PHILADELPHIA -- (April 22, 2021) -- A synthetic DNA vaccine candidate for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) developed at The Wistar Institute induced potent immune responses and afforded protective efficacy in non-human primate (NHP) models when given intradermally in abbreviated, low-dose immunization regimen. A similar vaccine candidate was previously shown to be safe and tolerable with a three-dose intramuscular injection regimen in a recently completed human phase 1 study and is currently in expanded studies of phase 1/2a trial. ...

Although many organisms capture and respond to sunlight, enzymes - proteins that catalyze biochemical reactions - are rarely driven by light. Scientists have identified only three types of natural photoenzymes so far. The newest one, discovered in 2017, is fatty acid photodecarboxylase (FAP). Derived from microscopic algae, it uses blue light to catalyze the conversion of fatty acids, found in fats and oils, into alkanes and alkenes. "A growing number of labs envision using FAPs for green chemistry applications, because alkanes and alkenes are important components of solvents and fuels, including gasoline ...

For reasons not yet clear, pregnant women infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 are more likely to experience preterm births, pre-eclampsia, and other neonatal problems than non-infected women. A team of Yale scientists decided to investigate whether the virus could be affecting placental tissue of infected expectant mothers. Their analysis found that while evidence of the virus in the placenta is rare, the placenta in infected mothers tended to exhibit a much higher level of immune system activity than those of non-infected pregnant women, they report April 22 in the journal Med. "The good news is the placenta is mounting a robust defense against an infection that is far distant, in lungs or nasal tissue," said Shelli Farhadian, assistant professor of internal ...

April 22, 2021--(BRONX, NY)--Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have designed an experimental drug that reversed key symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in mice. The drug works by reinvigorating a cellular cleaning mechanism that gets rid of unwanted proteins by digesting and recycling them. The study was published online today in the journal Cell. "Discoveries in mice don't always translate to humans, especially in Alzheimer's disease," said co-study leader Ana Maria Cuervo, M.D., Ph.D., the Robert and Renée Belfer Chair for the Study of Neurodegenerative Diseases, professor of developmental and molecular biology, ...

Soldiers, athletes, and motorists could lead safer lives thanks to a new process that could lead to more efficient and re-useable protection from shock and impact, explosion, and vibration, according to a new study. Pressurised insertion of aqueous solutions into water-repellent nanoporous materials, such as zeolites and metal-organic frameworks, could help to create high-performance energy absorbing systems. An international research team experimented with hydrothermally stable zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) with a 'hydrophobic' cage-like molecular structure - finding that such systems are remarkably effective energy absorbers at realistic, high-rate loading conditions, ...

As politics grows increasingly polarized, a new global study finds people often exaggerate political differences and negative feelings of those on the opposite side of the political divide, and this misperception can be reduced by informing them of the other side's true feelings. The study replicates earlier research in the United States, finding the phenomenon to be generalizable across 25 countries. The new study was led by Kai Ruggeri, PhD, assistant professor of health policy and management at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and replicates a 2020 study by Jeffrey Lees and Mina Cikara at Harvard University, who were also co-authors of the new study. The new findings ...

Stars spin faster than expected as they age according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Birmingham which uses asteroseismology to shed new light on this emerging theory. All stars, like the Sun, are born spinning. As they grow older, their spin slows down due to magnetic winds in a process called 'magnetic braking'. Research published in 2016 by scientists at Carnegie Observatories delivered the first hints that stars at a similar stage of life as the Sun were spinning faster than magnetic braking theories predicted. The results from this study were based on a method in which scientists pinpoint ...

What The Study Did: This case series reports the risk factors, incidence rate and features of acute ischemic stroke experienced by a group of male patients ages 50 years or younger in the convalescent stage of COVID-19. Authors: Tian Ming Tu, M.R.C.P., of the National Neuroscience Institute in Singapore, 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.2021.7498) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, ...

What The Study Did: This study assesses the association between COVID-19 and maternal and neonatal outcomes in pregnant women with COVID-19 diagnosis compared with pregnant women without COVID-19 diagnosis. Authors: Aris T.Papageorghiou, M.D., of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, 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/jamapediatrics.2021.1050) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including ...

What The Study Did: This cohort study examines viral dynamics and transmission of infection for NBA players, staff and vendors who had clinically recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection but continued to have positive test results following discontinuation of isolation precautions. Authors: Christina Mack, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., of IQVIA, Real World Solutions, in Durham, North Carolina, 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/jamainternmed.2021.2114) Editor's ...

What The Study Did: This review of 125 U.S.-based clinical trials that investigated the management of hearing loss assessed representation in the trials by race/ethnicity and sex. Authors: Carrie Nieman M.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health 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/jamaoto.2021.0550) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional ...

What The Study Did: Claims data were used to look at opioid use among young people (ages 10 to 21) who had been prescribed opioids for the first time. Authors: J. Deanna Wilson, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 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.2021.4552) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. #  ...

What The Study Did: Researchers investigated racial/ethnic representation in clinical trials that led to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of ophthalmology drugs from 2000 to 2020. Authors: Shriji Patel, M.D., of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, 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/jamaophthalmol.2021.0857) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. #  #  ...

BOSTON -- The foods people buy at a workplace cafeteria may not always be chosen to satisfy an individual craving or taste for a particular food. When co-workers are eating together, individuals are more likely to select foods that are as healthy--or unhealthy--as the food selections on their fellow employees' trays. "We found that individuals tend to mirror the food choices of others in their social circles, which may explain one way obesity spreads through social networks," says Douglas Levy, PhD, an investigator at the Mongan Institute Health Policy Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) ...

