Researchers have discovered new connections between the gut and brain that hold promise for more targeted treatments for depression and anxiety, and could help prevent digestive issues in children by limiting the transmission of antidepressants during pregnancy.  The study, published in the journal Gastroenterology, shows that increasing serotonin in the gut epithelium—the thin layer of cells lining the small and large intestines—improves symptoms of anxiety and depression in animal studies. The researchers also found ...

NEW YORK, NY (Dec. 11, 2024)--Most of us have experienced the effects of moods and emotions on our gastrointestinal tract, from “butterflies” in the stomach caused by nervousness to a loss of appetite when we’re feeling blue. A new study in animals suggests that targeting antidepressant medications to cells in the gut could not only be an effective treatment of mood disorders like depression and anxiety but may also cause fewer cognitive, gastrointestinal, and behavioral side effects for patients and their children than current treatments. “Antidepressants like Prozac and Zoloft that raise serotonin levels are important first-line ...

The highly anticipated PROSPECT-Lung trial has officially opened, marking a significant step forward in the quest to improve treatment strategies for patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer. The trial, which is the first to open through the newly formed National Cancer Institute (NCI) Clinical Trials Innovation Unit (CTIU), aims to evaluate the role of immunotherapy before and after surgery in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. The PROSPECT-Lung trial is a large, multicenter trial developed and led by the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology and the SWOG Cancer Research Network and conducted within the NIH-funded NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN), ...

The Welch Foundation, one of the nation’s leading private funders of basic chemistry research, has awarded the 2025 Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research to Haotian Wang, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. Wang is recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to carbon dioxide electrochemistry, which pave the way for sustainable energy solutions. Wang’s innovative research focuses on harnessing the catalyst-electrolyte ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — State employee health plans could have saved $7.1 billion nationwide by capping hospital payments at 200% of Medicare rates in 2022, a study led by researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health found. “States are under growing budgetary pressure due to rising health care spending, primarily through increases in hospital and drug prices,” said study author Roslyn Murray, an assistant professor of health services, policy and practice ...

Reston, VA (December 10, 2024)—Radionuclide therapy delivered directly to an artery is safe and feasible for patients with advanced meningioma, according to new research published in the December issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. In the first long-term study of intraarterial peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) in advanced meningioma, patients saw improved radiologic and clinical disease control compared with intravenous PRRT, with no additional toxicity. Meningiomas are the most common primary neoplasms of the central nervous system and account for more than one-third of all cases. Meningiomas are mostly ...

The University of Tennessee and the University of Sheffield recently signed a memorandum of understanding to facilitate educational and research collaborations, share best practices, and promote student and staff exchanges between the institutions.   Tickle College of Engineering Dean Matthew Mench, the Wayne T. Davis Dean’s Chair, traveled to England in late November to tour the Sheffield facilities, meet with faculty, and sign the MOU with Malcolm Butler, the vice president and director of global engagement of the University of Sheffield.  There ...

WILMINGTON, Del. (December 11, 2024) — A quality improvement program designed to increase earlier uptake of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine raised vaccination rates significantly, according to a study by Nemours Children’s Health researchers. In a new study published in Academic Pediatrics, Caitlin J. Miller, medical student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and Jonathan Miller, MD, Associate Chief of Primary Care, Nemours Children’s ...

Nova School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE) has partnered with NYU Tandon School of Engineering  to  create a transatlantic program focusing on two strategic and complementary fields: Management (Nova SBE) and Management of Technology (NYU Tandon). This new program allows students to earn distinct master’s degrees from two of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions, located in key cultural and economic centers: Lisbon and New York.  Under this partnership agreement, students enrolled in either the International Master’s in Management or the Master’s in Management (both from Nova SBE) ...

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA — SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, has announced Morgan Fogarty, who is expected to receive her PhD in Imaging Science from Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) in February, as the recipient of the 2025 SPIE-Franz Hillenkamp Postdoctoral Fellowship in Problem-Driven Biomedical Optics and Analytics. The annual award of $75,000 supports interdisciplinary problem-driven research and provides opportunities for translating new technologies ...

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that in 2023 a staggering 40,990 people died from motor vehicle crashes in the United States, reflecting some of the highest numbers seen in nearly two decades. The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego is creating programs to improve safety for all roadway users, including drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. With support from two grants from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) through the NHTSA, the school is developing an educational program geared towards Native American youth as well as new online courses to improve ...

A groundbreaking new database could lead to vast improvements in precision oncology by documenting sex-based differences in cancer treatment efficacy, biomarkers, risk factors, and microbial influences across 71 cancer types. The database — created by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), Yale School of Medicine (YSM), and international collaborators — addresses a significant gap in current research and demonstrates how biological sex can comprehensively impact cancer onset, progression, and therapeutic outcomes, the researchers said. The ...

Biomedical engineering professor Silvia Salinas Blemker, widely regarded as a leader in her field, has been elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, recognizing her ability to turn research into tools that make a tangible difference. Her work zeroes in on muscle health, offering tools to help athletes bounce back, patients recover and researchers dive deeper into understanding muscle diseases. At the core of Blemker’s contributions is her development of advanced techniques quantify and understand muscle using a combination of imaging and advanced modeling and data science techniques. For example, she ...

