (July 22, 2021): In what may be the largest survey of physician attitudes about firearms and how firearm-owning surgeons store guns in their homes, U.S. members of the American College of Surgeons ...

Scientists at Cambridge and Leeds have successfully reversed age-related memory loss in mice and say their discovery could lead to the development of treatments to prevent memory loss in people as they age. In a study published today in Molecular Psychiatry, the team show that changes in the extracellular matrix of the brain - 'scaffolding' around nerve cells - lead to loss of memory with ageing, but that it is possible to reverse these using genetic treatments. Recent evidence has emerged of the role of perineuronal nets (PNNs) in neuroplasticity - the ability of the brain to learn and adapt - and to make memories. ...

In the depths of space, there are celestial bodies where extreme conditions prevail: Rapidly rotating neutron stars generate super-strong magnetic fields. And black holes, with their enormous gravitational pull, can cause huge, energetic jets of matter to shoot out into space. An international physics team with the participation of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now proposed a new concept that could allow some of these extreme processes to be studied in the laboratory in the future: A special setup of two high-intensity laser beams could create conditions similar to those found near neutron stars. In ...

Over the last few decades, neurodegenerative diseases became one of the top 10 global causes of death. Researchers worldwide are making a strong effort to understand neurodegenerative diseases pathogenesis, which is essential to develop efficient treatments against these incurable diseases. However, our knowledge about the basic molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases is still lacking. A team of researchers found out the implication of lysosomes in the spread of Parkinson's disease. The accumulation of misfolded protein aggregates in affected brain regions is a common hallmark shared by several neurodegenerative diseases (NDs). Mounting evidence in cellular and in animal models highlights the capability ...

Artificial intelligence tools and deep learning models are a powerful tool in cancer treatment. They can be used to analyze digital images of tumor biopsy samples, helping physicians quickly classify the type of cancer, predict prognosis and guide a course of treatment for the patient. However, unless these algorithms are properly calibrated, they can sometimes make inaccurate or biased predictions. A new study led by researchers from the University of Chicago shows that deep learning models trained on large sets of cancer genetic and tissue histology data can easily identify the institution that submitted the images. The models, which use machine learning methods to "teach" themselves how to recognize certain cancer signatures, ...

Replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, depends on a series of interactions between viral proteins and different cellular partners such as nucleic acids (DNA or RNA). Characterizing these interactions is crucial to elucidate the process of viral replication and identify new drugs for treating COVID-19. An interdisciplinary consortium of scientists from the Institut Pasteur, the Ecole Polytechnique, the Institut Curie, Inserm, the CNRS and the universities of Paris, Paris-Saclay, Bordeaux and Toulouse have demonstrated a specific interaction between a domain of a SARS-CoV-2 protein (Nsp3) and ...

When Alexander Flemming discovered a mould on a culture plate overgrown with bacteria in 1928, he did not expect to find one of the most widely used active substances: penicillin. Accidental discoveries and the identification of active ingredients from traditional remedies, such as the morphine of the opium poppy, have shaped the discovery of new medicines for a long time. Modern drug discovery - from chance to system Meanwhile, major developments in chemistry and molecular biology have been made that enable a systematic and targeted search for potential active substances in modern drug discovery. First, advances in the field of organic and ...

TROY, N.Y. -- An innovative testing platform that more closely mimics what cancer encounters in the body may allow for more precise, personalized therapies by enabling the rapid study of multiple therapeutic combinations against tumor cells. The platform, which uses a three-dimensional environment to more closely mirror a tumor microenvironment, is demonstrated in research published in Communications Biology. "This whole platform really gives us a way to optimize personalized immunotherapy on a rapid, high throughput scale," said Jonathan Dordick, Institute Professor of chemical and biological engineering and member of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, ...

It's a favourite first-order for the day, but while a quick coffee may perk us up, new research from the University of South Australia shows that too much could be dragging us down, especially when it comes to brain health. In the largest study of its kind, researchers have found that high coffee consumption is associated with smaller total brain volumes and an increased risk of dementia. Conducted at UniSA's Australian Centre for Precision Health at SAHMRI and a team of international researchers*, the study assessed the effects of coffee on the brain among 17,702 UK Biobank participants (aged 37-73), finding that those who drank more than six cups of coffee a day had a 53 per cent increased risk of dementia. Lead researcher and UniSA PhD candidate, ...

Silicon, a semi-metal, bonds in its natural form with four other elements and its three-dimensional structure takes the form of a tetrahedron. For a long time, it seemed impossible to achieve the synthesis and characterisation of a two-dimensional equivalent - geometrically speaking, a square. Now scientists from the field of Inorganic Chemistry at Heidelberg University have succeeded in producing a crystalline complex with such a configuration. PD Dr Lutz Greb from the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry underlines that it has surprising physical and chemical properties and, in the field of molecular chemistry, will open up new approaches to using the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust for catalysis and materials research. As a classical ...

The touchscreen technology used in billions of smartphones and tablets could also be used as a powerful sensor, without the need for any modifications. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have demonstrated how a typical touchscreen could be used to identify common ionic contaminants in soil or drinking water by dropping liquid samples on the screen, the first time this has been achieved. The sensitivity of the touchscreen sensor is comparable to typical lab-based equipment, which would make it useful in low-resource settings. The researchers say their proof of concept could one day be expanded for a wide range of sensing applications, including for biosensing or medical diagnostics, right from the phone in your pocket. The results are reported ...