A phase 1 clinical trial led by investigators at the University of Chicago Medicine testing the effects of stereotactic body radiotherapy for treating multiple metastases has determined that treatments used for single tumors can also be safely used for treating patients with multiple metastases. The study was run through NRG Oncology and sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. The results were published on April 22 in JAMA Oncology. Cancer is traditionally treated with a combined approach, with clinicians using surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy to kill and remove cancerous tumors. Systemic ...

PHILADELPHIA--When researchers from Penn Medicine found that many patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treated with the investigational chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy targeting the CD22 antigen didn't respond, they went back to the drawing board to determine why. They discovered that less is more when it comes to the length of what is known as the single-chain variable fragment -- the linker that bridges the two halves of the receptor that allows CAR T cells to latch onto tumor cells and attack them. The findings are reported online today in Nature Medicine. "A little difference of a few amino acids can make a huge difference for patients," said co-senior author Marco Ruella, MD, an ...

The 'stickiness', or viscosity, of microscopic liquids can now be measured thousands of times faster than ever before, potentially leading to better understanding of living cells, disease diagnostics and pharmaceutical testing. University of Queensland's Professor Warwick Bowen and his colleagues at the Queensland Quantum Optics Lab developed the world-leading technology, technology that uses lasers to track microscale particles with world-record precision. "The stickiness, or viscosity, of liquids is incredibly important in biology," Professor Bowen said. "In living cells, viscosity fluctuations control shape and structure, modulate chemical reactions, and signal whether a cell is healthy or cancerous. "However, ...

A new study has highlighted that while much is known about the ever increasing uptake of antidepressant medications around the world, there is very little evidence on safe and effective approaches to discontinuing treatment. In 2020 there were 78 million prescriptions for antidepressants in England and about half of patients treated have taken them for at least two years. Guidelines typically recommend that antidepressants be taken for up to 6 to 12 months after improvement, or for up to two years in people at risk of relapse, but many people take antidepressants for much longer. Surveys of antidepressant users suggest that up to a half of people on long-term antidepressant prescriptions have no clear medical ...

Skeletal muscles enable voluntary movements and are controlled by a special type of neurons called motor neurons, which make direct contact with skeletal muscles through so-called neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). It is through NMJs that skeletal muscles receive signals making them contract or relax. In certain neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), NMJs are destroyed, leading to progressive muscle weakness and ultimately death. Treatments for ALS mainly focus on alleviating symptoms but cannot stop or reverse its disease progression. To find more effective treatments, researchers require accurate and easily accessible lab-based models for ALS to understand its causes and to develop and test new therapies. One step in this ...

Transient grating spectroscopy is an elegant method that uses two laser pulses to activate a medium by creating an interference pattern made of parallel stripes of excitations that can be thermal, electronic, magnetic or even structural. The modulation depth of the pattern and its evolution can be measured by diffracting a third, time-delayed probe beam on the transient grating. The modulation depth decays as the initial excitation propagates through the material. The distance between the stripes is determined by the wavelength of the pulses used to create the grating, which ...

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have succeeded for the first time in looking inside materials using the method of transient grating spectroscopy with ultrafast X-rays at SwissFEL. The experiment at PSI is a milestone in observing processes in the world of atoms. The researchers are publishing their research results today in the journal Nature Photonics. The structures on microchips are becoming ever tinier; hard disks write entire encyclopedias on magnetic disks the size of a fingernail. Many technologies are currently breaking through the boundaries of ...

States with stricter firearms laws reported lower suicide and homicide rates, according to a Rutgers study. The study, conducted by the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, the Rutgers School of Public Health, the Rutgers University-Newark Department of Psychology, the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the Rutgers-Newark Department of Social Work, was published in the Journal of Public Health and examined the association between firearm laws and suicide and homicide rates. Firearm violence is a major public health concern in the United States, with firearm suicide ...

Irvine, Calif., April 22, 2021 -- California's wildfire problem, fueled by a concurrence of climate change and a heightened risk of human-caused ignitions in once uninhabited areas, has been getting worse with each passing year of the 21st century. Researchers in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Irvine have conducted a thorough analysis of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection wildfire statistics from 2000 to 2019, comparing them with data from 1920 to 1999. They learned that the annual burn season has lengthened in the past two decades and that the yearly peak has shifted from August to July. The team's findings are the subject of a study published today in the ...

A minimally invasive retinal reattachment procedure that can be done in an ophthalmologist's office leads to better long-term integrity and structure of the retina's photoreceptors - cells that allow us to see - compared with more invasive operating room procedures, according to new research published April 22. The study, published in JAMA Ophthalmology and led by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital of Unity Health Toronto, contributes to a growing body of evidence pointing towards pneumatic retinopexy (PnR) as the better first-line retinal reattachment technique to achieve the best visual outcomes. Retinal detachment is the most common surgical ocular emergency, progressing to loss of vision within hours ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (4/22/2021) - Confirming anecdotal evidence that the spread of the coronavirus has strained Americans' mental health, Boston College researchers found reports of anxiety increased to 50 percent and depression to 44 percent by November, 2020 - rates six times higher than 2019 - according to a new report in the journal Translational Behavioral Medicine. Among U.S. adults aged 18-29, the impact on mental health was even more severe. Rates of anxiety and depression increased to 65 percent and 61 percent, respectively, of the respondents in that age group, according to the report. Use of prescription medication, counseling services, and unmet need for mental health services also rose significantly, according to the co-authors of the new study, Boston ...