Scientists at deCODE genetics, a subsidiary of AMGEN, have discovered rare sequence variants, predicted to cause a loss of function of ITSN1, that are associated with a high risk of Parkinson‘s Disease. The findings also support less studied pathways involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. The study, published today in npj Parkinson‘s Disease, used whole-genome sequence data from Iceland (deCODE genetics), the UK (UK Biobank), and the US (Accelerating Medicines Partnership Parkinson‘s ...

Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurological disorders can be seen as “dirty brain” diseases, where the brain struggles to clear out harmful waste. Aging is a key risk factor because, as we grow older, our brain's ability to remove toxic buildup slows down. However, new research in mice demonstrates that it’s possible to reverse age-related effects and restore the brain’s waste-clearing process. “This research shows that restoring cervical lymph vessel function can substantially rescue the slower removal of waste from the brain associated with age,” said Douglas Kelley, PhD, a professor of Mechanical ...

Zebrafish are members of a rarefied group of vertebrates capable of fully healing a severed spinal cord. A clear understanding of how this regeneration takes place could provide clues toward strategies for healing spinal cord injuries in people. Such injuries can be devastating, causing permanent loss of sensation and movement. A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis maps out a detailed atlas of all the cells involved — and how they work together — in regenerating the zebrafish spinal cord. In an unexpected finding, the researchers showed that survival and adaptability of the severed neurons themselves is required for full spinal cord regeneration. ...

A new paper in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, published by Oxford University Press, finds that bone fracture rates in older women differ by race, quite significantly. While researchers have known for years that the risk of bone fracture is highest for White women, this is the first study to show the real fracture rate for Asian and Hispanic women. Until recently researchers have had limited data on fracture rates by specific race and ethnicity beyond White people, and even less fracture data within race and ethnic groups. Hispanic and Asian populations are the ...

For the second consecutive year, three Israeli universities are ranked among the top 100 institutions globally. Alongside the Hebrew University, ranked 81st, are the Technion (85th) and the Weizmann Institute (69th). This is an outstanding achievement for Israeli academia and especially for the Hebrew University. Professor Asher Cohen, President of the Hebrew University, stated: "The presence of three Israeli universities in the list of the top 100 universities globally is an exceptional achievement in such a challenging and complex year. The Hebrew University's rise to 81st place ...

Bottom Line: Patients with liver cancer who received immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) before surgery—including those who would not have been eligible for surgery by conventional criteria—had similar outcomes to patients who received surgery upfront, according to results from a retrospective study. Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Research Communications, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Author: Mari Nakazawa, MD, first author of the study and a clinical research fellow ...

PORTLAND, Ore. – Patients with a prescription for an opioid use disorder medication may have a tough time getting it filled if their pharmacy is in a community that’s racially and economically segregated, according to a new study led by scientists at Oregon State University and Johns Hopkins University. The findings shed additional light on inequities in health care as the U.S.’s overdose crisis continues to accelerate, with fatality rates rising fastest in Black and Hispanic/Latinx communities. “While there have been notable policy changes over the past decade that ...

An analysis of 12 years of data collected from over 500 hospitals in 25 different U.S. states shows that weather, geographic location, and urban or rural location all appear to influence hospitalizations for waterborne infectious diseases, according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University in the open-access journal PLOS Water. Waterborne infectious diseases caused by bacteria, parasites, and viruses still affect over 7,000,000 people annually in the United States despite drinking and recreational water regulations, and sanitation ...

August 14, 2024 – In a report published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases (Safety and efficacy of PfSPZ Vaccine against malaria in healthy adults and women anticipating pregnancy in Mali: two randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 1 and 2 trials) a team led by investigators at the Malaria Research and Training Center (MRTC), Bamako, Mali; the Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology (LMIV), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health; and Sanaria Inc. describes ...

WHAT: Two National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported trials of an experimental malaria vaccine in healthy Malian adults found that all three tested regimens were safe. One of the trials enrolled 300 healthy women ages 18 to 38 years who anticipated becoming pregnant soon after immunization. That trial began with drug treatment to remove malaria parasites, followed by three injections spaced over a month of either saline placebo or the investigational vaccine at one of two dosages. Both dosages of the vaccine candidate conferred a significant degree of protection from parasite infection and clinical malaria that was sustained ...

Babies recognise pretence and around half of children can pretend themselves by 12 months, new research has found. The study, led by the University of Bristol, shows for the first time how children’s awareness and grasp of pretence in its various forms develops from birth to three years. Lead author Prof Elena Hoicka, Professor of Psychology in Education at the University’s School of Education, said: “Our findings highlight how pretending is a complex, evolving process which begins very early on in life, helping their cognitive and social skills to advance. Pretence ...

A new paper from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford concludes that current climate standards are not sufficiently incentivising the big picture innovations necessary to deliver net zero, and must be expanded to include a company’s broader influence on climate action. The peer-reviewed research, published in Carbon Management, comes after a period of fierce public debate about climate standards and offers possible solutions for those seeking to improve both integrity and impact of corporate climate action. Incentivising climate action and innovation in the corporate world is essential says co-author Dr Matilda Becker: “Of the 2000 largest ...

Anahita Khojandi and Xiaopeng Zhao have been selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to participate in the 2024-25 Science & Technology Policy Fellowship (STPF).  Khojandi, a Heath Endowed Faculty Fellow in Business & Engineering and Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Zhao, a professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering and founding director of the Applied AI Program ...

