Serious heart attacks are more likely to happen at the start of the working week than at any other time, according to new research presented today at the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) conference in Manchester.   Doctors at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland analysed data of 10,528 patients across the island of Ireland (7,112 in the Republic of Ireland, 3,416 in Northern Ireland) admitted to hospital between 2013 and 2018 with the most serious type of heart attack. This is known as an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and occurs when a major coronary artery is completely blocked.   The researchers ...

Testing older potential organ donors for dangerous ‘zombie’ cells could help to increase the number of hearts available for transplant, according to research part-funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and presented at the British Cardiovascular Society conference in Manchester.  Currently, hearts from donors aged over 65 are not accepted for donation due to the likelihood of a poor clinical outcome. However, our hearts age at different rates and age isn’t necessarily the best indicator of heart health.   Researchers ...

Do whales increase the removal of carbon from the atmosphere?  Despite some hope that this would be the case, a new study led by Griffith University and a team of global researchers has found the amount of potential carbon capture by whales is too little to meaningfully alter the course of climate change.  Marine scientist Dr Olaf Meynecke and the team from the Griffith-led Whales and Climate Research Program including Professor Brendan Mackey and Dr Jasper De Bie, reviewed the primary ways in which baleen whales (such as humpback whales) removed atmospheric carbon ...

Key takeaways A targeted therapy drug called vorasidenib had positive results in delaying progression of a specific form glioma, a slow-growing but deadly brain cancer. In a study of 331 people with the disease, the drug was effective in lengthening the period of time before the patients’ cancer worsened, and with no observed adverse effects. New treatment approaches for glioma are needed because current treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation, can cause neurological deficits. In ...

An unprecedented investment by the University of Sydney, Australia will support up to 40 new continuing positions, empowering the world’s most talented emerging researchers to undertake innovative research to address some of the biggest challenges of our time. A $100 million investment and a cornerstone of the University’s 2032 Strategy, the Sydney Horizon Fellowship scheme is the first of its kind in Australia and among the most generous university fellowships in the world. “The Sydney ...

CHICAGO – Over the past decade, the approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized treatment for patients with advanced lung cancer, helping many live longer lives and improving overall survival for the disease. However, an important question has remained unanswered: How long should a patient with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), who receives immunotherapy as part of their initial treatment, continue with treatment? A new retrospective cohort study, published today in JAMA Oncology and presented at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting (Abstract ...

About The Study: The findings of this study provide reassurance that for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer whose disease is still responding to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy at two years, stopping therapy and monitoring rather than continuing immunotherapy indefinitely is a reasonable strategy with sustained clinical benefit.  Authors: Lova Sun, M.D., M.S.C.E., of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania 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/jamaoncol.2023.1891) Editor’s ...

Presented today by VHIO’s Ana Oaknin at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting, 2-6 June (Chicago, IL),  updated dose expansion data of the STRO-002-GM1 global phase I study* show promise of FolRα-targeting antibody drug conjugate (ADC) luveltamab tazevibulin in patients with recurrent FolRα-expressing epithelial ovarian cancer.   80% of patients included in this study presented with FolRα expression levels higher than 25%. The overall response rate among these patients was 43.8% in the dose expansion cohort, with a median duration of response ...

Carbon-based stimuli-responsive nanomaterials are gaining much attention due to their versatility, including disease diagnosis and treatment. They work under endogenous (pH, temperature, enzyme, and redox) or exogenous (temperature, light, magnetic field, ultrasound) stimuli. Carbon-based stimuli-responsive nanomaterials can be used as smart materials with dynamically tunable physicochemical properties in response to changes in internal or external environmental stimuli. Their diverse combinations of nanostructures and molecular designs, as well as functional ...

ABSTRACT: 4008 CHICAGO ― HER2-targeted bispecific antibody zanidatamab demonstrated durable responses in patients with treatment-refractory HER2-positive biliary tract cancer (BTC), researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. The study results also were published today in The Lancet Oncology. In the first cohort of the global Phase II HERIZON-BTC-01 trial, which included 80 patients with HER2-positive tumors, the confirmed objective response rate (cORR) was 41% with a median duration of response (DOR) of 12.9 months at a median follow-up of 12.4 months. ...

Survival rate beyond 10 years in children with drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) was highest after cranial epilepsy surgery and lowest when treated only with antiseizure medications, according to a study published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health. This large, retrospective study was the first to compare long-term survival in children with DRE among cohorts treated with medications only, vagus nerve stimulation plus medications, and cranial epilepsy surgery plus medications. Results show that risk of early death was reduced by over 80 percent after surgery and by 40 percent after ...

When one thinks of movie reviews, one might see them as harbingers of success or failure at the box office. Some researchers have previously found that both positive and negative reviews correlate to box office revenues, and the effect of negative reviews diminishes over time. However, researchers at the University of California, Davis, suggest that is not the case. Researchers analyzed pre-release commentary and opening weekend box office revenue, turning  the impact of movie reviews on its head and revealing an unexpected harbinger of failure phenomenon in the movie industry.  The study, ...

