CAMBRIDGE, MA - Large language models like those that power ChatGPT have shown impressive performance on tasks like drafting legal briefs, analyzing the sentiment of customer reviews, or translating documents into different languages. These machine-learning models typically use only natural language to process information and answer queries, which can make it difficult for them to perform tasks that require numerical or symbolic reasoning. For instance, a large language model might be able to memorize and recite a list of recent U.S. presidents and their birthdays, but that same model could fail if asked the question “Which U.S. presidents elected after 1950 ...

Residential treatment is among the most effective tools for treating substance use disorder, with people in these settings showing improvement not only in their substance use but also in their mental health, social functioning and quality of life. However, when people leave residential substance use facilities, they face immense challenges as they attempt to reintegrate into their communities and return to their normal lives. As many as 40 to 70 percent of people who complete residential treatment return ...

CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing has made possible a multitude of biomedical experiments including studies that systematically turn off genes in cancer cells to look for ones that the cancer cells heavily depend on to survive and grow. These genes, or “cancer dependencies,” are often promising drug targets. But new research shows that many of these CRISPR screening experiments rely on components, called CRISPR/Cas9 guides, that do not perform equally well in cells from people of all ancestries, which can cause CRISPR screens to miss cancer dependencies. These CRISPR guides are short sequences of RNA that ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Memory immune cells reside in many tissues, poised to react to a second infection or continuing antigen. Yet little is known about these tissue-resident memory cells — how they get there, how they evolve and how they compete in tissues. A five-year, $18.5 million grant will allow University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers to investigate T and B tissue-resident memory cells, known as TRM and BRM cells, in three unique sites — transplanted lungs, transplanted kidneys and the transplanted ...

In the U.S., as farmers wrestle with extreme heat and drought, heavy rainfall and flooding, and erosion—all factors of climate change which can take a toll on crops—there's been a lot of buzz over regenerative agriculture over the past few years, as big agriculture companies promise opportunities to make money from "carbon farming" while also improving soil health.   Regenerative farming strives to improve soil health through various methods, including reduced or no tillage, keeping the soil covered year-round through ...

  The New York Consortium for Space Technology (NYCST) is led by Cornell University, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation through the Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program.   Ithaca, NY— June 14, 2024 — The New York Consortium for Space Technology Innovation and Development (NYCST) today announced more than $300 thousand has been allocated to support 6 projects through the inaugural round of the consortium’s funding program.  The projects were selected during NYCST’s inaugural ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – June 14, 2024) The innate immune system is responsible for protecting the human body from threats that could cause disease or infection. The system relies on innate immune sensors to detect and transmit signals about these threats. One of the key innate immune strategies to respond to threats is through cell death. New research from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital discovered that NLRC5 plays a previously unknown role as an innate immune sensor, triggering cell death. The findings, published in Cell, show how NLRC5 drives PANoptosis, a prominent type of inflammatory cell death. This understanding has implications for the development of therapeutics ...

Researchers have consistently shown that prenatal exposure to Di (2-ethyhexyl) phthalate harms the reproductive system in male mice and causes fertility defects. In a new study, scientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have shown that the combination of DEHP and a high-fat diet in pregnant mice can cause more damage to pups than each factor alone.  Male reproductive disorders are a growing issue due to the global decrease in sperm count and quality. Concerningly, chemicals like DEHP, which can be found in food storage containers, pharmaceuticals, and building materials, have been ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - After surveying food market retailers in three New York City Chinatown districts, Cornell University researchers have found genetic evidence that some endangered species of sea cucumbers – considered a pricey but nutritious dried delicacy – are being sold to consumers. The researchers collected 103 samples of dried sea cucumbers from retail food shops. By using mitochondrial DNA testing, they successfully identified 74 examples of sea cucumbers. Eight were classified as brown sea cucumbers– which are threatened and found on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List due to overharvesting. “We ...

WHAT: The amount of infectious H5N1 influenza viruses in raw milk rapidly declined with heat treatment in laboratory research conducted by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. However, small, detectable amounts of infectious virus remained in raw milk samples with high virus levels when treated at 72 degrees Celsius (161.6 degrees Fahrenheit) for 15 seconds—one of the standard pasteurization methods used by the dairy industry. The authors of the study stress, ...

“Elucidating the function of Erk5 in cancer [...] will contribute to a better understanding of cancer pathogenesis and the development of novel therapeutic strategies.” BUFFALO, NY- June 14, 2024 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncoscience (Volume 11) on May 20, 2024, entitled, “Role of Erk5 expressed in bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells on bone homeostasis and its potential applications in cancer treatment.” In their new editorial, researchers Tetsuhiro Horie and Eiichi Hinoi from Kanazawa ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – June 14, 2024) Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital today announced a way to improve molecular scale distance measurements using single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (smFRET). smFRET quantifies the excitation and emission properties of chemicals called fluorophores.    When an excited electron in the fluorophore relaxes, it emits light after a delay, causing the molecule to glow (fluoresce). However, fluorophores don’t always fluoresce after excitation. Instead, through quantum mechanical ...

SAN ANTONIO, June 14, 2024 – The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Dentistry is preparing to launch its Center for Regenerative Sciences, a new research initiative that aims to position the university at the forefront of regenerative dentistry and medicine. “The center will provide new avenues for interdisciplinary collaborations to accelerate the translation of preclinical discoveries into therapeutic benefit for patients suffering from dental, oral and craniofacial diseases,” said Yong-Hee Chun, DDS, PhD, MS, associate professor of ...

