DALLAS - May 20, 2021 - An experimental drug that has shown promise in protecting healthy tissue from collateral damage caused by radiation therapy for cancer also appears to enhance radiation's capacity to kill tumors, a new study led by UT Southwestern scientists shows. The findings, published online in Science Translational Medicine, could provide a much-needed boost to the radiation treatments used against a variety of tumor types. The drug, avasopasem manganese (AVA), has already shown promise in clinical trials to prevent a side effect known as acute mucositis. This condition commonly occurs in head and ...

Elephants and lions are iconic species that help raise substantial funds for conservation. However, they also pose significant threats to people, crops, and livestock, and are themselves threatened with extinction. Areas at severe risk are identified In a new article published in the journal Nature Communications, scientists have identified the areas that are most at risk for conflicts between humans and elephants and lions in Africa. They also estimated the associated return on investment of building and maintaining high-quality fences, which are used to reduce conflict between humans and wildlife. Associate Professor Enrico Di Minin, who is the lead author of this article and leads the Helsinki Lab of Interdisciplinary Conservation Science ...

Great tits living in cities are genetically different from great tits in the countryside. This is what researchers have found in a unique study, where they examined populations of great tits in nine large European cities. The researchers compared the city bird genes with the genes of their relatives in the countryside. It did not matter if the great tits lived in Milan, Malmö or Madrid: in order to handle an environment created by humans, the birds evolved in a similar way. Different gene types linked to important biological functions such as cognition and various behaviours regulated by serotonin, including aggression and circadian rhythms, were found to have been selected and passed on from generation to generation. In rural populations, these behaviours are also ...

When the United States issued national stay-at-home guidelines in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, mobility across the country dropped significantly. New research from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) demonstrates that people may be inclined to change their behavior in response to national guidelines, more than state and local policies. "When the next pandemic hits, we need to know what kind of policies are going to have the biggest impact on human behavior and health," said Marianna Linz, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering and of Earth and Planetary Sciences at SEAS and senior author of the paper. "While specific, local ...

Two experimental drug approaches that target vulnerabilities in cancer cell metabolism may extend survival and enhance the effectiveness of standard chemotherapies for a highly aggressive type of pediatric brain cancer. The findings were reported by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers in two published studies. Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor. A subset of patients with tumors known as Group 3 MYC-amplified medulloblastoma have an overall survival rate of less than 25%. In these patients, the cancer-promoting MYC oncogene drives cancer cell growth by altering cancer cell metabolism. Cancer cells use energy in ways that are different from normal cells, ...

Researchers in China, Japan, and Singapore were able to resume research much quicker than their counterparts in the US and Europe after the first covid lockdowns, results of a new international survey suggest. Published 'Open Access' in the peer-reviewed journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, the findings of the 'Survey on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on research activities of materials scientists', which also included a series of podcasts with eminent experts, highlight how severe the impact of lockdowns affected researchers internationally. 33% of respondents had to shut down all equipment. The outcomes were not uniform internationally however, as whilst labs in the UK and parts of the USA, Spain, and India were not accessible ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers have discovered a new coronavirus, found in a child with pneumonia in Malaysia in 2018, that appears to have jumped from dog to human. If confirmed as a pathogen, the novel canine-like coronavirus could represent the eighth unique coronavirus known to cause disease in humans. The discovery also suggests coronaviruses are being transmitted from animals to humans more commonly than was previously thought. "How common this virus is, and whether it can be transmitted efficiently from dogs to humans or between humans, nobody knows," said Gregory Gray, M.D., a professor of medicine, ...

Study lead, Research Associate of the Neurobiology Lab Marat Minlebaev explains, "Our brain is a complex mechanism, and it's important to understand how it works. If we understand how our brain functions, we can put forth new treatment methodologies or prevent pathologies, both congenital and acquired." A number of techniques were used to undertake the research, so, apart from biologists, other scientists were also invited to partake. "Fourth year students Viktoria Shumkova and Violetta Sitdikova conducted experiments and analyzed their results," says Minlebaev. "To implement the idea, new software was ...

