Amsterdam, March 4, 2021 - Cervical cancer is a serious global health threat which kills more than 300,000 women every year. It's a disease that disproportionately affects women in low- and middle-income countries in equatorial Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, yet it is a preventable disease and decades of research have produced the tools needed to eliminate it. Recognizing this urgent public health issue, the editorial team of Preventive Medicine, led by Editor-in-Chief Dr. Eduardo Franco, Director, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Chair, Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology at McGill University, is publishing a special issue titled "From Science to Action to ...

Researchers at the Earlham Institute (EI) have created a new automated workflow using liquid handling robots to identify the genetic basis to prevent plant pathogens, which can be used on a much larger and rapid scale than current methods. The new EI Biofoundry automated workflow gives scientists an enhanced visual check of genetic mutations linked to the control of crop disease, speeding up analysis to a fraction of the time compared to current methods - from months to weeks - accelerating development of novel products for crop protection in the agricultural industry. Biosynthesis is the formation of chemical compounds by a living organism, ...

COSMIC, a multipurpose X-ray instrument at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab's) Advanced Light Source (ALS), has made headway in the scientific community since its launch less than 2 years ago, with groundbreaking contributions in fields ranging from batteries to biominerals. COSMIC is the brightest X-ray beamline at the ALS, a synchrotron that generates intense light - from infrared to X-rays - and delivers it to dozens of beamlines to carry out a range of simultaneous science experiments. COSMIC's name is derived from coherent scattering and microscopy, which are two overarching X-ray techniques it is designed to carry out. Its capabilities include ...

WASHINGTON (March 4, 2021)--Over the next month, 209 U.S. counties in the United States will need to implement crisis workforce strategies to deal with potentially dangerous shortfalls of intensive care unit doctors, according to a new analysis published today. The analysis draws on data from a just launched county-level hospital workforce estimator, one that takes into account the strain on staffing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "The shortages could occur just as public health officials warn that variants of the coronavirus are spreading in the United States and could trigger a sharp rise in the number of Americans infected," Clese Erikson, the principal investigator on the project and deputy director of the ...

An innovative cell-based treatment for cancer has been found promising for the control of infections caused by fungi. A study published in the journal Cytotherapy reports that the use of CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T-cells programmed to “recognize” Cryptococcus spp. fungi was effective in combating infection in vitro and in mice. C. gattii and C. neoformans are present in soil with dead organic matter and places contaminated by the droppings of pigeons and other birds. They cause systemic mycoses in the human organism. They can infect the lungs and central nervous ...

With a relatively minor genetic change, a new treatment developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University appears to stop replication of both flu viruses and the virus that causes Covid-19. Best of all, the treatment could be delivered to the lungs via a nebulizer, making it easy for patients to administer themselves at home. The therapy is based on a type of CRISPR, which normally allows researchers to target and edit specific portions of the genetic code, to target RNA molecules. In this case, the team used mRNA technology to code for a protein called Cas13a that destroys parts of the RNA genetic code that viruses use to replicate in cells in the lungs. It was developed by researchers in ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- While women can be drawn into farming for many reasons, researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences have found that female-owned farms in the U.S. are more common in areas that are closer to urban markets, that engage in agritourism activity, and that offer greater access to childcare. The number of farms operated by women has risen over the past two decades, said Claudia Schmidt, assistant professor of marketing and local/regional food systems. The U.S. Department of Agriculture changed the way it counts the operators of farms in its most recent Census of Agriculture, allowing for up to four principal operators per farm. This has inflated the number of ...

COVID-19 is only the latest infectious disease to have had an outsized impact on human life. A new study employing ancient human DNA reveals how tuberculosis has affected European populations over the past 2,000 years, specifically the impact that disease has had on the human genome. This work, which publishes March 4 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, has implications for studying not only evolutionary genetics, but also how genetics can influence the immune system. "Present-day humans are the descendants of those who have survived many things--climate changes and big ...

To succeed in mating, many male frogs sit in one place and call to their potential mates. But this raises an important question familiar to anyone trying to listen to someone talking at a busy cocktail party: how does a female hear and then find a choice male of her own species among all the irrelevant background noise, including the sound of other frog species? Now, researchers reporting March 4 in the journal Current Biology have found that they do it thanks to a set of lungs that, when inflated, reduce their eardrum's sensitivity to environmental noise in a specific frequency range, making it easier to zero in on the ...

Brain cells called astrocytes derived from the induced pluripotent stem cells of patients with bipolar disorder offer suboptimal support for neuronal activity. In a paper appearing March 4th in the journal Stem Cell Reports, researchers show that this malfunction can be traced to an inflammation-promoting molecule called interleukin-6 (IL-6), which is secreted by astrocytes. The results highlight the potential role of astrocyte-mediated inflammatory signaling in the psychiatric disease, although further investigation is needed. "Our findings suggest that IL-6 may contribute to defects associated with bipolar disorder, opening new avenues for clinical intervention," says co-senior study author Fred Gage ...

New collaborative research from Northwestern University and Lund University may have people heading to their backyard instead of the store at the outset of this year's mosquito season. Often used as an additive for cat toys and treats due to its euphoric and hallucinogenic effects on cats, catnip has also long been known for its powerful repellent action on insects, mosquitoes in particular. Recent research shows catnip compounds to be at least as effective as synthetic insect repellents such as DEET. But until now, the mechanism that triggered insects' aversion to this common member of the mint family was unknown. In a paper ...

Existing gene drive technologies could be combined to help control the invasive grey squirrel population in the UK with little risk to other populations, according to a modelling study published in Scientific Reports. Gene drives introduce genes into a population that have been changed to induce infertility in females, allowing for the control of population size. However, they face technical challenges, such as controlling the spread of altered genes as gene drive individuals mate with wild individuals, and the development of genetic resistance, which may render the gene drive ineffective. To address these challenges, Nicky Faber and colleagues used computer modelling to investigate the effectiveness of a combination of three gene ...