New research from UC Santa Cruz is finally giving you the go-ahead to sing in the shower as loud as you want. Because, as it turns out, you probably sound pretty darn good. Psychologists wanted to study “earworms,” the types of songs that get stuck in your head and play automatically on a loop. So they asked people to sing out any earworms they were experiencing and record them on their phones when prompted at random times throughout the day. When researchers analyzed the recordings, they found that a remarkable proportion of them perfectly matched the pitch of the original songs they were based upon.  More specifically, 44.7% of recordings had a pitch error of 0 semitones, ...

Providing cancer care for someone who also has a chronic illness, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, requires a systematic, co-management approach to produce better cancer and overall health outcomes, said UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Samuel Cykert, MD. Cancer patients with a chronic illness often experience poorer outcomes. This is especially true for Black patients. Contributing to this disparity, studies show, is the increased likelihood that people with chronic illnesses may not be offered standard cancer treatments like surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. If they do start standard treatment, they might not complete it due to complications from ...

CHICAGO—August 14, 2024—Each year, the American Ornithological Society (AOS) confers awards on individuals and groups for their ornithological research and notable contributions to the science and practice of ornithology, and for their service to the society. Our 2024 awardees represent outstanding contributions to the scientific study and conservation of birds and to the AOS. The 2024 recipients will accept their awards at the AOS annual meeting (AOS 2024) in Estes Park, Colorado, in October. “Our award winners this year epitomize the excellence in research, publications, service, and conservation in ornithology towards which we all strive in our profession,” ...

Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (St. Jude) and the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) today announced a significant paradigm shift in the understanding of T-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), an aggressive and high-risk form of cancer, to one frequently driven by genetic changes in non-coding portions of our DNA. The collaborative study, supported by the Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program (Kids First) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund, was published ...

A WEHI study could help solve a long-standing mystery into why a key immune organ in our bodies shrinks and loses its function as we get older. The thymus is an organ essential for good health due to its ability to produce special immune cells that are responsible for fighting infections and cancer. In a world-first, researchers have uncovered new cells that drive this ageing process in the thymus – significant findings that could unlock a way to restore function in the thymus and prevent our immunity from waning as we age. Watch and embed the video: https://youtu.be/2x1UGqNh77w At a glance The thymus is an organ essential for our immune defence ...

Key takeaways Venting about your frustrations with one friend to another may feel good, but it doesn’t necessarily reduce anger. Experiments showed that people who listened to a friend vent liked and supported that person more than those who were vented about — but only if the person venting didn’t derogate or seem aggressive toward the other friend. Venting might be an effective tool of competition for listeners’ affections precisely because it is not readily recognized as a tool of competition. Venting about your frustrations with one friend to another isn’t necessarily cathartic, but it can make the friend you’re talking to like and ...

CLEVELAND – University Hospitals (UH) Seidman Cancer Center hematologist-oncologist Leland Metheny, MD, is leading the trial. He says in the two years since the foundational pre-clinical work was completed, the team has shown that it’s feasible to manufacture BAFF CAR T-cells for human subjects. The innovation is introducing genes into T-cells via the process of electroporation in the Wesley Center for Immunotherapy at UH Seidman Cancer Center. In January 2022, a research team from UH Seidman Cancer Center and Case Western Reserve University published a groundbreaking ...

Within each of us lies an army of cells whose topmost duty is protecting against external pathogens and internal threats such as proliferating cancer cells. Yet, immune cells can sometimes erroneously attack the body, causing autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes. Texas A&M researchers recently received an RO1 grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a strategy to deliver immune-suppressing proteins generally produced by specialized stem cells. Such an approach could potentially help reduce the immune system's attack on the insulin-producing beta-cells in the pancreas and open doors to a novel treatment for type 1 diabetes. "We are excited that the ...

A new brain-computer interface (BCI) developed at UC Davis Health translates brain signals into speech with up to 97% accuracy — the most accurate system of its kind. The researchers implanted sensors in the brain of a man with severely impaired speech due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The man was able to communicate his intended speech within minutes of activating the system. A study about this work was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, affects the nerve cells that control movement ...

New research co-led by experts at Mass General Brigham found that brain scans can detect consciousness in some patients with brain injury who are unresponsive. In the study, 241 participants with severe brain injury who do not respond when given a simple instruction were assessed with functional MRI (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), or both tests. During these tests, participants heard instructions, such as “imagine opening and closing your hand” followed, 15-30 seconds later by “stop imagining opening and closing your hand.” The fMRI and EEG brain ...

Benjamin Manard, an analytical chemist in the Chemical Sciences Division of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will receive the 2024 Lester W. Strock Award from the Society of Applied Spectroscopy. The prize is named for the late Lester W. Strock, a crystal chemist and pioneer in applied spectroscopy. The annual award recognizes researchers who produce outstanding publications in analytical atomic spectrochemistry. “Manard’s publications over the last five years demonstrate a clear focus on the elemental and isotopic analysis of nuclear materials using a variety ...

Millions of patients worldwide suffer from a chronic itching condition with no identifiable cause – a condition known as chronic pruritus of unknown origin (CPUO) – that has no targeted therapies approved to treat it. Many of these patients suffer for years with little relief, but a new University of Maryland School of Medicine study may provide hope for future treatments. Patients were found to have lower than normal levels of metabolite biomarkers in the blood plasma that could point to a cause of their excruciating symptoms. Findings were recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. “Our study found a distinct deficit in certain metabolite ...