A novel targeted immunotherapy approach developed by researchers at the Ludwig Center, the Lustgarten Laboratory, and Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center employs new antibodies against genetically altered proteins to target cancers. The researchers targeted their immunotherapy approach to alterations in the common cancer-related p53 tumor suppressor gene, the RAS tumor-promoting oncogene or T-cell receptor genes. They also tested the therapy on cancer cells in the laboratory and in animal tumor models. Their findings are reported in three related studies published March 1 in Science Immunology, Science and Science Translational Medicine. Two ...

Scientists have identified that the COVID-19 virus could be transmitted through faecal contaminated river water. A team of researchers, including water quality, epidemiology, remote sensing and modelling experts, led by Dr Jamie Shutler at the University of Exeter, have developed a fast and simple way to assess the potential risk of water-borne transmission of the COVID-19 virus, posed by sewage spills into open and closed freshwater networks. The new study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology - Water, identifies the relative risk of viral transmission by sewerage spills, across 39 different counties. The study used information on the environment, a population's infection rate, and water usage to calculate the potential potency of ...

Plants grow towards the light. This phenomenon, which already fascinated Charles Darwin, has been observed by everyone who owns houseplants. Thus, the plant ensures that it can make the best use of light to photosynthesize and synthesize sugars. Similarly, the roots grow into the soil to ensure that the plant is supplied with water and nutrients. These growth processes are controlled by a hormone called "auxin", which plays a key role in the formation of polarity in plants. To do this, auxin is transported in the plant body polar, from the shoot through the plant body into the roots. In this process, a family of polar transport proteins distributes the auxin throughout the plant. To ...

The cover for issue 49 of Oncotarget features Figure 4, "CART-Tree analysis for overall survival in IMDC intermediate risk group," by Guida, et al.recently published in "Identification of international metastatic renal cell carcinoma database consortium (IMDC) intermediate-risk subgroups in patients with metastatic clear-cell renal cell carcinoma" which reported that as these patients have different prognosis, the aim of this study is to better characterize IR patients in order to better tailor the treatment. A multivariable Cox model with backward selection procedure and a Classification and Regression Tree analysis were performed to identify which prognostic factors were associated to OS in IR patients. Median OS for patients with ...

Oncotarget recently published "Exploiting the metabolic dependencies of the broad amino acid transporter SLC6A14" which reported that Tumor cells typically enhance their metabolic capacity to sustain their higher rate of growth and proliferation. One way to elevate the nutrient intake into cancer cells is to increase the expression of genes encoding amino acid transporters, which may represent targetable vulnerabilities. The Oncotarget authors analyze the pattern of transcriptional changes in a panel of breast cancer cell lines upon metabolic stress and found that SLC6A14 expression levels are increased in the absence of methionine. Methionine deprivation, which can be achieved via modulation of dietary methionine intake in tumor cells, in turn leads to a heightened ...

Oncotarget recently published "Effect of liver fibrosis on survival in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: a SEER population-based study" which reported that the impact of fibrosis on overall and cancer-specific survival 12, 36, and 60 months following diagnosis, was evaluated in the entire cohort and in subgroups stratified according to treatment approach and the American Joint Committee on Cancer tumor stage using a Cox proportional-hazards model. After adjusting for age, sex, race, year of diagnosis, AJCC stage, and surgical treatment strategy, advanced fibrosis was associated with worse cancer-specific survival across follow-up periods. Similar effects were observed for overall survival. Among patients that underwent surgical resection, ...

CHICAGO --- Public attitude toward COVID-19 and its treatments is more "infectious" than the disease itself, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze tweets about the virus. Researchers studied the influence of Twitter on COVID-19 health beliefs as well as the competing influence of scientific evidence versus the speeches of politicians. The study's key findings: People's biases are magnified when they read tweets about COVID-19 from other users, and the more times it has been retweeted, the more they tend to believe it and retweet it themselves. Scientific ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - March 1, 2021 - There is a growing recognition in health care that social factors such as racial bias, access to care and housing and food insecurity, have a significant impact on people's health. Compounding and amplifying those underlying inequalities are the ongoing disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest in our country. Although many health care organizations (National Academy of Medicine, American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics) currently recommend that screening for social determinants of health (SDH) be included in clinical care, medical education has lagged ...

