Newly developed mRNA vaccines against Zika virus and HIV-1 produced strong antibody responses that transferred from pregnant rabbits to their offspring, researchers report March 24th in the journal Molecular Therapy. As noted by the authors, the results support further development of their vaccine platform, LIONTM/repRNA, for maternal and neonatal settings to protect against mother-to-child transmission of pathogens in animals and humans. The recent success of mRNA vaccines in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a catalyst for the development of mRNA vaccines targeting other infectious diseases. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized mRNA vaccines for children ...

A novel statewide incentive program intended to improve “warm hand-offs” from Pennsylvania emergency departments to opioid use disorder treatment programs is associated with a 50% improvement in the initiation of medication-assisted treatment in Medicaid-enrolled patients, according to new research from University of Pittsburgh, Howard University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania and Vital Strategies scientists. The finding, published today in JAMA Health Forum, points to a potential policy ...

About The Study: Marriage and children were associated with a greater earnings penalty for female physicians, primarily due to fewer hours worked relative to men, in this study of 95,000 U.S. physicians. Addressing the barriers that lead to women working fewer hours could contribute to a reduction in the male-female earnings gap while helping to expand the effective physician workforce.  Authors: Lucy Skinner, M.P.H., of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

About The Study: In this study using data from 3,037 community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries, food insecurity was prevalent and associated with a decline in executive function. Interventions and policies aiming to increase healthy food access or reduce food insecurity should be assessed for their impact on older adults’ cognitive outcome.  Authors: Boeun Kim, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, 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.2023.4674) Editor’s ...

Lower electricity costs for consumers and more reliable clean energy could be some of the benefits of a new study by the University of Adelaide researchers who have examined how predictable solar or wind energy generation is and the impact of it on profits in the electricity market. PhD candidate Sahand Karimi-Arpanahi and Dr Ali Pourmousavi Kani, Senior Lecturer from the University’s School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, have looked at different ways of achieving more predictable renewable energy with the ...

Higher alcohols (C2+ alcohols), which are important raw materials, have been used as the intermediates of valued products. They are also widely applied in various fields of fuel, food, fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals and energy. With the gradual depletion of petroleum resources, the direct synthesis of higher alcohols from syngas has become a sustainable and potential process because of its wide source of raw materials and high atomic utilization. However, the low yield of higher alcohols restricted industrial application. Recently, a research team led by Prof. SUN Jian and Prof. GE Qingjie from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) demonstrate how a polymeric nanoparticle gene delivery system can promote bone formation Tokyo, Japan - Does a “magic bullet” exist in regenerative medicine? Researchers have long wished to design a cutting-edge gene therapy that regenerates tissues damaged by disease or trauma. That wish may come true now that a research team has developed a polymeric gene delivery therapy that promotes new bone formation after traumatic inflammation. In a study published this month in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, researchers from ...

Pesticide use must be reduced. The EU has set a target to reduce pesticide use by 50% by 2030. Therefore, a strong focus on integrated weed management must be maintained in the coming years. When it comes to weeds, the focus has mainly been on improving the efficacy of pesticides, replacing or complementing them with mechanical treatments in the field.  In the last five years, the Horizon 2020 project IWMPraise – Integrated Weed Management: PRActical Implementation and Solutions for Europe has conducted a large number of trials on ...

LMU chemists use high-precision quantum chemistry to study key elements of super-efficient energy transfer in an important element of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the motor of all life on Earth. Complex processes are required for the sunlight-powered conversion of carbon dioxide and water to energy-rich sugar and oxygen. These processes are driven by two protein complexes, photosystems I and II. In photosystem I, sunlight is used with an efficiency of almost 100%. Here a complex network of 288 chlorophylls plays the decisive role. A team led by LMU chemist Regina de Vivie-Riedle has ...

Blind people are better at sensing their own heartbeats than sighted, shows a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Jagiellonian University in Poland. The study indicates that blindness leads to a heightened ability in feeling signals from the inner body. The findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Thirty-six blind and as many sighted individuals were asked to count their own heartbeats without checking their pulse or touching their body. At the same time, the ...

An IIASA study shows that maternal education, and particularly secondary education, plays a significant role in reducing deaths in newborns and children under five years of age in both rural and urban areas of India. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.2.1. aims to end preventable deaths of newborns and under-five children by 2030. Although significant progress has been made worldwide in this regard with global under-five deaths falling from 12.5 million in 1990 to 5 million in 2020, it is still ...

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are working on designing antennas that can empower 6G technology, which is instrumental in realising efficient V2X (Vehicle to Everything) communications. In a recent study, the team, led by Debdeep Sarkar, Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, shows how self-interference in full-duplex communication antennas can be reduced, and consequently the movement of signals across the communication network can be faster and more bandwidth-efficient. Such full-duplex ...

A parasite which has devasting impacts on agriculture and human health is the first pathogen to have its proteins located and mapped within its cells – providing clues to their function and helping to identify potential drug targets. African trypanosomes are parasites transmitted by tsetse flies that cause sleeping sickness in humans (presenting as fever, anaemia and, in serious cases, death) and a similar disease celled nagana in cattle. These parasites have made large areas of Africa unsuitable for ...