Researchers from Russia and Germany have created a genome-wide atlas of developmental alternative splicing changes of seven organs in six mammal species and chicken. The research was published in the journal Nature Genetics. As the protein encoding RNA matures in eukaryotes, it gets spliced, with some parts cut out and the remaining fragments stitched together. Alternative splicing means that the same RNA fragment can either be cut out from or kept within the mature RNA. In this case, one gene can encode several RNAs and, therefore, several proteins. Although alternative splicing is known to be essential for many tissues to develop and function properly and its various disorders may cause health problems, ...

It is ingrained in parents to curtail the hours their children spend in front of the television. Anecdotal evidence suggests that prolonged viewing of television and use of smart gadgets during early years can adversely affect a child's eyesight and behavioral development. However, there is little scientific evidence to support such observations on the effects of excessive television exposure on children's visual acuity. Now, Professor MATSUO Toshihiko (M.D., Ph.D.) and Professor YORIFUJI Takashi (M.D., Ph.D.) from Okayama University describe how such exposure can indeed have detrimental effects on children's eyesight during later years. The researchers used a national database of the Japan Government, based on the annual survey of all children born in the certain period of the ...

Nerves release a protein at the injury site that attracts growing nerve fibers and thus keeps them entrapped there. This prevents them from growing in the right direction to bridge the injury. The research team headed by Professor Dietmar Fischer reports in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) from 25. May 2021. There must be another cause Three main causes for the inability of injured nerves of the central nervous system, or CNS, to regenerate have been known to date: the insufficient activation of a regeneration program in injured nerve cells that stimulates the growth of fibers, so-called axons; the formation of a scar at the site ...

TROY, N.Y. -- Heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death in the United States, and it's increasingly understood that they share common risk factors, including tobacco use, diet, blood pressure, and obesity. Thus, a diagnostic tool that could screen for cardiovascular disease while a patient is already being screened for cancer, has the potential to expedite a diagnosis, accelerate treatment, and improve patient outcomes. In research published today in Nature Communications, a team of engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and clinicians from Massachusetts General Hospital developed a deep learning algorithm that can help assess a patient's risk of cardiovascular disease ...

Herndon, Va. (May 20, 2021) - The international journal Risk Analysis has published a timely special issue for May 2021, "Global Systemic Risk and Resilience for Novel Coronavirus and COVID-19." Featuring 11 papers written for this issue over the past year, the collection represents a sampling of insights and viewpoints from scholars across risk sciences and resilience analytics to guide decision-making and operations related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 11 papers address the breadth of risk sciences represented by the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), including risk perception, risk and resilience, human health and ...

A University of Otago study has revealed how earthquake upheaval has affected New Zealand's coastal species. Lead author Dr Felix Vaux, of the Department of Zoology, says earthquakes are typically considered devastating events for people and the environment, but the positive opportunities that they can create for wildlife are often overlooked. For the Marsden-funded study, published in Journal of Phycology, the researchers sequenced DNA from 288 rimurapa/bull-kelp plants from 28 places across central New Zealand. "All specimens from the North Island were expected to be the species Durvillaea antarctica, but unexpectedly 10 samples from four sites were ...

WASHINGTON--Yellowstone National Park is famous for harsh winters but a new study shows summers are also getting harsher, with August 2016 ranking as one of the hottest summers in the last 1,250 years. The new study drew upon samples of living and dead Engelmann spruce trees collected at high elevations in and around Yellowstone National Park to extend the record of maximum summer temperatures back centuries beyond instrumental records. The findings were published in Geophysical Research Letters, AGU's journal for high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences. The ...

Palo Alto, CA--In a new study, researchers found that recreational boats and high-speed ferries contribute significant underwater noise in San Francisco Bay, a highly urbanized coastline that is increasingly becoming a stop along the migratory routes of gray and humpback whales and home to bottlenose dolphins and harbor porpoises. The study is the first of its kind to use radar to track boats not broadcasting information through the Automatic Identification System (AIS), a navigation safety system required onboard large commercial ships. The findings add to the growing evidence that smaller vessels, ...

Durham, NC -- Bone marrow failure due to acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a significant factor behind the disease's high rate of morbidity and mortality. Previous studies in mice suggest that AML cells inhibit healthy hematopoietic (blood) stem and progenitor cells (HSPC). A study released in STEM CELLS adds to this extent of knowledge by showing how secreted cell factors, in particular a protein called transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGFβ1), leads to a breakdown in the production of healthy blood cells (a process called hematopoiesis) in humans. The study's findings indicate that blocking TGFβ1 could improve ...

