SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 17, 2025 – On the eve of a historic merger between The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and The University of Texas at San Antonio, researchers from the two institutions have been honored with highly prestigious 2025 Hill Prizes, in medicine and technology. The prizes are awarded by the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology (TAMEST), and Lyda Hill Philanthropies, which fund the awards to “propel high-risk, high-reward ideas and innovations that demonstrate very significant potential for real-world impact and can lead ...

In the decades following the launch of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have tallied over 1 trillion galaxies in the universe. But only one galaxy stands out as the most important nearby stellar island to our Milky Way — the Andromeda Galaxy. It can be seen with the naked eye on clear autumn nights as a faint oval object roughly the size of the moon. A century ago, astronomer Edwin Hubble first established that this so-called "spiral nebula" was approximately 2.5 million light years away from our own Milky Way galaxy. Now, the space telescope named ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Many vaccines work by introducing a protein to the body that resembles part of a virus. Ideally, the immune system will produce long-lasting antibodies recognizing that specific virus, thereby providing protection. But Scripps Research scientists have now discovered that for some HIV vaccines, something else happens: after a few immunizations the immune system begins to produce antibodies against immune complexes already bound to the viral protein alone. They don’t yet know whether this chain reaction, described in Science ...

Scientists at Caltech and Princeton University have discovered that bacterial cells growing in a solution of polymers, such as mucus, form long cables that buckle and twist on each other, building a kind of "living Jell-O."   The finding could be particularly important to the study and treatment of diseases such as cystic fibrosis, in which the mucus that lines the lungs becomes more concentrated, often causing bacterial infections that take hold in that mucus to become life threatening. This discovery ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions have improved our understanding of how rotavirus, the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in children, makes people sick. The study published in Science Advances is among the first to show that the rotavirus protein NSP4 is both necessary and sufficient for multiple aspects of rotavirus infection by disrupting calcium signaling not only within infected cells but also in nearby uninfected cells. These disruptions in calcium signaling affect rotavirus disease severity, providing new insights into how ...

Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is a key molecule involved in inflammation and plays an important role in both healthy and diseased states. In disease, high levels of IL-1 in the brain are linked to neuroinflammation, which can disrupt the body’s stress response, cause sickness-like behaviors, worsen inflammation by activating brain immune cells, and allow immune cells from the body to enter the brain. It also can lead to brain damage by causing support cells to produce harmful molecules. Elevated IL-1 levels are associated with mood disorders, ...

Our genes contain all the instructions our body needs to function, but their expression must be finely regulated to guarantee that each cell performs its role optimally. This is where DNA and RNA epigenetics comes in: a series of mechanisms that act as "markers" on genes, to control their activity without modifying the DNA or RNA sequence itself. Until now, DNA and RNA epigenetics were studied as independent systems. These two mechanisms seemed to function separately, each playing its own role in distinct stages of the gene regulation process. Perhaps that was a mistake. In a publication ...

Background and objectives No previous study has been conducted in Nigeria on the role of neutrophil elastase in predicting preterm birth. The present study aimed to determine the role of the neutrophil elastase test in predicting birth in women with preterm labor. Methods The present prospective cohort study recruited 83 pregnant women with preterm labor between 28 and 36+6 weeks of gestation, and followed up these subjects for 14 days. The controls comprised 85 pregnant women without preterm labor. The cervicovaginal fluid was collected and tested using the neutrophil elastase test. Then, the sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive parameters were determined. ...

WHAT: With support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is leading the implementation of the Dr. Emmanuel Bilirakis and Honorable Jennifer Wexton National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act (P.L. 118-66), which was signed into law on July 2, 2024.  This follows a delegation of authority from the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to the NIH Director. The act establishes a Federal ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, nearly one-half of all primary care physicians (PCPs) were affiliated with hospitals, while private equity-affiliated PCPs were growing and concentrated in certain regional markets. Relative to PCPs in independent settings, hospital-affiliated PCPs and private equity-affiliated PCPs had higher prices for the same services.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Yashaswini Singh, PhD, MPA, email yashaswini_singh@brown.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.4935) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This cross-sectional study showed websites that sell compounded glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) often partially informed and sometimes misinformed potential consumers. Compounded medications contain the same active ingredients as in branded medications but may contain different inactive ingredients. Most websites did not disclose that compounded GLP-1 RAs were not FDA approved, although some suggested these drugs were FDA approved. Many websites provided limited safety information and unauthorized efficacy claims. Some ...

About The Study: This study found modest evidence of reductions in out-of-pocket costs and improvements in health among adults entering Medicare after the Affordable Care Act. Insurance coverage and financial assistance should be preserved and enhanced to improve health and health care access among vulnerable older adults.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Renuka Tipirneni, MD, MSc, email rtipirne@med.umich.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.5025) Editor’s ...

With more than 50,000 described species, the leaf beetle family is distributed worldwide and represents about a quarter of the species diversity of all herbivores. Leaf beetles can be found to feed on almost all plant groups. They live in the rhizosphere, the canopy and even underwater. Many leaf beetles, such as the Colorado potato beetle, are notorious pests. Their species richness and global distribution highlight their evolutionary success, which is particularly astonishing given that leaves are a difficult food source to digest and provide unbalanced nutrients. Researchers from the Department of Insect Symbiosis at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical ...

