ANN ARBOR, Michigan -- It was an unexpected discovery that started with an analysis of more than 1,000 genes. The question: why game-changing cancer immunotherapy treatments work for only a fraction of patients. The analysis shone a light on one that popped up repeatedly in patients and mouse models that did not respond to immune checkpoint therapy: stanniocalcin-1, a glycoprotein whose role in both tumors and immunology is largely unknown. By following the trail from this surprising thread, a University of Michigan Rogel Cancer team uncovered how stanniocalcin-1, or STC1, works inside the cell to block a cellular "eat-me" signal that typically triggers the immune system to produce T cells to fight the tumor. The findings, published in ...

Scientists at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have developed a promising gene therapy strategy for a rare disease that causes severe vision loss in childhood. A form of Leber congenital amaurosis, the disease is caused by autosomal-dominant mutations in the CRX gene, which are challenging to treat with gene therapy. The scientists tested their approach using lab-made retinal tissues built from patient cells, called retinal organoids. This approach, which involved adding copies of the normal gene under its native control mechanism, partially restored CRX function. The study report appears today in Stem ...

In early October 2019, when an unknown caller rang EPFL professor Johan Gaume's cell phone, he could hardly have imagined that he was about to confront one of the greatest mysteries in Soviet history. At the other end of the line, a journalist from The New York Times asked for his expert insight into a tragedy that had occurred 60 years earlier in Russia's northern Ural Mountains - one that has since come to be known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Gaume, head of EPFL's Snow and Avalanche Simulation Laboratory (SLAB) and visiting fellow at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, had never heard ...

Researchers at the University of Basel and Ruhr University Bochum have developed a source of single photons that can produce billions of these quantum particles per second. With its record-breaking efficiency, the photon source represents a new and powerful building-block for quantum technologies. Quantum cryptography promises absolutely secure communications. A key component here are strings of single photons. Information can be stored in the quantum states of these light particles and transmitted over long distances. In the future, remote quantum processors will communicate with each other via single photons. And perhaps the processor itself will use photons as quantum bits for computing. A basic prerequisite for such applications, however, is an efficient source ...

Using X-ray tomography, a research team has observed the internal evolution of the materials inside solid-state lithium batteries as they were charged and discharged. Detailed three-dimensional information from the research could help improve the reliability and performance of the batteries, which use solid materials to replace the flammable liquid electrolytes in existing lithium-ion batteries. The operando synchrotron X-ray computed microtomography imaging revealed how the dynamic changes of electrode materials at lithium/solid-electrolyte interfaces determine the behavior of solid-state batteries. The researchers found that battery operation caused voids to form ...

Science is society's best method for understanding the world, yet many people in the field are unhappy with the way it works. Rules and procedures meant to promote innovative research can have perverse side-effects that harm both science and scientists. One of these - the 'priority rule' - rewards scientists who make discoveries with prestige, prizes and better career opportunities, depriving the runners-up of similar perks. Researchers at University of Technology Eindhoven (TU/e) and the Arizona State University in the US have developed a new model to better understand this rule, and see if current reforms to improve the system actually make sense. Their study was published in Nature Human Behaviour. "Over the past decade, there have been growing concerns that something ...

What The Study Did: This study finds that being a health care worker isn't associated with poorer outcomes among patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Authors: Nauzer Forbes, M.D., M.Sc., of the University of Calgary in Canada, 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.2020.35699) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, ...

Risky behaviors such as smoking, alcohol and drug use, speeding, or frequently changing sexual partners result in enormous health and economic consequences and lead to associated costs of an estimated 600 billion dollars a year in the US alone. In order to define measures that could reduce these costs, a better understanding of the basis and mechanisms of risk-taking is needed. Functional and anatomical differences UZH neuro-economists Goekhan Aydogan, Todd Hare and Christian Ruff, together with an international research team looked at the genetic characteristics that correlate with risk-taking behavior. Using a representative sample of 25,000 people, the researchers examined the relationship ...

BOSTON - A nationwide panel of experts has developed the first mammography guidelines for older survivors of breast cancer, providing a framework for discussions between survivors and their physicians on the pros and cons of screening in survivors' later years. The guidelines, published online today in a paper in JAMA Oncology, recommend discontinuing routine mammograms for survivors with a life expectancy under five years; considering stopping screening for those with a 5-10-year life expectancy; and continuing mammography for those whose life expectancy is greater than 10 years. The guidelines will be complemented by printed materials to help survivors gauge their risk of cancer recurring in the breast and weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks of mammography with ...