What The Study Did: Researchers assessed the recruitment and results reporting of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to treat or prevent COVID-19 registered within 100 days of the first case reported to the World Health Organization. Authors: Lars G. Hemkens, M.D., M.P.H., of the University Hospital Basel in Basel, Switzerland, 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.2021.0330) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please ...

Researchers from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Nanjing Normal University recently reported a strategy for boosting the electrocatalytic performance of palladium (Pd) in ethanol oxidation reaction, the key anodic reaction of direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs), offering a rational concept for finely engineering the surface of electrocatalysts used in high-efficiency energy conversion devices and beyond. The study was published in Cell Reports Physical Science on Mar. 1. DEFCs, with ethanol as fuel, have the advantage of high energy density, low toxicity and easy operation. However, the lack of active and robust electrocatalysts ...

Rising temperatures could reduce the efficiency of food chains and threaten the survival of larger animals, new research shows. Scientists measured the transfer of energy from single-celled algae (phytoplankton) to small animals that eat them (zooplankton). The study - by the University of Exeter and Queen Mary University of London, and published in the journal Nature - found that 4°C of warming reduced energy transfer in the plankton food webs by up to 56%. Warmer conditions increase the metabolic cost of growth, leading to less efficient energy flow through the ...

Researchers in the Muir Lab at Princeton University's Department of Chemistry have completed the first comprehensive analysis of cancer-associated histone mutations in the human genome, featuring both biochemical and cellular characterizations of these substrates. Their study reports that histone mutations that perturb nucleosome remodeling may contribute to the development or progression of a wide range of human cancers. Within the human genome, DNA is wrapped around disc-shaped structures made up of eight histone proteins, each forming nucleosomes. Repeating nucleosome units comprise chromatin, a storehouse of genetic information that is both structured and dynamic. Broadly, the Muir Lab seeks to understand how chromatin controls genetic processes in the cell and how disruption ...

MADISON, Wis. -- Grafting neurons grown from monkeys' own cells into their brains relieved the debilitating movement and depression symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported today. In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, the UW team describes its success with neurons made from induced pluripotent stem cells from the monkeys' own bodies. This approach avoided complications with the primates' immune systems and takes an important step toward a treatment for millions of human Parkinson's patients. "This result in primates is ...

Extreme rainfall associated with climate change is causing harm to babies in some of the most forgotten places on the planet setting in motion a chain of disadvantage down the generations, according to new research in Nature Sustainability. Researchers from Lancaster University and the FIOCRUZ health research institute in Brazil found babies born to mothers exposed to extreme rainfall shocks, were smaller due to restricted foetal growth and premature birth. Low birth-weight has life-long consequences for health and development and researchers say their findings are evidence of climate extremes causing intergenerational disadvantage, especially for socially-marginalized Amazonians in forgotten places. Climate extremes can affect the health of mothers and their unborn babies in ...

BINGHAMTON, NY -- Neandertals -- the closest ancestor to modern humans -- possessed the ability to perceive and produce human speech, according to a new study published by an international multidisciplinary team of researchers including Binghamton University anthropology professor Rolf Quam and graduate student Alex Velez. "This is one of the most important studies I have been involved in during my career", says Quam. "The results are solid and clearly show the Neandertals had the capacity to perceive and produce human speech. This is one of the very few current, ongoing research lines relying on fossil evidence to study the evolution of language, a notoriously ...

More than 20 million people 65 years and older present to emergency departments each year in the United States. Roughly one third of those patients are admitted to the hospital often because they cannot be safely discharged to their home. For an older patient, hospitalization comes with the increased risk of infection, falls, delirium, functional decline and death. Hospitalizations also come with increased cost to the patient, provider and payer. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the average cost of an inpatient hospital stay is more than $13,800 per Medicare beneficiary. As the U.S. population ages, more hospitals are implementing geriatric emergency ...