A new study details generational health trends among adolescents and young adults in the U.K. The study, published December 11, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Olivia Righton from King’s College London, U.K., and colleagues, has broad implications for reducing health disparities and designing targeted public health interventions. Optimizing health in women and men before conception can improve pregnancy outcomes, reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases in both parents, and improve childhood health. Prior research has shown that many women ...

U.S. veterans report average happiness levels of 5.41 out of 7, with greater happiness most associated with reporting greater purpose in life, lower depressive symptoms, and higher optimism, emotional stability, and resilience ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0313609 Article Title: Happiness in US military veterans: Results from a nationally representative study Author Countries: U.S. Funding: Preparation of this report was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 1IK1CX002532-01 (PJN). Funders did not play any role in the ...

German survey respondents rated images of tattooed models as less beautiful than images of the same models with no tattoos, however younger people, tattoo artists and those with body art tolerated more ink, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on December 11, 2024 by Selina M. Weiler and colleagues from Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Germany. Tattoos are a millennia-old practice estimated to adorn up to one in four people in the world today. The 1950s saw a resurgence of this once-marginalized medium in Western culture, with widespread acceptance ...

A research group led by Johannes Müller at the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, at Kiel University, Germany, have shed light on the lives of people who lived over 5,600 years ago near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Published on December 11, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the researchers present the first detailed bioarchaeological analyses of human diets from this area and provide estimations on the causes of death of the individuals found at this site. The people associated with the Neolithic Cucuteni-Trypilla culture lived across Eastern Europe from approximately 5500 to 2750 BCE. With up to 15,000 inhabitants, some of their mega-sites are ...

A new approach to treat rosacea and other inflammatory skin conditions could be on the horizon, according to a University of Pittsburgh study published today in Science Translational Medicine. The researchers found that a compound called SYM2081 inhibited inflammation-driving mast cells in mouse models and human skin samples, paving the way for new topical treatments to prevent itching, hives and other symptoms of skin conditions driven by mast cells. “I’m really excited about the clinical possibilities of this research,” said senior author Daniel Kaplan, M.D., Ph.D., professor ...

In the future, delivering therapeutic drugs exactly where they are needed within the body could be the task of miniature robots. Not little metal humanoid or even bio-mimicking robots; think instead of tiny bubble-like spheres.   Such robots would have a long and challenging list of requirements. For example, they would need to survive in bodily fluids, such as stomach acids, and be controllable, so they could be directed precisely to targeted sites. They also must release their medical cargo only when they reach their target, and then be absorbable by the body without causing harm.   Now, ...

Metabolic imaging is a noninvasive method that enables clinicians and scientists to study living cells using laser light, which can help them assess disease progression and treatment responses.  But light scatters when it shines into biological tissue, limiting how deep it can penetrate and hampering the resolution of captured images.  Now, MIT researchers have developed a new technique that more than doubles the usual depth limit of metabolic imaging. Their method also boosts imaging speeds, yielding richer and more detailed images. This new technique does not require tissue to be ...

Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa have discovered an 18-digit code that allows proteins to attach themselves to exosomes - tiny pinched-off pieces of cells that travel around the body and deliver biochemical signals. The discovery, published in Science Advances, has major implications for the burgeoning field of exosome therapy, which seeks to harness exosomes to deliver drugs for various diseases. “Proteins are the body’s own home-made drugs, but they don’t necessarily travel well around the body,” said Dr. Michael Rudnicki, senior ...

The black box of the human brain is starting to open. Although animal models are instrumental in shaping our understanding of the mammalian brain, scarce human data is uncovering important specificities. In a paper published in Cell, a team led by the Jonas group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and neurosurgeons from the Medical University of Vienna shed light on the human hippocampal CA3 region, central for memory storage. Many of us have relished those stolen moments with a grandparent by the fireplace, our hearts racing to the intrigues of their stories from good old times, recounted with vivid imagery ...

A new class of magnetism called altermagnetism has been imaged for the first time in a new study. The findings could lead to the development of new magnetic memory devices with the potential to increase operation speeds of up to a thousand times. Altermagnetism is a distinct form of magnetic order where the tiny constituent magnetic building blocks align antiparallel to their neighbours but the structure hosting each one is rotated compared to its neighbours.  Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astonomy have shown that this new third class ...

A complete blood count (CBC) screening is a routine exam requested by most physicians for healthy adults. This clinical test is a valuable tool for assessing a patient’s overall health from one blood sample. Currently, the results of CBC tests are analyzed using a one-size-fits-all reference interval, but a new study led by researchers from Mass General Brigham suggests that this approach can lead to overlooked deviations in health. In a retrospective analysis, researchers show that these reference intervals, or setpoints, are unique to each patient. The study revealed that one healthy ...

When it comes to the human body, form and function work together. The shape and structure of our hands enable us to hold and manipulate things. Tiny air sacs in our lungs called alveoli allow for air exchange and help us breath in and out. And tree-like blood vessels branch throughout our body, delivering oxygen from our head to our toes. The organization of these natural structures holds the key to our health and the way we function. Better understanding and replicating their designs could help us unlock biological insights for more effective drug-testing, and the development of new therapeutics and organ replacements. Yet, biologically engineering tissue ...