In a major breakthrough for lithium recovery technologies, researchers from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with collaborators, have developed a crystalline carbon nitride membrane that could transform the lithium extraction industry. The innovative design, which mimics biological ion channels, shows remarkable efficiency and durability in separating lithium ions from magnesium ions in salt-lake brine. The study, published in Science Advances on June 14, introduces a ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS Lung cancer is the most diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death globally, representing an urgent need for new and improved treatment options. Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital developed a new nanomedicine therapy that delivers anticancer drugs to lung cancer cells and enhances the immune system's ability to fight cancer. The research must undergo rigorous toxicology studies before moving into clinical testing in patients but represents a potential treatment for patients who have failed to respond to traditional immunotherapy. Researchers at Brigham and ...

Atlanta, GA – June 14, 2024 – Antibiotics in the uppermost water surface, known as the sea surface microlayer, can significantly affect the number of bacteria present and contribute to the adaptation of marine bacteria against widely used antibiotics. In new research presented at ASM Microbe, scientists directly assessed the potential effects of antibiotics on bacterial diversity in Jade Bay, Southern North Sea, Germany. The researchers tested the susceptibility and resistance of marine bacteria to ofloxacin, ...

Atlanta, GA—Sepsis is a life-threatening infection complication and accounts for 1.7 million hospitalizations and 350,000 deaths annually in the U.S. Fast and accurate diagnosis is critical, as mortality risk increases up to 8% every hour without effective treatment. However, the current diagnostic standard is reliant on culture growth, which typically takes 2-3 days. Doctors may choose to administer broad-spectrum antibiotics until more information is available for an accurate diagnosis, but these can have limited efficacy and potential toxicity to the patient. In a study presented at ASM Microbe, a team from Day Zero Diagnostics unveiled a novel approach to antimicrobial susceptibility ...

A team of researchers led by Philip Walther at the University of Vienna carried out a pioneering experiment where they measured the effect of the rotation of Earth on quantum entangled photons. The work, just published in Science Advances, represents a significant achievement that pushes the boundaries of rotation sensitivity in entanglement-based sensors, potentially setting the stage for further exploration at the intersection between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Optical Sagnac interferometers are the most sensitive devices to rotations. They have been pivotal in our understanding of fundamental physics since the early years of the last century, contributing to establish ...

Atlanta, Ga. – June 14, 2023 – Researchers have demonstrated that a new technology could quickly and accurately diagnose bloodstream infections. The study findings were reported at ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. “There is a need to be able to rapidly and accurately diagnose bacteremia in newborn babies. They are especially susceptible to long-term morbidities and mortality the longer they go without treatment, or even with inaccurate treatment for bloodstream infections or sepsis,” said presenting study author April Aralar, Ph.D., a ...

Background: We previously demonstrated the successful use of in vivo CRISPR gene editing to delete 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPD) to rescue mice deficient in fumarylacetoacetate hydrolase (FAH), a disorder known as hereditary tyrosinemia type 1 (HT1). The aim of this study was to develop an ex vivo gene-editing protocol and apply it as a cell therapy for HT1. Methods: We isolated hepatocytes from wild-type (C57BL/6J) and Fah-/- mice and then used an optimized electroporation protocol to deliver Hpd-targeting CRISPR-Cas9 ribonucleoproteins into hepatocytes. Next, hepatocytes were transiently incubated in ...

University of Georgia-based startup CyanVac LLC received federal funding to support a comparative Phase 2b clinical trial of CVXGA, the company’s intranasal vaccine candidates designed to protect against COVID-19. As part of the award from Project NextGen, a federal initiative based in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), CyanVac will sponsor a randomized, double-blind Phase 2b study with 10,000 participants to compare the efficacy and safety of the intranasal vaccine against an FDA-approved mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine. The new vaccine is based on a viral delivery platform developed by He containing modified ...

Patients are less likely to fill prescriptions for naloxone when they face increases in out-of-pocket costs, according to U-M researchers. Patients are less likely to fill prescriptions for naloxone when they face increases in out-of-pocket costs, according to research by the University of Michigan. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study utilized data from a national pharmacy transactions database from November 2020 to March 2021. Researchers found that about 1 in 3 naloxone ...

New research by Swansea University and the University of Zurich has found that sharks retained high levels of functional diversity for most of the last 66 million years, before steadily declining over the last 10 million years to its lowest value in the present day. Modern sharks are among the ocean’s most threatened species; yet have notably survived numerous environmental changes in their 250-million-year history. Today, their more than 500 species play many different ecological roles, from apex predators to nutrient transporters. Ecological roles are determined by species’ traits such as body size, ...

Periods of fasting reprogram the immune system’s natural killer cells to better fight cancer, according to a new study in mice from researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Fasting and other dietary regimens are increasingly being explored as ways to starve cancer cells of the nutrients they need to grow and to make cancer treatments more effective. Now a team of researchers from MSK’s Sloan Kettering Institute and their collaborators have shown for the ...

Sjögren’s disease is a systemic autoimmune disorder that often causes sicca symptoms – or dryness of the eyes and mouth, alongside many other complications such as fatigue, pain, and neurological manifestations. There are treatments that help with symptoms, but none that address the underlying disease processes.3 One key issue in developing new treatments is that Sjögren’s can differ from person to person – and that makes it hard to measure and compare outcomes in a clinical trial.   NECESSITY is an interventional trial looking at new clinical endpoints in Sjögren’s disease. ...