As the planet warms, scientists expect that mountain snowpack should melt progressively earlier in the year. However, observations in the U.S. show that as temperatures have risen, snowpack melt is relatively unaffected in some regions while others can experience snowpack melt a month earlier in the year. This discrepancy in the timing of snowpack disappearance--the date in the spring when all the winter snow has melted--is the focus of new research by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. In a new study published March 1 in the journal Nature Climate ...

For the first time, scientists have assessed how many corals there are in the Pacific Ocean--and evaluated their risk of extinction. While the answer to "how many coral species are there?" is 'Googleable', until now scientists didn't know how many individual coral colonies there are in the world. "In the Pacific, we estimate there are roughly half a trillion corals," said the study lead author, Dr Andy Dietzel from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (Coral CoE at JCU). "This is about the same number of trees in the Amazon, or ...

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO Toronto, ON - Children in the United States who have more screen time at ages 9-10 are more likely to develop binge-eating disorder one year later, according to a new national study. The study, published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders on March 1, found that each additional hour spent on social media was associated with a 62% higher risk of binge-eating disorder one year later. It also found that each additional hour spent watching or streaming television or movies led to a 39% ...

HANOVER, N.H. - March 1, 2020 - During World War II, British intelligence agents planted false documents on a corpse to fool Nazi Germany into preparing for an assault on Greece. "Operation Mincemeat" was a success, and covered the actual Allied invasion of Sicily. The "canary trap" technique in espionage spreads multiple versions of false documents to conceal a secret. Canary traps can be used to sniff out information leaks, or as in WWII, to create distractions that hide valuable information. WE-FORGE, a new data protection system designed at Dartmouth's Department ...

Assessing a drug compound by its activity, not simply its structure, is a new approach that could speed the search for COVID-19 therapies and reveal more potential therapies for other diseases. This action-based focus -- called biological activity-based modeling (BABM) -- forms the core of a new approach developed by National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) researchers and others. NCATS is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Researchers used BABM to look for potential anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents whose actions, not their structures, are similar to those of compounds already shown to be effective. NCATS scientists ...

The hidden social, environmental and health costs of the world's energy and transport sectors is equal to more than a quarter of the globe's entire economic output, new research from the University of Sussex Business School and Hanyang University reveals. According to analysis carried out by Professor Benjamin K. Sovacool and Professor Jinsoo Kim, the combined externalities for the energy and transport sectors worldwide is an estimated average of $24.662 trillion - the equivalent to 28.7% of global Gross Domestic Product. The study found that the true cost of coal should be more than twice as high as current prices when factoring in the currently unaccounted ...

A study by two researchers at the UPF Department of Political and Social Sciences (DCPIS) has examined the effect of selecting party leaders by direct vote by the entire membership (a process known in southern Europe as "primaries" and in English-speaking countries as "one-member-one -vote", OMOV) on the likelihood of a woman winning a leadership competition against male rivals. Javier Astudillo and Andreu Paneque, a tenured lecturer and PhD with the DCPIS, respectively, and members of the Institutions and Political Actors Research Group, are the authors of the article published recently in the journal ...

TROY, N.Y. -- The era of widespread remote learning brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic requires online testing methods that effectively prevent cheating, especially in the form of collusion among students. With concerns about cheating on the rise across the country, a solution that also maintains student privacy is particularly valuable. In research published today in npj Science of Learning, engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrate how a testing strategy they call "distanced online testing" can effectively reduce students' ability to receive help from one another in order to score higher on a test taken at individual homes during social distancing. "Often in remote online exams, students ...

A group of researchers including Tiago Falótico, a Brazilian primatologist at the University of São Paulo's School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH-USP), archeologists at Spain's Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) and University College London in the UK, and an anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, have published an article in the Journal of Archeological Science: Reports describing an analysis of stone tools used by bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) that inhabit ...