SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — April 7, 2023 — A trio of premier Southwest biomedical research centers — HonorHealth Research Institute, City of Hope and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), part of City of Hope — have developed a more precise method that may help determine when it is best to surgically remove of pancreatic cancer tumors. Surgical removal of the tumor can be a key step in helping extend the survival of patients with pancreatic cancer, one of the most aggressive and deadly of all malignancies and the nation’s third leading cause of cancer-related death. Currently, surgery — or surgery plus  chemotherapy ...

Philadelphia, April 7, 2022—A regulatory class of human T cells descends from two different origins, one that relates to autoimmunity and one that relates to protective immunity, according to a new study led by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The findings, published today in Science Immunology, could pave the way for new treatments for autoimmune diseases that target the immune system selectively. “When it comes to autoimmunity, the prevailing wisdom has been that the only way to stop inflammation ...

Researchers have spotted how specific proteins within the chromosomes of roundworms enable their offspring to produce specialized cells generations later, a startling finding that upends classical thinking that hereditary information for cell differentiation is mostly ingrained within DNA and other genetic factors. The Johns Hopkins University team reports for the first time the mechanisms by which a protein known as histone H3 controls when and how worm embryos produce both highly specific cells and pluripotent cells, cells that can turn certain genes on ...

A team of scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) has identified a stress-regulated gene that plays a role in the link between long-term stress and a common type of depressive behavior in mice. Specifically, this gene was needed for long-term stress to produce a loss of interest in activities that were once rewarding or pleasurable – often called anhedonia. However, the gene did not play a role in other common depressive-like symptoms, such as social avoidance and increased anxiety-like behavior. The team reported its findings recently in eLife. The study was led by neuroscientists Makoto Taniguchi, Ph.D., and Christopher Cowan, Ph.D., and also ...

Common wisdom suggests that a core difference between solitude and loneliness is choice. Whereas a person who appreciates solitude might choose to enjoy a quiet night in or a solo trip abroad, a lonely person may feel disconnected from other people even in a crowded room. New research published in Psychological Science supports this notion, suggesting that lonely people may think differently regardless of the size of their social networks.  “We found that lonely individuals are exceptionally dissimilar to their peers in the way that they process the world around them … ...

Context and Background Teaching has historically been a licensed profession in which a limited number of schools of education were typically housed in universities and offered a traditional path to certification (Kleiner, 2000). However, 30 years of documented teacher shortages in the United States resulted in federal and state policies that reduce barriers to teacher licensure (Cross, 2017). The goal of these policies is to create a larger pool of new teachers in less time than it typically takes schools of education to produce ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, describes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, two chronic diseases that cause inflammation in the intestines. IBD, which affects about 3 million adults in the United States, is an autoimmune disorder — a condition in which the body’s immune system attacks healthy tissues. Its symptoms include diarrhea, rectal bleeding, fatigue, weight loss, and stomach cramps. The intestinal epithelium, made up of a layer of cells that lines the intestine, plays an important role in IBD because it can be easily disrupted during gut inflammation. A specialized ...

Alagille syndrome, a genetic disease estimated to affect 1 in 30,000 individuals, is caused by mutations in the gene JAG1 in most cases. The mutations affect multiple organs including the liver where it often results in cholestasis, a condition in which the flow of bile from the liver stops or slows, leading to bile buildup that in time causes liver damage. Current treatments focus on delaying disease progression; the only cure for liver disease in Alagille syndrome is liver transplantation. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions have discovered a strategy that prevents liver damage in animal ...

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is an aggressive blood cancer that causes uncontrolled accumulation of white blood cells. Because of the poor outcomes of this disease, researchers across the globe have been on the hunt for new ways to treat AML, while preserving normal blood development. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions report in the journal Cancer Research a new vulnerability of this cancer that can be targeted with a class of experimental drugs. These drugs target a protein complex called SWI/SNF, which many cells use to make DNA more open and accessible. ...

East Hanover, NJ – April, 7 2023 – People with disabilities maintained their record labor force participation rate in March, continuing to outperform people without disabilities, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). Year-to-year, people with and without disabilities showed gains in employment, reflecting the economy’s ongoing recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 ...

A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Scripps Research and the University of Chicago has identified an antibody that appears to block infection by all dominant variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, including Omicron, the most recent. Their discovery could lead to more potent vaccines and new antibody-based treatments.  In a study published March 6 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, senior author Dr. Patrick Wilson, the Anne E. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Research and a member of the Gale and Ira ...

April 7, 2023 – For patients with advanced bladder cancer who are medically unfit for standard treatment, a new intravesical (inside the bladder) chemotherapy delivery system called TAR-200 is safe and shows initial evidence of effectiveness, reports a study in the May issue of The Journal of Urology®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. TAR-200 is a drug-device combination product that is inserted into the bladder and provides continuous, low-dose, local delivery of chemotherapy. "Our preliminary clinical trial found that TAR-200 was generally safe, well tolerated, and had ...

