Immunotherapy is rapidly becoming a well-founded form of cancer treatment as it employs and strengthens a patient’s immune system to attack tumors.  Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells – genetically altered T cells used in immunotherapy that can locate and destroy cancer cells – show great promise. Yet they still struggle in broader applications, particularly in attacking non-tumor cells and persistence in killing tumor cells.  Natasa Miskov-Zivanov, principal investigator and assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, received a $299,986 EAGER ...

Writing in the May 22, 2023 issue of Cell Systems, a diverse team of scientists, led by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, have produced a novel map that depicts the human body’s enormously complicated and highly evolved system for addressing and repairing DNA damage — a cause and consequence of many diseases. Damage to DNA and replication errors caused by stress and other factors play a major role in disease, and are a hallmark of cancer and other afflictions. To maintain the ...

Philosopher Thomas Kuhn’s influential theory of how scientific knowledge is built introduced the term “paradigm shift” to explain a transformation of a field’s ideas and methods. “A Paradigm Shift, or a Paradigm Adjustment? The Evolution of the Oleaceae Mating System as a Small-Scale Kuhnian Case Study,” a new paper published in The Quarterly Review of Biology, seeks to apply this analytical framework to a small controversy in population biology: the mating system of the shrub Phillyrea angustifolia. Traditional theory states that the sex ratio of a population should be 1:1 male to female (or ...

The ordinary person looks at Georgia’s Stone Mountain and sees a solid, unmovable monolith. Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin, who thinks in geologic time, sees something more akin to a giant sugar cube. Ever since the crystalized mass of igneous-born minerals rose from deep underground, pushed by the upwelling of magma that formed the Blue Ridge Mountains around 350 million years ago, the giant rock’s flanks have faced continuous assault — and not just from weather and water. Stone Mountain “is fighting a battle against life, and life is winning,” Martin writes ...

Sepsis is a global health priority affecting 55 million patients worldwide and causing 11 million deaths annually. Treatment for sepsis may include prompt recognition, source control, antibiotics, fluids, vasopressors, and adjunctive therapies. Corticosteroids have been evaluated as adjunctive therapy for septic shock for more than 50 years. Despite this substantive body of research, uncertainty persists about the effects of corticosteroids on mortality. In a study publishing May 22, 2023 in the New England Journal of Medicine: ...

Doctors are one step closer to having a risk biomarker to alert them to which of their pediatric stem cell transplant patients are likely to experience a potentially deadly side effect called sinusoidal obstruction syndrome (SOS). A team led by MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researcher Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., published the results of its biomarker study in JCI Insight this month. There is a drug, defibrotide, approved to treat SOS. Paczesny hopes the results of the biomarker study will encourage defibrotide’s manufacturer to conduct a multicenter clinical trial testing ...

First Contact: Global team simulates message from extraterrestrial intelligence to Earth A Sign in Space imagines how Earth might respond to a signal from aliens and invites the public to help decode an ET message. May 22, 2023, Mountain View, CA – What would happen if we received a message from an extraterrestrial civilization? Daniela de Paulis, an established interdisciplinary artist and licensed radio operator who currently serves as Artist in Residence at the SETI Institute and the Green Bank Observatory, has brought ...

“This research uncovers GPR141 as a stimulator of breast tumorigenesis and metastasis, making it a candidate target for breast cancer therapeutics.” BUFFALO, NY- May 22, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on May 19, 2023, entitled, “G-protein-coupled receptor 141 mediates breast cancer proliferation and metastasis by regulating oncogenic mediators and the p-mTOR/p53 axis.” Breast cancer morbidity is surging towards the peak in females across the globe. An inherent property of cancer cells is enhanced cell proliferation rate and migration capability, leading to deregulated cell ...

SAN FRANCISCO, May 22, 2023 – New research, published online today in the American Journal of Psychiatry, provides the most robust and comprehensive evidence to date that children exposed to early psychosocial deprivation benefit substantially from family-based care. Senior author Kathryn L. Humphreys, Ph.D., discussed this work today at a special briefing during the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. Results of research from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, the ...

Baltimore, MD—New research led by Carnegie’s Yixian Zhen and Minjie Hu reveals how coral cells tag friendly algae before ingesting them, initiating a mutually beneficial relationship. This information could guide next-level coral conservation efforts.   Their work is published in Nature Microbiology.  Corals are marine invertebrates that build large exoskeletons from which reefs are constructed. But this architecture is only possible because of a mutually beneficial relationship between the coral and various species of single-celled algae called dinoflagellates ...

Controlling traumatic situations is synonymous with the daily duties of first responders, yet many mental health programs to combat the increasing stress they encounter are lacking. That’s why West Virginia University researchers are identifying steps policymakers and community members can take to aid front-line workers. “With elevated risk for suicide and other mental health issues among first responders, we have a significant public health problem,” said Michael Fisher, assistant professor in the WVU School of Public Health ...

