CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An ancient biological enzyme known as nickel-iron hydrogenase may play a key role in producing hydrogen for a renewables-based energy economy, researchers said. Careful study of the enzyme has led chemists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to design a synthetic molecule that mimics the hydrogen gas-producing chemical reaction performed by the enzyme. The researchers reported their findings in the journal Nature Communications. Currently, industrial hydrogen is usually produced by separating hydrogen gas molecules from oxygen atoms in water using a process called ...

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA— Ochsner Health, Louisiana’s largest nonprofit, academic, multi-specialty, healthcare delivery system, has received the 2023 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award (GEWA). This award recognizes the most engaged workplace cultures in the world. After another year of unpredictability in the workplace, Gallup found that Ochsner Health continued to put their employees’ engagement at the center of their business strategy, embedding engagement into their very culture. “Our employees are the reason for the culture of positive engagement at Ochsner Health. From physicians and providers to clinical ...

LA JOLLA, CALIF. Mar 29, 2023 - Sanford Burnham Prebys researchers have identified a group of proteins that could be the secret to cellular reprogramming, an emerging approach in regenerative medicine in which scientists transform cells to repair damaged or injured body tissues. The researchers were able to reprogram damaged heart cells to repair heart injuries in mice following a heart attack. The findings, which appear in the journal Nature Communications, could one day transform the way we treat a variety of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2023   MINNEAPOLIS – Both cluster headache and migraine have strong links to the circadian system, the internal clock that regulates body processes, according to a meta-analysis published in the March 29, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The meta-analysis included all available studies on cluster headache and migraine that included circadian features. This included information on the timing of headaches during ...

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising therapy for treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A first-of-its-kind collaborative study led by researchers at Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, and Brigham & Women’s Hospital has found that mapping neural connections in the brains of OCD patients offers key insights that explain the observed improvements in their clinical outcomes after DBS. The study was published in Biological Psychiatry. Neuropsychiatric disorders such as obsessive-compulsive ...

PORTLAND, Oregon -- New research from Oregon Health & Science University and collaborators indicates lab-made antibodies may be able to cure people infected with yellow fever, a virus for which there is no treatment. The natural immune response to invading pathogens normally involves making protective proteins called antibodies. A study published today in Science Translational Medicine suggests that a single monoclonal antibody infusion can strengthen the body’s fight against yellow fever. In the study, the yellow fever virus was undetectable in all animals that received monoclonal antibody infusions after being exposed to the virus. “Two ...

Evermed and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) have announced the launch of ACC Anywhere, a new content hub that provides cardiologists around the world with on-demand access to the latest clinical knowledge. The hub contains original content from five conferences including ACC’s 2022 and 2023 Annual Scientific Session, with additional conferences to be added in the future. Evermed was selected to collaborate with ACC due to its advanced AI-powered recommender engine and its ability to effectively deliver medical education content 365 days per year. In addition, Evermed’s technology will help drive yearlong engagement to ensure that users are able ...

A recent study from Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine has expanded the clinical spectrum of a new epileptic disorder called Intellectual Developmental Disorder with Macrocephaly, Seizures, and Speech Delay (IDDMSSD) with the identification of the first recurrently affected residue identified in the protein kinase domain of PAK1 protein. The study, published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics: Part A, found potential correlations between how and which organ ...

“In the present study, we found that downregulation of angulin-1/LSR induced malignancy via upregulation of EGF-dependent CLDN-2 and TGF-β-dependent cell metabolism in human lung adenocarcinoma.”  BUFFALO, NY- March 29, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on March 24, 2023, entitled, “Downregulation of angulin-1/LSR induces malignancy via upregulation of EGF-dependent claudin-2 and TGF-β-dependent cell metabolism in human lung adenocarcinoma A549 cells.” Abnormal expression of bicellular tight junction claudins, including ...

Nearly one in five American adults has diabetes. But that doesn’t mean the common condition is simple to treat or manage. Diabetes and its complications are the No. 1 cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and lower-limb amputations. It’s also the seventh-leading cause of death in the U.S. As with so many chronic conditions, diabetes also disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in our communities, further exacerbating existing health disparities. In a new supplemental issue of the ...

(03/29/2023) — Resistance to Paxlovid is already evident among viral SARS-CoV-2 variants currently circulating globally, indicating that this stand-alone drug known as a protease inhibitor could soon become less effective in treating COVID-19 infections. This conclusion was presented in a study published today online in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. This study — conducted by the Midwest Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Center — shows that drug-resistant variants have appeared multiple times independently in different parts of the world, with regional clusters providing evidence for person-to-person transmission. In ...

“[...] there has been limited research to date on the effect of cellular ‘ageing’, termed senescence, on amyloidosis.” BUFFALO, NY- March 29, 2023 – A new editorial paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 5, entitled, “Senescence and extracellular vesicles: novel partners in vascular amyloidosis.” In their editorial, researchers Meredith Whitehead, Marco Antonazzi and Catherine M. Shanahan from King’s College London discussed amyloidosis—a ...