Individuals with sickle cell disease – a chronic illness where misshapen, sticky blood cells clump together, reducing oxygen delivery to organs – are at a higher risk for stroke and resulting cognitive disability. But even in the absence of stroke, many such patients struggle with remembering, focusing, learning and problem solving, among other cognitive problems, with many facing challenges in school and in the workplace. Now a multidisciplinary team of researchers and physicians at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has published a study that helps explain how the illness might affect cognitive performance ...

The diversity of plasma research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) was readily apparent when the PPPL 2024 Distinguished Research Fellows were recently announced. Elena Belova and Yevgeny Raitses were awarded the honor at the Lab’s annual State of the Laboratory event. Belova, a theoretical physicist, won for her work developing highly complex simulations of plasmas in different fusion experiments. Raitses, a managing principal research physicist, was honored for his experimental work on ...

Background and Aims The transcription factor sex-determining region Y-related high-mobility group-box gene 9 (SOX9) plays a critical role in organ development. Although SOX9 has been implicated in regulating lipid metabolism in vitro, its specific role in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) remains poorly understood. This study aimed to investigate the role of SOX9 in MASH pathogenesis and explored the underlying mechanisms. Methods MASH models were established using mice fed either a methionine- and choline-deficient (MCD) diet or a high-fat, high-fructose diet. To evaluate the effects of SOX9, hepatocyte-specific SOX9 deletion or overexpression was performed. ...

The search for answers to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders remains one of the most pressing goals in brain research. Maciej J. Stawikowski, Ph.D., an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, believes the key may lie in understanding how cholesterol and other lipids move through cells and affect their communication. “It’s well known that lipids and Alzheimer’s are linked,” said Stawikowski, a member of the FAU Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute. “Lipid imbalance may ...

Chronic pain is widespread in the United States, particularly among military veterans, affecting between 40 to 70% of this population and serving as a leading cause of disability. Veterans experience chronic pain more often than civilians, with back pain being the most common. Up to 75% of older veterans report chronic pain, while younger veterans and those from recent conflicts face more severe pain. Chronic low back pain in veterans affects not only physical health but also social and occupational functioning, often leading to job ...

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-threatening genetic disease affecting multiple organ systems, with pancreatic dysfunction representing a critical and often overlooked complication. A groundbreaking study published in eGastroenterology introduces young rabbits with CF as a novel and accessible model to study CF-related pancreatic endocrine pathology. This model offers an unprecedented opportunity to deepen our understanding of CF-related diabetes (CFRD), a condition affecting up to 50% of adults with CF. CF is caused by mutations in the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, ...

Background and Aims Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) remains a significant global health challenge, and effective antiviral therapies are essential for long-term management. This study aimed to evaluate the real-world effectiveness and safety of tenofovir amibufenamide (TMF) in a cohort of patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Methods In this multicenter, prospective, real-world cohort study, 194 CHB patients were recruited from four hospitals between August 2021 and August 2022. Patients were divided into treatment-naïve (TN, n = 123) and ...

Despite the success cardiac rehabilitation has shown at reducing heart-related deaths and hospital readmissions, higher out-of-pocket costs may prevent patients from participating in the program, a Michigan Medicine study suggests. In a national study of over 40,000 people with Medicare and commercial insurance, 81.6% of patients did not have to pay for their initial cardiac rehabilitation session. The medically supervised program lasts up to 36 sessions, which are often recommended for patients recovering from many conditions and procedures. Among ...

European consortium for Solving the Unsolved Rare Diseases demonstrates the significance of international collaboration to address the unmet medical needs on rare diseases’ diagnosis More than 500 European patients with unknown conditions have received a diagnosis through new genetic research. This includes patients with rare neurological disorders, severe intellectual disabilities, muscle diseases, and hereditary gastrointestinal cancer. These diagnoses were achieved through extensive European collaboration, led by researchers from the University of Tübingen, Radboud university medical center, and the National Center ...

Subtle changes in the brain, detectable through advanced imaging, blood and spinal fluid analysis, happen approximately twenty years before a clinical motor diagnosis in people with Huntington’s disease, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in Nature Medicine, was in collaboration with experts at the Universities of Glasgow, Gothenburg, Iowa, and Cambridge. The team found that although functions such as movement, thinking or behaviour remained normal for a long time before the onset of symptoms in Huntington’s disease, subtle changes to the brain were taking place up to two decades earlier. These findings pave the way for ...

Active galactic nuclei are supermassive black holes at the center of certain galaxies. As matter falls into these black holes, enormous amounts of energy are released, making active galactic nuclei, or AGN, one of the most energetic phenomena that can be observed in space. University of Arizona astronomers have now produced the highest resolution direct images ever taken of an AGN in the infrared, using the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer.  Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany were also involved in the study. The findings are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.  "The ...

Astrophysicists led by a team from Trinity College Dublin have – for the first time – imaged a large number of exocomet belts around nearby stars, and the tiny pebbles within them. The crystal-clear images show light being emitted from these millimetre-sized pebbles within the belts that orbit 74 nearby stars of a wide variety of ages – from those that are just emerging from birth to those in more mature systems like our own Solar System. The REASONS (REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars) study ...