Excess sugar hampers cells that renew the colon’s lining in a mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a new study by University of Pittsburgh scientists. The findings, published in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, could help get to the bottom of why limiting sugary foods can ease symptoms for patients with IBD. “The prevalence of IBD is rising around the world, and it’s rising the fastest in cultures with industrialized, urban lifestyles, which typically have diets high in sugar,” said senior author Timothy Hand, Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics and immunology at Pitt’s ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study has identified the bee’s knees of bumble bee dietary options in Ohio and the Upper Midwest. By viewing almost 23,000 bumble bee-flower interactions over two years, researchers found that these bees don’t always settle for the most abundant flowers in their foraging area – suggesting they have more discerning dietary preferences than one might expect. Being large, strong and social bees that can fly for long distances, bumble bees are major contributors to pollination, particularly for agriculture – but like other pollinators threatened by habitat ...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease characterized by joint deterioration. The clinical outcomes of patients with active RA can be improved using anti-rheumatic medications, such as methotrexate (MTX). Many patients rely on MTX to limit the destructive joint damage and functional disability typical of RA. Although the drug is a folic acid antagonist, its precise mechanisms in RA patients are largely unknown. Previous research suggests that MTX also affects a type of white blood cell called CD4+ T cells. These cells are believed to play a role in the development of RA—specifically, the balance between the activation of interleukin-17-producing helper T ...

Robert Weigel, Professor, Physics and Astronomy, received funding for: "Infrastructure Development, Maintenance, and Outreach for the Heliophysics Application Programmer's Interface (HAPI)." Weigel will facilitate HAPI adoption by upcoming missions by providing targeted instrument team support. He will create additional HAPI server reference implementations. He will create a meta-server to facilitate an integrated HAPI ecosystem. He will create higher-level services that build on the uniformity afforded by HAPI ...

Two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, Earth experienced a mass extinction so devastating that it’s become known as “the Great Dying.” Massive volcanic eruptions triggered catastrophic climate change, killing off nine out of every ten species and eventually setting the stage for the dinosaurs. But the Great Dying was a long goodbye-- the extinction event took place over the course of up to a million years at the end of the Permian period. During that time, the fossil record shows drama and upheaval as species fought to get a foothold in their changing environments. One animal that exemplifies ...

“We are confident and hope that this can be one of many tools that doctors need to tackle antibiotic resistance, which is a serious and growing problem,” says principal investigator Vicent Pelechano, associate professor at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet. The method is called 5PSeq, is simple to use, and is based on sequencing the messenger RNA (mRNA) that the bacteria break down as they synthesise proteins. The measurements reveal how the bacteria are affected by different environmental factors, such as antibiotic treatments and other types ...

Researchers have cloned the wheat rust resistance genes Lr9 and Sr43 and identified that they encode unusual kinase fusion proteins[1][2]. Their research will enable new options for addressing resistance to disease in bread wheat. Each year about 20 percent of global wheat production is lost to pests and disease, the equivalent of 3,500 grain ships. Breeding resistant cultivars is one of the most economical and environmentally friendly ways to address the problem. The wild relatives of wheat provide a ...

The law should take into consideration neuroscientific evidence that suggests fear and threat can cause victims to become ‘frozen’ in cases of rape or sexual assault, argue UCL experts. In a comment article, published in Nature Human Behaviour, Professor Patrick Haggard and former UCL undergraduate, Ebani Dhawan, state that victims of sexual assault are often blamed for not fighting or fleeing their attackers. Thirty per cent of women are thought to experience sexual assault or rape in their lifetime. And, of those who have attended an emergency clinic, 70% reported being “frozen” during ...

Curbside recycling can compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from garbage destined for landfills, says a new study that encourages towns and cities to continue offering recycling services to meet their climate goals.   The study’s authors took a deep dive into the economic and environmental value of community recycling efforts and compared it to the value of other climate change mitigation practices. They concluded that recycling provides a return on investment similar to or better than environmentally friendly strategies like transitioning to electric vehicles or purchasing green power, which is electricity from clean, renewable energy sources.  “Eliminating ...

FINDINGS The commonly used Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX), which includes self-identified race and ethnicity information, and the Osteoporosis Self-Assessment Tool (OST), which does not, had suboptimal performance in determining major osteoporotic fracture risk across racial/ethnic categories in younger postmenopausal women. But OST was excellent for identifying who had osteoporosis within each racial/ethnic category.    BACKGROUND The researchers sought to compare the ability of FRAX and OST ...

About The Study: The results of this cross-sectional study suggest that trends in mental health diagnoses among children and adolescents in the U.S. differed greatly by age and sex over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Female youth, especially female adolescents, represented the most vulnerable population with regard to marked increases in the prevalence of mental health diagnoses during the pandemic, the most pronounced being the prevalence of eating disorders.  Authors: Loreen Straub, M.D., M.S., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard ...

About The Study: Among 20 health outcomes that were monitored in near real time in this study including more than 3 million children ages 5 to 17 who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, a safety signal was identified for only myocarditis or pericarditis. Consistent with other published reports, these results provide additional evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are safe in children.  Authors: Steven A. Anderson, Ph.D., M.P.P., of the Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, ...

About The Study: In this study of 1,050 pregnant women and their neonates, vaginal human papillomavirus (HPV) was frequently detected in pregnant women. Perinatal transmission was infrequent, and in this cohort, no infection detected at birth persisted at six months. Although HPV was detected in placentas, it remains difficult to differentiate contamination versus true infection.  Authors: Helen Trottier, M.Sc., Ph.D., of the Universite de Montreal in Montreal, is the corresponding author. To ...

A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego has developed the first fully integrated wearable ultrasound system for deep-tissue monitoring, including for subjects on the go. It facilitates potentially life-saving cardiovascular monitoring and marks a major breakthrough for one of the world’s leading wearable ultrasound labs. The paper, “A fully integrated wearable ultrasound system to monitor deep tissues in moving subjects,” is published in the May 22, 2023 issue of Nature Biotechnology. “This project gives a complete solution to wearable ultrasound technology—not ...