Using theoretical models of bacterial metabolism and reproduction, scientists can predict the type of resistance that bacteria will develop when they are exposed to antibiotics. This has now been shown by an Uppsala University research team, in collaboration with colleagues in Cologne, Germany. The study is published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. In medical and pharmaceutical research, there is keen interest in finding the answer to how fast, and through which mechanisms, bacteria develop antibiotic resistance. Another goal is to understand how this resistance, in turn, affects bacterial growth and pathogenicity. "This kind of knowledge would enable better tracking and slowing ...

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are suitable for discovering the genes that underly complex and also rare genetic diseases. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), together with international partners, have studied genotype-phenotype relationships in iPSCs using data from approximately one thousand donors. Tens of thousands of tiny genetic variations (SNPs, single nucleotide polymorphisms) have been identified in the human genome that are associated with specific diseases. Many of these genetic variants are ...

A team of scientists from the University of Cologne (Germany) and the University of Uppsala (Sweden) has created a model that can describe and predict the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Resistance to antibiotics evolves through a variety of mechanisms. A central and still unresolved question is how resistance evolution affects cell growth at different drug concentrations. The new model predicts growth rates and resistance levels of common resistant bacterial mutants at different drug doses. These predictions are confirmed by empirical growth inhibition curves and genomic data from Escherichia coli populations. ...

Over evolutionary time scales, a single gene may acquire different roles in diverging species. However, revealing the multiple hidden roles of a gene was not possible before genome editing came along. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor and HHMI Investigator Zach Lippman and CSHL postdoctoral fellow Anat Hendelman collaborated with Idan Efroni, HHMI International Investigator at Hebrew University Faculty of Agriculture in Israel, to uncover this mystery. They dissected the activity of a developmental gene, WOX9, in different plants and at different moments in development. Using genome editing, they found that without changing the protein produced by the gene, they ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - One of the hallmarks of chronic pain is inflammation, and scientists at the UNC School of Medicine have discovered that anti-inflammatory cells called MRC1+ macrophages are dysfunctional in an animal model of neuropathic pain. Returning these cells to their normal state could offer a route to treating debilitating pain caused by nerve damage or a malfunctioning nervous system. The researchers, who published their work in Neuron, found that stimulating the expression of an anti-inflammatory protein called CD163 reduced signs of neuroinflammation in the spinal cord of mice with neuropathic pain. "Macrophages are a type of immune cell that are found in the blood and in tissues ...

What The Study Did: In this study of return-to-play cardiac testing performed on 789 professional athletes with COVID-19 infection, imaging evidence of inflammatory heart disease that resulted in restriction from play was identified in five athletes (0.6%). No adverse cardiac events occurred in the athletes who underwent cardiac screening and resumed professional sports participation. Authors: David J. Engel, M.D., of Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, 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/jamacardio.2021.0565) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of ...

What The Study Did: Using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction testing, this study found that SARS-CoV-2 was present on the ocular surface in 52 of 91 patients with COVID-19 (57.1%). The virus may also be detected on ocular surfaces in patients with COVID-19 when the nasopharyngeal swab is negative. Authors: Claudio Azzolini, M.D., of the University of Insubria in Varese, Italy, 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.2020.5464) Editor's ...

What The Study Did: This study of more than 526,000 procedures across 17 institutions reports a significant decrease in the use of lasers and cryotherapy, retinal detachment repairs and other vitrectomies, beginning mid-March last year and lasting at least until May. Authors: Mark P. Breazzano, M.D., of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital 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/jamaophthalmol.2021.0036) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. ...

What The Study Did: Clinical trial registrations for COVID-19 interventions that were highly publicized during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with treatments not comparably promoted were assessed in this study. Authors: Nadir Yehya, M.D., M.S.C.E., of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, is the author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.0689) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. ...

What The Study Did: Researchers evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of using a mobile robotic system to perform health care tasks such as acquiring vital signs, obtaining nasal or oral swabs and facilitating contactless triage interviews of patients with potential COVID-19 in the emergency department. Authors: Giovanni Traverso M.B., B.Chir., Ph.D., of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 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.2021.0667) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- In the era of social distancing, using robots for some health care interactions is a promising way to reduce in-person contact between health care workers and sick patients. However, a key question that needs to be answered is how patients will react to a robot entering the exam room. Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital recently set out to answer that question. In a study performed in the emergency department at Brigham and Women's, the team found that a large majority of patients reported that interacting with a health care provider via a video screen mounted on a robot was similar to an in-person interaction with a health care worker. "We're ...

How governments and companies should listen to the people on climate change People are more engaged in reducing carbon emissions than previously thought - and governments, scientists and companies should listen to them - according to new research from the University of East Anglia and the UK Energy Research Centre. A new study published today in Nature Energyy investigates how invested people are in making the changes needed to reduce carbon emissions and stop climate change. The study shows that people, their views and actions should be included more when it comes to how we transform the way we use energy, to keep global average temperatures well below 2°C as set out in the Paris COP21 climate agreement. Lead ...

HOUSTON -- Contrary to long-held beliefs, Type I collagen produced by cancer-associated fibroblasts may not promote cancer development but instead plays a protective role in controlling pancreatic cancer progression, reports a new study from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. This new understanding supports novel therapeutic approaches that bolster collagen rather than suppress it. The study finds that collagen works in the tumor microenvironment to stop the production of immune signals, called chemokines, that lead to suppression of the anti-tumor immune response. When collagen is lost, chemokine levels increase, and the cancer is allowed ...