UCF Researchers Create Digital Map of Sympathetic Nervous System A team of UCF College of Medicine researchers has created a digital topographical map of the cardiac sympathetic neural network, the region that controls the body’s heart rate and its “fight-or-flight” response. They hope this map will eventually serve as a guide to treat cardiovascular conditions using bioelectronic devices.   The study, led by Dr. Zixi Jack Cheng, a neuro-cardiovascular scientist, was published in the Scientific Reports journal ...

Climate change may be linked to an increase in the emergence of new pandemics, according to a new book published by an internationally recognized College of Medicine microbiologist.  Dr. Salvador Almagro-Moreno has teamed with fellow molecular biologist Dr. Stefan Pukatzki of City University New York – CUNY, to author the book titled Vibro spp. Infections, recently published by Springer Nature and includes the latest scientific research articles in this field from experts worldwide. The book examines the factors associated with ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – April 17, 2023) Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a serious blood disorder affecting millions of people, primarily those of African descent. A mutation in the gene that encodes a subunit of the oxygen-carrying molecule, hemoglobin, causes the disease. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard showed a precise genome editing approach, prime editing, can change mutated hemoglobin genes back to their normal form in SCD patient cells, which restores ...

Reston, VA—The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and 10 other professional societies have issued new appropriate use criteria (AUC) for lymphoscintigraphy in sentinel node mapping and lymphedema/lipedema. The criteria, summarized in the April issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM), include a list of relevant clinical scenarios, a systematic review of evidence in the literature, and a systematic analysis of available evidence, followed by grading each of the clinical scenarios. Sentinel lymph nodes ...

Renowned physicist, engineer and entrepreneur Eli Yablonovitch will visit Utah State University on April 25 for two lectures about his work in the electrical and computer engineering field. Yablonovitch, who is currently a professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley, will present lectures on controlling carbon intake as a solution to climate change and on physics and optimization in the engineering world. The lectures will take place on April 25, at 1 pm and 3 pm respectively. An RSVP form can be found on this webpage. All are encouraged to attend. “Having Dr. Yablonovitch travel to speak to us is a great honor and a great opportunity for us ...

17 April 2023 - Galápagos, Ecuador – Scientists have discovered extensive, ancient deep-sea coral reefs within the Galápagos Marine Reserve (GMR) – the first of their kind ever to be documented inside the marine protected area (MPA) since it was established in 1998. The first reef observed was found at 400-600m (1,310-1,970 feet) depth at the summit of a previously unmapped seamount in the central part of the archipelago and supports a breathtaking mix of deep marine life. Cresting the ridge of a submerged volcano, and stretching over several kilometers, the impressive reef structure was first recorded by Dr. Michelle ...

A new discovery by researchers at the University of Warwick could help stop bacteria being contaminated with viruses, reducing disruption and decreasing costs in industry and research. Bacteria are routinely used in biological and biomedical research. They are crucial in food production and emerging industrial biotechnologies, where bacterial ‘factories’ can be used to produce new materials, medicines and chemicals. Industrial biotechnology uses microorganisms as alternatives to traditional ...

A new study evaluated the effect of hybrid-closed loop Control-IQ technology in the pooled data from three randomized controlled trials, comparing Control-IQ to a control group using continuous glucose monitoring in people with type 1 diabetes. The study, which examined subgroup based on baseline characteristics such as race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, pre-study insulin delivery modality, and baseline glycemic control, is published in the peer-reviewed journal Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics (DTT). Click here to read the article now. Roy W. Beck, MD, PhD, from the JAEB ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have made huge strides in ensuring that red blood cell substitutes – or artificial blood – are able to work safely and effectively when transfused into the bloodstream.  The key is to make the artificial blood molecules big enough so they don’t leak from blood vessels into tissue and cause dangerous cardiovascular side effects, notes a new study led by researchers from The Ohio State University.  Although blood loss is typically treated by transfusing units of donated blood, in cases where transfusions aren’t readily ...

Jinwei Ye, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, received funding from the National Science Foundation for the project: "Collaborative Research: RI: Small: Motion Field Understanding for Enhanced Long-Range Imaging."  Ye is collaborating with Nianyi Li, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Clemson University, and Suren Jayasuriya, Assistant Professor, Arts Media and Engineering, and Assistant Professor, School of Electrical, Energy and Computer Engineering, at Arizona State University.   As ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and National Institutes of Health have launched a study to gain a better understanding of the chronic symptoms of Gulf War Illness. The disease affects multiple systems in the body and includes chronic symptoms such as fatigue, headache, memory and cognitive difficulties, joint and muscle pain, poor sleep, and problems with gastrointestinal and respiratory function. It affects about a third of the nearly 700,000 men and women who served in the Persian Gulf during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. “This is an important collaboration that we hope will lead to many answers to those ...

DALLAS, April 17, 2023 — Legalization of marijuana, for both medical and recreational use, is on the rise across the U.S. The American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, warns that using marijuana may increase your risk of deadly cardiovascular diseases, heart attacks and strokes, according to research evidence noted in two scientific statements published by the Association. The Association’s 2020 scientific statement Medical Marijuana, Recreational Cannabis, and Cardiovascular Health, ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 17-APR-2023 11:00 ET  Basel, April 17, 2023 Using a new approach for studying live embryonic mouse brains at single-cell resolution, researchers have identified an active multi-layer circuit that forms in the cortex during an unexpectedly early stage of development. Perturbing the circuit genetically led to changes similar to those seen in the brains of people with autism. The findings are reported today in Cell by a team based at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel. “Understanding the detailed development of cell types and circuits in the cortex can provide ...