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 20, 2021 - As Congress considers legislation to reform prescription drug pricing, a new analysis conducted by the West Health Policy Center and released by its Council for Informed Drug Spending Analysis (CIDSA) estimates that the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act (H.R. 3) could result in hundreds of billions of dollars in lower commercial health insurance costs by 2030.These savings would come from a $195 billion reduction in employer costs and $98 billion in savings for workers. The non-profit, non-partisan West Health Policy Center engaged the actuarial firm Milliman, to analyze the impact of the legislation on stakeholders. Using Milliman's analysis and other data sources West Health ...

In spite of decades of research, cancer remains an enigma. Conventional wisdom holds that cancer is driven by random mutations that create aberrant cells that run amok in the body. In a new paper published this week in the journal BioEssays, Arizona and Australian researchers challenge this model by proposing that cancer is a type of genetic throwback, that progresses via a series of reversions to ancestral forms of life. In contrast with the conventional model, the distinctive capabilities of cancer cells are not primarily generated by mutations, the researchers claim, but ...

Protective immune memory--through B cells, which make antibodies, and/or T cells, which in the case of CD8+ T cells can kill virus-infected cells--can be induced by identical but also by related viruses. Related to the COVID-19 virus SARS-CoV-2, there are four common cold coronaviruses (CCCoVs) that together cause ~20% of common cold infections: OC43, HKU1, 229E, and NL63. Most adults have been infected with CCCoVs multiple times in their lives. Whether or not meaningful CCCoV-induced anti-SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies exist remains a matter of debate. Meanwhile, the generation of T cell memory should depend ...

Syracuse, N.Y. - The COVID-19 death rate for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) is higher than the general population in several states across the U.S., according to a new study published in Disability and Health Journal. The research team that conducted the study analyzed data from 12 U.S. jurisdictions: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Washington, D.C. The death rates were higher in all jurisdictions for those with IDD who live in congregate settings such as residential group homes. The results for ...

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- A new study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and RTI International (RTI) projects that global chronic and hidden hunger will increase the overall years of life lost due to premature mortality and years lived with disability, also known as disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), globally by over 30 million by 2050 relative to 2010. Expected impacts of climate change on the availability and access to nutritious food will exacerbate this change in DALYs by almost 10 percent. Researchers published the findings in an article in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, ...

Data will support BLA filing for afamitresgene autoleucel next year - Responses observed across a broad range of antigen expression - Initial safety and durability are encouraging - PHILADELPHIA, PA., and OXFORDSHIRE, U.K., May 20, 2021 -- Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq:ADAP), a leader in cell therapy to treat cancer, will report initial data from its Phase 2 SPEARHEAD-1 trial, with afamitresgene autoleucel (afami-cel, formerly ADP-A2M4), at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) congress. Full abstracts were released online today. Data will be presented in an oral presentation by Dr. Sandra D'Angelo of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (Abstract #11504) on June 4th. "Patients are seeing substantial ...

Normally, mountain forests are among the most diverse habitats in alpine regions. Yet, as a team from the Alfred Wegener Institute discovered in the Tibetan Plateau, the higher, treeless areas are home to far more species. Their findings, which were just published in the journal Nature Communications, can help to predict how the biodiversity of alpine regions will decline in response to global warming - when the mountain forests spread to higher elevations. As anyone who has ever hiked in the mountains knows, the landscape changes with the elevation. At first, for a long time, you trek uphill through forests, until they open up into the first meadows and pastures, where a wide range of plant species bloom in the spring. Farther up, the landscape becomes more barren. ...

Planned missions to return humans to the Moon need to hurry up to avoid hitting one of the busiest periods for extreme space weather, according to scientists conducting the most in-depth ever look at solar storm timing. Scientists at the University of Reading studied 150 years of space weather data to investigate patterns in the timing of the most extreme events, which can be extremely dangerous to astronauts and satellites, and even disrupt power grids if they arrive at Earth. The researchers found for the first time that extreme space weather events are more likely to occur early in even-numbered solar cycles, and late in odd-numbered cycles - such as the one just starting. They are also ...