A NASA instrument to provide unprecedented resolution of monitoring major air pollutants – down to four square miles – lifted off on its way to geostationary orbit at 12:30 a.m. EDT Friday. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument will improve life on Earth by revolutionizing the way scientists observe air quality from space.   "The TEMPO mission is about more than just studying pollution – it's about improving life on Earth for all. By monitoring the effects of everything from rush-hour traffic to pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, NASA data will help improve air quality across North America and protect ...

PHILADELPHIA – The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) today announced its newly elected class of Fellows of the AACR Academy. The mission of the AACR Academy is to recognize and honor distinguished scientists whose scientific contributions have propelled significant innovation and progress against cancer. Fellows of the AACR Academy serve as a global brain trust of top contributors to cancer science and medicine who help advance the mission of the AACR to prevent and cure all cancers through research, education, communication, collaboration, science policy and advocacy, and funding for cancer research. All Fellows are nominated and elected ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new look at decades of data from museum collections and surveys of leaf-litter ants in Florida reveals a steady decline in native ants and simultaneous increase in nonnative ants – even in protected natural areas of the state, researchers report. The study tracked leaf-litter ant abundance from 1965 to 2019. Nonnative ants represented 30% of the 177 ground-dwelling species detected in surveys across the state in later years, the team reports. Their dominance grew most notably in southern Florida, where ...

A team of researchers compared the genomes of woolly mammoths with modern day elephants to find out what made woolly mammoths unique, both as individuals and as a species. The investigators report April 7 in the journal Current Biology that many of the woolly mammoth’s trademark features—including their woolly coats and large fat deposits—were already genetically encoded in the earliest woolly mammoths, but these and other traits became more defined over the species’ 700,000+ year existence. They also identified a gene with several mutations that may have been ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial, anakinra did not prevent the need for mechanical ventilation or reduce mortality risk compared with standard of care alone among hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Future research should assess anakinra in patients with less severe pneumonia.  Authors: Patricia Fanlo, M.D., Ph.D., of the Hospital Universitario de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

About The Study: This national-level analysis found substantial adverse maternal outcomes among pregnant patients with COVID-19 infection at delivery during the early pandemic in the U.S. Specifically, the odds of severe respiratory complications were increased among pregnant patients with COVID-19 infection at delivery.  Authors: Koji Matsuo, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, 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/jamanetworkopen.2023.7149) Editor’s ...

Can a school-based sexual health education program that effectively reduces the risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs also decrease homophobia and transphobia? That question drove a collaborative effort by researchers conducting a randomized controlled trial of an inclusive comprehensive sex education program – High School FLASH. The study evaluated not just the impact on students’ sexual behaviors and related outcomes but also on their homophobic and transphobic beliefs (Coyle et al., 2021). With funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, researchers evaluated High School FLASH in 20 schools in two U.S. regions (Midwest and South). ...

Rome (Italy), 7th April 2023 - Terna, the company led by Stefano Donnarumma that manages the national transmission grid, and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT- Italian Institute of Technology) have signed a five-year collaboration agreement aimed at studying and implementing innovative solutions in the field of robotics to support the company's field activities. The agreement was signed on April 6th in Rome by Massimiliano Garri, Terna's Head of Innovation & Market Solutions, and Giorgio Metta, IIT Scientific Director. "We are proud to start the collaboration with an excellence on the Italian ...

A new chip that holds different cell types in tiny, interconnected chambers could allow scientists to better understand the physiological and disease interactions between organs. The integrated-gut-liver-on-a-chip (iGLC) platform was designed by scientists at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), to improve understanding of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The researchers, together with colleagues in Japan, published their findings in the journal Communications ...

This study is led by Dr.Ningli Wang and Dr.Yuan Xie (Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University), they provide evidence that retinal microvasculature is a potential biomarker for cerebral microvasculature changes and acute mountain sickness(AMS) development during risk assessment of individuals at high altitudes. Since the retinal and cerebral vasculature share many morphological and physiological characteristics, direct evaluation of the more accessible retinal vasculature should theoretically provide insights into the cerebral circulation. Therefore, the role of retinal imaging ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Glioblastoma is the most common type of brain tumor in adults. The disease is 100% fatal and there are no cures, making it the most aggressive type of cancer. Such a poor prognosis has motivated researchers and neurosurgeons to understand the biology of tumors with the goal of creating better therapies. Dominique Higgins, MD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, has heeded the call. Higgins and a team of researchers at Columbia University have found ...

INDIANAPOLIS—For centuries, people have suspected a full moon in the sky to cause mysterious changes in people. Now, psychiatrists at Indiana University School of Medicine have found deaths by suicide increase during the full moon. “We wanted to analyze the hypothesis that suicides are increased during the period around full moons and determine if high-risk patients should be followed more closely during those times,” said Alexander Niculescu, MD, PhD. Niculescu and his team looked at data from the Marion County coroner’s ...

Imagine if you could ask a machine to “smell” something for you with just a click of a button. That’s what electronic noses, or e-noses, are for. They are systems that combine chemical gas sensors, signal processing and machine learning algorithms to mimic the sense of smell. E-noses can be used for many purposes, such as checking food quality, monitoring air pollution, diagnosing diseases and detecting explosives. How do they work? What are the challenges and opportunities in this field? A team led by Jingdong Chen of Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, China and ...