A research model of dietary intake in 184 countries, developed by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, estimates that poor diet contributed to over 14.1 million cases of type 2 diabetes in 2018, representing over 70% of new diagnoses globally. The analysis, which looked at data from 1990 and 2018, provides valuable insight into which dietary factors are driving type 2 diabetes burden by world region. The study was published April 17 in the journal Nature Medicine. Of the 11 dietary factors considered, three had an outsized contribution to the rising global incidence of type 2 diabetes: ...

Scientists can now use light to activate protein functions both inside and outside of living cells. The new method, called light-activated SpyLigation, can turn on proteins that are normally off to allow researchers to study and control them in more detail. This technology has potential uses in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and understanding how the body works. Proteins perform nearly every important task in biology, including processing DNA, metabolizing nutrients, and fighting off infections. When, where, and how proteins become active is important for a variety of biological processes. Increasingly, ...

About The Study: In this national multicenter cohort study of inpatients with COVID-19, early administration of dexamethasone was associated with significantly reduced odds of mortality or discharge to hospice in those requiring supplemental oxygen or mechanical ventilation and/or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation but not in those requiring no supplemental oxygen or noninvasive positive pressure ventilation. These results support the continued use of systemic dexamethasone in patients hospitalized with COVID-19.  Authors: Laine ...

The standard treatment for patients with multiple myeloma often includes stem cell transplantation in which the patient’s own stem cells are harvested and stored while the patient receives intensive chemotherapy to kill the cancer. Then, the patient’s stem cells are returned to the patient to help with recovery. But for a significant proportion of patients, the number of stem cells that can be harvested is not optimal for transplant and negatively affects patient outcomes. However, an international phase 3 clinical trial led by physicians at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown that the investigational ...

Immunotherapy, particularly CAR T-Cell treatment for cancer, is extending the lives of many patients. But sometimes the therapy randomly migrates to places it shouldn’t go, tucking into the lungs or other noncancerous tissue and causing toxic side effects. A University of Rochester/Wilmot Cancer Institute team discovered the molecule responsible for guiding T cells toward tumors, setting the stage for scientists to improve upon the groundbreaking treatment. The next step is to find a drug that can manipulate the ...

Poverty has long been linked to shorter lives. But just how many deaths in the United States are associated with poverty? The number has been elusive – until now. UC Riverside paper published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association associated poverty with an estimated 183,000 deaths in the United States in 2019 among people 15 years and older.  This estimate is considered conservative because the data is from the year just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused spikes in deaths worldwide and continues to take its toll. The analysis found that only heart disease, ...

Self-assembled peptide supramolecular hydrogels have shown great application prospects in various areas, including tissue engineering, drug delivery, and biosensing. Precisely and flexibly controlling the mechanical properties of peptide hydrogels to match the targeted applications is important. The common methods to regulate the mechanical properties of supramolecular hydrogels generally include: changing the formula (different peptide sequences, adding cross-linking agents) or changing the environmental conditions (concentration, temperature, pH and ions), both of which inevitably change the chemical composition of the ...

Bifunctional acid−base catalysts are highly desirable for industrially relevant chemical processes. Owing to their ability to activate electrophiles and nucleophiles simultaneously, they allow the catalysis to proceed synergistically and cooperatively. Solid acid−base catalysts are particularly advantageous since they are reusable and result in no waste products. However, controlling the structure of such catalysts for cooperatively workable active sites is challenging. Simple and effective methods that enable the synthesis of high-performance solid acid−base ...

An international team of researchers from Leibniz University Hannover (Germany), the University of Twente (Netherlands), and the start-up company QuiX Quantum has presented an entangled quantum light source fully integrated for the first time on a chip. “Our breakthrough allowed us to shrink the source size by a factor of more than 1000, allowing reproducibility, stability over a longer time, scaling, and potentially mass-production. All these characteristics are required for real-world applications such as quantum processors,” says Prof. Dr. Michael Kues, head of the Institute ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) find that, when a stroke therapy is linked to a specific kind of lipid and injected into the blood, it is taken up preferentially in the stroke-lesioned brain   Tokyo, Japan – To get therapies into the brain after a stroke, researchers are increasingly making use of the blood–brain barrier, which allows only certain molecules to pass from the blood into the brain. In a study published earlier this year in Molecular Therapy, ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, April 17, 2023 – Scientific research must meet clear ethical guidelines to prevent harm to participants. However, research can also indirectly harm individuals and social groups, for example by shaping social perceptions and inspiring policy. Researchers receive little to no training on how to consider and minimize such harm. To that end, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Dr. Niv Reggev and his international colleagues have published ten simple rules for socially responsible science. The ...

In parts of California’s iconic mountainous coasts, breathtaking beauty is punctuated by brusque signs warning spectators to stay back from unstable cliffs. The dangers of coastal erosion are an all-too-familiar reality for the modern residents of these communities. Now, with a new tool, researchers are bringing historical perspective to the hotly debated topic of how to manage these disappearing coastlines. Using a model that incorporates measurements of the amount of time coastal cliffs and their remnant deposits were exposed at the Earth’s surface, Stanford researchers found that the rate of cliff erosion in the past 100 years is ...