Bile duct cancers are uncommon and aggressive types of gastrointestinal cancer. They include cholangiocarcinomas, which can form inside or outside of the liver, as well as cancers of the gallbladder, and are highly likely to cause serious disease or prove fatal. Bile duct cancers affect the biliary tract, which consists of organs and ducts that make and store bile and release it into the small intestine. They are known as “silent” cancers, because there are usually no symptoms until they reach later stages. Surgery can be effective if bile duct cancer is caught early, ...

June 2, 2023   Contact: Emily Gowdey-Backus, 978-934-3369 or Emily_GowdeyBackus@uml.edu Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu   Startups to unveil cutting-edge point-of-care technologies at Boston medtech event   Medtech and life sciences entrepreneurs and investors forging the future of health care will come together Tuesday, June 6, to showcase pioneering technologies and grow the region’s medtech ecosystem.   The 2023 Point of Care Showcase and Pitch Event will be a free, in-person program beginning at 2 p.m. at Mintz, 1 Financial Center, 40th Floor, Boston, to introduce ...

A team of researchers from EPFL have found a way to use the phenomenon of strong gravitational lensing to determine with precision – about 3 times more precise than any other technique – the mass of a galaxy containing a quasar, as well as their evolution in cosmic time. Knowing the mass of quasar host galaxies provides insight into the evolution of galaxies in the early universe, for building scenarios of galaxy formation and black hole development. The results are published in Nature ...

BOSTON – Various medications can be prescribed to lower blood sugar levels in individuals at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes, but it’s often unclear which patients will benefit most from which drugs. In a study published in Diabetologia, investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), founding member of Mass General Brigham (MGB), identified genetic variants associated with response to two such drugs: metformin and glipizide. The findings may help personalize ...

Twenty-five teachers from Redlands Unified School District in southern California recently completed training in integrating computer science into math education through a joint program offered by the University of California, Davis, and UC Riverside Extension. The Joint Computer Science Supplementary Teaching Credential Authorization Program has helped Redlands address gaps in student opportunity and achievement, and teachers’ skills. “Improving math instruction for student success is the most challenging task in education. Redlands partnered with UC Davis to make math instruction with ...

The Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors (RECIST), used in many clinical trials to evaluate changes in tumor burden over time, classify objective tumor response into one of four categories (complete or partial response, or stable or progressive disease) based on the percent of change in the sum of the longest diameters of a set of target lesions.  An analysis of data from the SWOG S1609 trial conducted by the NCI-funded National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) finds that in patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors, survival times correlate linearly with that change, rather than exhibiting threshold effects ...

A new study from researchers in the Khurana lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, in close collaboration with researchers from the Ritz lab at UCLA and the Rubin lab at Harvard University, identified pesticides that could be relevant to the development of Parkinson’s disease. The study was led by Richard Krolewski, MD, PhD, a neurologist in the Brigham’s Division of Movement Disorders and Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, and Kimberly ...

Among patients with extensive stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) that is positive for expression of the Schlafen-11 gene (SLFN11), those who received maintenance atezolizumab immunotherapy plus the PARP inhibitor talazoparib had significantly longer progression-free survival (PFS) times than those who received atezolizumab alone (median PFS 4.2 months versus 2.8 months). These results from the phase II S1929 trial conducted by the SWOG Cancer Research Network, a clinical trials group funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), will be reported ...

Oncology specialists from around the globe will gather for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting to discuss the latest cancer therapies, technologies, research and education.      The theme this year is Partnering With Patients: The Cornerstone of Cancer Care and Research. More than 30,000 people are expected to attend the meeting taking place in Chicago and online June 2-6, 2023.     “As the world’s leading clinical cancer meeting, ASCO is an important event for oncology professionals to share information on the latest ...

Multiple sclerosis has traditionally been considered a condition that predominantly affects white people of European ancestry. However, a new analysis conducted by a North American team led by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers suggests that the debilitating neurological condition is more prevalent in Black Americans than once thought. It is also far more prevalent in Northern regions of the country including New England, the Dakotas, and the Pacific Northwest. Findings from the new study were recently published in the journal JAMA Neurology. “We found a much higher prevalence of multiple sclerosis in Black Americans than previously ...

New results from a study led by USC researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles show that a sensory adapted dental clinic environment creates less distressing oral care experiences for autistic children. The open-access article is available today in JAMA Network Open. “We’ve shown that the combination of curated visual, auditory and tactile adaptations — all of which are easily implemented, relatively inexpensive and don’t require training to safely use — led to statistically significant decreases in autistic children’s behavioral ...

Key takeaways: A UCLA study shows that a the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social interactions, both virtual and in person, declined significantly for married couples. The decline was found to be greater and more long-lasting for Black and Latino couples and lower-income couples than for white couples and wealthier couples. The researchers suggest exploring new ways of protecting public health during crises that also help more vulnerable populations sustain meaningful relationships. Following the lockdowns and restrictions on public gatherings in the early days of COVID-19, the social networks of white, ...

Predicting a protein’s location within a cell can help researchers unlock a plethora of biological information that’s critical for developing future scientific discoveries related to drug development and treating diseases like epilepsy. That’s because proteins are the body’s “workhorses,” largely responsible for most cellular functions. Recently, Dong Xu, Curators Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Missouri, and colleagues updated their protein localization prediction model, MULocDeep, ...