A new analysis shows that, compared to similarly high-income European countries, the US continues to have substantially higher death rates at all but the oldest ages, resulting in more “excess deaths,” and this gap widened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Patrick Heuveline, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 29, 2023. Calculating excess death rates can be useful for comparing mortality between different countries or sub-populations, as well as before and after the onset of a health crisis. Prior research has documented a substantial widening of ...

Ancient 2m-long amphibians swam like crocodiles long before true crocodiles existed, according to a study published March 29, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by David P. Groenewald of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and colleagues. During the Late Permian Period, just over 250 million years ago, South Africa was home to rhinesuchid temnospondyls, large predatory amphibians with bodies similar to crocodiles or big salamanders. These extinct animals are known mainly from skeletal remains, but in this study, researchers ...

Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0283089 Article Title: The impact of BMI on psychological health in oldest old individuals–Are there differences between women and men? Author Countries: Germany Funding: This study was funded by the @ktivPLUS study (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, grant number 01GY2108) awarded to M. Löbner. Publication was funded by the Open Access Publishing Fund of Leipzig University, which is supported by the German Research ...

Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282024 Article Title: Pedestrian street behavior mapping using unmanned aerial vehicles. A case study in Santiago de Chile Author Countries: Spain Funding: OM has received funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain (RyC RYC2020-029441-I). This research was also funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain [grant number PID2019-104344RB-I00]. END ...

### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281752 Article Title: Mortality postponement and compression at older ages in human cohorts Author Countries: USA Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Unproductive, inflexible, and less motivated... these are some of the most common stereotypes about senior employees. Even though the stereotypes are usually unfounded, they nevertheless influence how senior employees perceive themselves and their status in the workplace. And they thus become a key factor in many senior employees’ retirement decisions, conclude University of Copenhagen researchers in a new study published in PLOS ONE. “In our study, we refer to the uncertainty that senior employees feel about their status as ‘the worn-out syndrome’, which ...

Life comes in all shapes in sizes, but some sizes are more popular than others, new research from the University of British Columbia has found.  In the first study of its kind published today in PLOS ONE, Dr. Eden Tekwa, who conducted the study as a postdoctoral fellow at UBC’s department of zoology, surveyed the body sizes of all Earth’s living organisms, and uncovered an unexpected pattern. Contrary to what current theories can explain, our planet’s biomass—the material that makes up all living organisms—is ...

Life may come in all shapes and sizes, but in nature the most extreme size ranges predominate, according to Rutgers researchers. A survey of body sizes of Earth organisms, published Wednesday, March 29, in the science journal PLoS ONE, shows that the planet’s biomass – the material that makes up all living organisms – is concentrated in organisms at either end of the size spectrum. “This conclusion – that life on earth comes packaged predominantly in the largest and smallest sizes – was a discovery that surprised us,” said Malin Pinsky, an associate professor ...

Study Title: Aberrant cell state plasticity mediated by developmental reprogramming precedes colorectal cancer initiation Publication: Science Advances: March 29, 2023, 2:00pm ET 10.1126/sciadv.adf0927 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute author: Pratyusha Bala, PhD, Jonathan P. Rennhack, PhD, Daulet Aitymbayev, MS, Matthew B. Yurgelun, MD, William C. Hahn, MD, PhD, Nilay S. Sethi, MD, PhD Summary: Normally the lining of the colon forms a series of steep hills and valleys. At the surface, where the hills peak, are functional colon cells that do the organ’s work of absorption and secretion. Deep in the valleys are stem cells that constantly ...

Traces of ancient empires that stretched across Africa remain in the DNA of people living on the continent, reveals a new genetics study led by UCL researchers. Published in Science Advances, the collaboration between UCL geneticists working alongside anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and linguists in Africa and beyond found evidence for when different peoples intermixed across the continent. Their findings indicate migration linked to vast empires such as the Kanem-Bornu and the kingdoms of Aksum and Makuria, ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – March 29, 2023) Improving the seasonal influenza vaccine and public health specialists’ ability to predict pandemic potential in new flu strains may be possible due to new findings from scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The key is the stability of a viral protein that gains entry into human cells. The findings were published today in Science Advances.   “We found that the protein flu viruses use to enter cells, hemagglutinin, needs to be relatively stable and resistant to acid in an effective H3N2 flu vaccine,” said senior and co-corresponding ...

The COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented challenges to public health worldwide. Tracking the dynamics of the coronavirus permits governments, organizations, and individuals to make projections in an effort to curb the spread of the pandemic. But while a large amount of data about COVID is collected and publicly available, the information can be unreliable and subject to bias. In a new study, researchers analyzed data from Cali, Colombia, to develop a model that provides a template for tracking data, predicting transmission, and informing health surveillance systems. The study was conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon ...

A National Eye Institute-led team has identified a compound already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that keeps light-sensitive photoreceptors alive in three models of Leber congenital amaurosis type 10 (LCA 10), an inherited retinal ciliopathy disease that often results in severe visual impairment or blindness in early childhood.  LCA 10 is caused by mutations of the cilia-centrosomal gene (CEP290). Such mutations account for 20% to 25% of all LCA – more than any other gene.   Using a mouse model of LCA10 and two types of lab-created tissues from stem ...