Graphene is the strongest of all materials. On top of that, it is exceptionally good at conducting heat and electrical currents, making it one of the most special and versatile materials we know. For all these reasons, the discovery of graphene was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Yet, many properties of the material and its cousins are still poorly understood – for the simple reason that the atoms they are made up of are very difficult to observe. A team of researchers from the University of Amsterdam and New York University have now ...

A new high resolution model of the CA1 region of the human hippocampus has been developed by the Institute of Biophysics of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-IBF) and University of Modena e Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE), part of the Human Brain Project. The single-cell resolution model, which replicates the structure and architecture of the area, along with the position and relative connectivity of the neurons, was developed from a full-scale dataset of high resolution images. The dataset is available in the BigBrain Atlas and it will be soon available on EBRAINS. According to the study, published in the journal ...

Moderate and severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) developed in 1.14% of Chinese women of reproductive age between 2013 and 2017. Moreover, women under 35 years of age receiving assisted reproductive technology (ART) should be monitored for OHSS more closely compared with other age groups. These findings were concluded from the first report on the incidence of moderate and severe OHSS in China recently published in Health Data Science, a Science Partner Journal. OHSS constitutes the most severe iatrogenic ...

Hailey-Hailey disease is a rare, inherited condition characterized by patches of blisters appearing mainly in the skin folds of the arm pits, groin and under the breasts. It is caused by a mutation in the gene that codes for a specific protein involved in the transportation of calcium and manganese ions from the cell cytoplasm and into a sac-like organelle called the Golgi apparatus. Scientists at Tohoku University, together with colleagues in Japan, have uncovered some aspects of this protein's structure that could help researchers understand how it works. The findings, published ...

ChatGPT's impact extends beyond the education sector and is causing significant changes in other areas. The AI language model is recognized for its ability to perform various tasks, including paper writing, translation, coding, and more, all through question-and-answer-based interactions. The AI system relies on deep learning, which requires extensive training to minimize errors, resulting in frequent data transfers between memory and processors. However, traditional digital computer systems' von Neumann architecture separates the storage and computation of information, resulting in increased ...

A research team at POSTECH led by Professor Chulhong Kim (Department of Electrical Engineering, Department of Convergence IT Engineering, and Department of Mechanical Engineering) has compiled the findings from innovative research on contrast-enhanced photoacoustic imaging conducted over the last four years. These findings were recently featured in Chemical Reviews, a highly authoritative journal.   For decades, the scientific community has been investigating the potential of photoacoustic imaging as a biomedical imaging modality. However, despite its enhanced optical contrast and ultrasonic spatiotemporal resolution, photoacoustic imaging faces ...

FINDINGS MitoQ, a mitochondrial antioxidant that is available to the public as a diet supplement, was found in a mouse study to reverse the detrimental effects that HIV and antiretroviral therapy (ART) have on mitochondria in the brain, heart, aorta, lungs, kidney and liver.   The researchers used a molecular method to measure the ratio of human and murine mitochondrial (mtDNA) to nuclear DNA (ntDNA) ratio, a measure of mitochondrial dysfunction. Reduction in this ratio reflects mitochondrial dysfunction. Compared to uninfected mice, HIV infected mice treated with ART had mitochondrial dysfunction in the human immune cells in the brain, ...

DALLAS, March 24, 2023 — High levels of lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] are an independent, predominantly inherited and causal risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death and disability worldwide, according to a recent American Heart Association scientific statement. It is estimated that 1 in 5 Americans have high Lp(a) levels. Studies have shown that elevated Lp(a) — a low-density lipoprotein variant containing a protein called apolipoprotein(a) — is a risk factor for atherosclerosis (buildup of fatty material in artery walls) and related ...

Dr. Natalie Uy, a leading pediatric nephrologist, has been named chief of the Division of Pediatric Nephrology in the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital, effective April 17. The Division of Pediatric Nephrology provides compassionate care for newborns, children and young adults with complex kidney diseases and urologic conditions. Services provided include dialysis and kidney transplantation for patients with end-stage kidney disease. Dr. Uy was recruited to Weill Cornell Medicine as an assistant professor of pediatrics ...

·  All racial/ethnic minority groups develop diabetes at lower weights than white adults  ·  Screening all adults aged 35 to 70 years identifies the greatest proportion of adults with prediabetes and diabetes ·  A ‘huge portion’ of the U.S. population has undiagnosed prediabetes or diabetes CHICAGO --- Focus on age, not weight, to capture the greatest number of people in all racial and ethnic groups with prediabetes and diabetes, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.  Screening all adults ...

By David Chandler As the world faces increasingly extreme and frequent weather events brought on by climate change – such as droughts, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires – critical civic resources such as food, water, and energy will be impacted. Local and regional planners need to anticipate those impacts and evaluate what measures can be taken to prepare. Now, a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional team of researchers has built a detailed framework to provide guidance to these planners. After two years of in-depth consultation ...

A new study of some 3.6 million surgeries from National Health Service (NHS) databases in England suggests that, in most cases, it will be safe to carry out planned surgery from 2 weeks after a positive COVID test, as long as the patient has recovered – compared to current guidance that recommends delaying surgery for 7 weeks. The study is published in Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) and is by Dr Alwyn Kotzé, University of Leeds, UK and Dr Ciarán McInerney, ...