Science is society's best method for understanding the world. Yet many scientists are unhappy with the way it works, and there are growing concerns that there is something "broken" in current scientific practice. Many of the rules and procedures that are meant to promote innovative research are little more than historical precedents with little reason to suppose they encourage efficient or reliable discoveries. Worse, they can have perverse side-effects that harm both science and scientists. A well-known example is the general preference for positive over negative results, which creates a "publication bias" that gives the false ...

CLEVELAND - Cleveland Clinic researchers have described for the first time how Zika virus (ZIKV) causes one of the most common birth defects associated with prenatal infection, called brain calcification, according to new study findings published in Nature Microbiology. The findings may reveal novel strategies to prevent prenatal ZIKV brain calcification and offer important insights into how calcifications form in other congenital infections. "Brain calcification has been linked to several developmental defects in infants, including motor disorders, cognitive disability, eye abnormalities, hearing deficits and seizures, so it's important to better understand the mechanisms of how they develop," said Jae Jung, ...

Advances in DNA sequencing have uncovered a rare syndrome which is caused by variations in the gene SATB1. The study, co-authored by academics from Oxford Brookes University (UK), University of Lausanne (Switzerland), Radboud University (The Netherlands), University of Oxford (UK), University of Manchester (UK) and led by Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (The Netherlands), discovered three classes of mutations within the gene SATB1, resulting in three variations of a neurodevelopmental disorder with varying symptoms ranging from epilepsy to muscle tone abnormalities. Recognition of disorder will increase understanding and diagnosis An international team of geneticists and clinicians from 12 countries identified 42 patients with mutations in the gene ...

People with sleep disorders commonly have a misperception about their actual sleep behaviour. A research group led by Karin Trimmel and Stefan Seidel from MedUni Vienna's Department of Neurology (Outpatient Clinic for Sleep Disorders and Sleep-Related Disorders) analysed polysomnography results to identify the types of sleep disorder that are associated with a discrepancy between self-reported and objective sleep parameters and whether there are any factors that influence this. The main finding: irrespective of age, gender or screening setting, insomnia patients are most likely to underestimate how long they sleep. The study has been published in the highly regarded Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. Patients' misperceptions about the actual time that they sleep is a well-known ...

The ability to manipulate near-infrared (NIR) radiation has the potential to enable a plethora of technologies not only for the biomedical sector (where the semitransparency of human tissue is a clear advantage) but also for security (e.g. biometrics) and ICT (information and communication technology), with the most obvious application being to (nearly or in)visible light communications (VLCs) and related ramifications, including the imminent Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. Compared with inorganic semiconductors, organic NIR sources offer cheap fabrication over large areas, mechanical flexibility, conformability, ...

Mass spectrometers are widely used to analyze highly complex chemical and biological mixtures. Skoltech scientists have developed a new version of a mass spectrometer that uses rotation frequencies of ionized molecules in strong magnetic fields to measure masses with higher accuracy (FT ICR). The team has designed an ion trap that ensures the utmost resolving power in ultra-strong magnetic fields. The research was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry. The ion trap is shaped like a cylinder made up of electrodes, with electric and magnetic fields generated inside. The exact masses of the test sample's ions can be determined from their rotation frequencies. The electrodes must create a harmonized field of a particular shape ...

Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from Russia and Germany have designed an on-chip printed 'electronic nose' that serves as a proof of concept for low-cost and sensitive devices to be used in portable electronics and healthcare. The paper was published in the journal ACS Applied Materials Interfaces. The rapidly growing fields of the Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced medical diagnostics require small, cost-effective, low-powered yet reasonably sensitive, and selective gas-analytical systems like so-called 'electronic noses.' These ...

A genetic engineering method makes it possible to observe how woody cell walls are built in plants. The new research in wood formation, conducted by the University of Copenhagen and others, opens up the possibility of developing sturdier construction materials and perhaps more climate efficient trees. The ability of certain tree species to grow taller than 100 meters is due to complex biological engineering. Besides needing the right amounts of water and light to do so, this incredible ability is also a result of cell walls built sturdily enough to keep a tree both upright and able to withstand the tremendous pressure created as water is sucked up from its roots and into its leaves. This ability is made possible by what are known as the secondary cell ...

Skoltech scientists have developed an algorithm that can identify various tree species in satellite images. Their research was published in the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing. Identifying tree species is essential for efficient forest management and monitoring. Satellite imagery is an easier and cheaper way to deal with this task than other approaches that require ground observations of vast and remote areas. Researchers from the Skoltech Center for Computational and Data-Intensive Science and Engineering (CDISE) and Skoltech Space Center used a neural network to automate dominant tree species' identification in high and medium resolution images. A hierarchical classification model and additional data, such as vegetation height, helped ...

People with combined vision and hearing loss are nearly four times more likely to experience depression and more than three times more likely to suffer chronic anxiety, according to a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology and led by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU). Researchers analysed a health survey of 23,089 adults in Spain and found that while people suffering either vision or hearing loss both were more likely to report depression as those that were not, that risk increased to 3.85 times higher when respondents reported problems with both senses combined. The study also found people with combined vision and hearing loss were 3.38 times more likely than the general population to report chronic anxiety. It is understood to be the first study looking at ...

An international team of scientists headed by Grégoire Courtine at EPFL and CHUV and Aaron Phillips at the University of Calgary has developed a treatment that can dramatically improve the lives of patients with a spinal cord injury. VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGXnuHgDWFU "A serious and underrecognized result of these injuries is unstable blood pressure, which can have devastating consequences that reduce quality of life and are life threatening. Unfortunately, there are no effective therapies for unstable blood pressure after spinal cord injury". said Dr. Aaron Phillips, co-lead author of the study (see affiliations below). ...

Thursday, 28 January 2021: A study has found that adolescents who frequently use cannabis may experience a decline in Intelligence Quotient (IQ) over time. The findings of the research provide further insight into the harmful neurological and cognitive effects of frequent cannabis use on young people. The paper, led by researchers at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is published in Psychological Medicine. The results revealed that there were declines of approximately 2 IQ points over time in those who use cannabis frequently compared to those who didn't use cannabis. Further analysis suggested that this decline in IQ points was primarily related to reduction in verbal IQ. The research involved systematic review and statistical analysis on seven longitudinal studies ...

New insight into how human brains detect and perceive different types of touch, such as fluttery vibrations and steady pressures, has been revealed by UCL scientists with the help of the ancient Chinese cooking ingredient, Szechuan pepper. Humans have many different types of receptor cells in the skin that allow us to perceive different types of touch. For more than a century, scientists have puzzled over whether touch signals from each type of receptor are processed independently by the brain, or whether these different signals interact before reaching conscious perception. For the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, UCL researchers took a novel approach to this question by stimulating one type of touch receptor chemically, and another type mechanically. ...

Investors' moods are affected by gloomy weather. New research from Copenhagen Business School recommends entrepreneurs looking for finance should be aware of the weather forecast at the time they want to launch their crowdfunding campaigns. The researchers wanted to explore whether weather-induced moods can explain crowdfunders' contributions and focused on the role of investors' moods and emotions including day-to-day decisions on the crowdfunding platform Companisto. "Financial investment plays a vital role in the success of an entrepreneurial venture ...

Molecules consisting of many atoms are complex structures. The outer electrons are distributed among the different orbitals, and their shape and occupation determine the chemical behaviour and reactivity of the molecule. The configuration of these orbitals can be analysed experimentally. Synchrotron sources such as BESSY II provide a method for this purpose: Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS). However, to obtain information about the orbitals from experimental data, quantum chemical simulations are necessary. Typical computing times for larger molecules take weeks, even on high-performance computers. Speeding up the evaluation "Up to now, these calculations have mostly been carried out subsequent to the measurements", explains theoretical chemist Dr. Vinicius Vaz da Cruz, ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden believe they have identified a gene variant that can cause cerebral small vessel disease and stroke. The study is published in Neurology Genetics. "The patients we have studied are from the same extended family, and several of them have been diagnosed with cerebral small vessel disease and suffered strokes. After tissue examination and using genetic sequencing methods, we found that they were carriers of a new gene variant that could be connected to their diagnoses," says Andreea Ilinca, researcher at Lund University ...