A collaboration between The Wistar Institute and the University of Buea in Cameroon has uncovered the mechanisms for a medicinal plant with anti-HIV potential in Croton oligandrus Pierre & Hutch, a species of African tree that has been used in traditional healing in Cameroon to treat a variety of diseases and conditions including cancers and diabetes.  The research team — a collaboration between Fidele Ntie-Kang, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Buea and the Director of the University of Buea Centre for Drug Discovery, and Ian Tietjen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor and Education Director of Global Studies & ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- The U.S. Department of Education has awarded Binghamton University Community Schools (BUCS) a five-year grant, totaling more than $4.5 million, to expand mental health services in Chenango County as part of its Mental Health Service Provider Demonstration Grant Program. This initiative, entitled Empowering Rural Communities: Promoting Mental Health, Equity, and Wellbeing Through a University-assisted Community Schools Approach, will expand social work support to students and families in the Norwich and Oxford school districts with the ability to serve 2,310 ...

Energy stored in thermochemical materials can effectively heat indoor spaces, particularly in humid regions, according to researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Working with industry representatives and researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the scientists determined a realistic configuration for integrating thermochemical materials (TCMs) into a building’s HVAC system. Salt-hydrate TCMs are considered promising candidates for providing load flexibility to a building’s heating system. This flexibility could allow for reduced electrical requirements for the heating system or load shifting to times ...

Four Tufts researchers have been named to a ranking of the world’s most highly cited researchers. The researchers in the Clarivate 2024 list have a significant impact on the research community as judged by the rate their work is cited by their peers, according to Clarivate, an information and analytics firm focused on research. The highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by citations for a field or fields and publication year, and only about 1 in 1,000 researchers worldwide qualify. The Tufts researchers are David ...

November 19, 2024 -- A new report released from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Health and Medicine Division addresses the responsible use of race and ethnicity in biomedical research and is a call to action for biomedical research to rethink how it uses race and ethnicity. The number of people who identify as multiracial in the U.S. is increasing, yet there is no standard way to account for multiracial or multiethnic people in biomedical research, according to the final report, Rethinking Race and Ethnicity in Biomedical Research.   The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an expert committee in 2023 to ...

Astronomers at the University of Toronto (U of T) have discovered the first pairs of white dwarf and main sequence stars – “dead” remnants and "living" stars – in young star clusters. Described in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, this breakthrough offers new insights on an extreme phase of stellar evolution, and one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics. Scientists can now begin to bridge the gap between the earliest and final stages of binary star systems – two stars that orbit a shared center of gravity – to further our understanding of how stars form, how galaxies evolve, and how most elements ...

TUCSON, Ariz., November 19, 2024 — Critical Path Institute® (C-Path) today announced that its Translational Therapeutics Accelerator (TRxA) program, in partnership with The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, a new research grant aimed at developing a novel treatment for type 1 diabetes (T1D). This award is made through TRxA’s Bridging Research and Innovation in Drug Development Grants (BRIDGe) program, which is designed to support academic researchers in traversing the drug development valley of death and advancing new cutting-edge therapeutics from the lab to patients.  Feroz ...

In the United States, there are currently more adults living with cerebral palsy than children.  Despite this, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still label cerebral palsy as “the most common motor disability in childhood.” This definition not only ignores cerebral palsy as a lifelong condition but contributes to a lopsided research focus directed only at pediatric care and not care into adulthood and across the lifespan, experts say. University of Michigan Health’s Mark Peterson, Ph.D., M.S., FACSM, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, has been working to make sure the definition of cerebral ...

  Images When Sean Crosson was a child growing up in rural Texas, he learned about vaccinating cattle against Bang’s disease from his high school agriculture teacher. The disease’s name amused him at the time.  Now, Crosson, a Professor Rudolph Hugh Endowed Chair in Michigan State University’s Department of Microbiology, Genetics and Immunology, has been awarded a $2.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study the cause of that very disease, Brucella abortus. Brucella abortus causes brucellosis disease, which, in addition to being known as Bang’s disease is also referred ...

MELVILLE, N.Y., Nov. 19, 2024 – Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 50 million people worldwide, often devastating both the individuals who have it and their families and loved ones. It has no known cure, and the slow, progressive nature of the disease makes early diagnosis difficult. Researchers from École de Technologie Supérieure and Dartmouth University are investigating the use of earpiece microphones to spot early signs of Alzheimer’s. Miriam Boutros will present their work on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 4:15 p.m. ET, as part of the virtual 187th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, running Nov. 18-22, 2024. People with Alzheimer’s ...

How would you summarize your study for a lay audience? Gastroenterologists who focus primarily on providing inpatient care, called GI Hospitalists, are becoming more common across the U.S. We developed a survey to assess the effect of GI Hospitalists on fellowship education and found that GI Hospitalists improve education through superior endoscopy teaching and longitudinal feedback. What knowledge gap does your study help to fill? The aim of this study was to directly assess GI fellows’ perceptions of the educational impact of GI Hospitalist faculty on GI fellowship training. ...

Researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) are helping uncover new information about the Y chromosome in horses, which will help owners identify optimal lineages for breeding and help conservationists preserve breed diversity. “Because of its complex structure, the Y chromosome is much harder to sequence, making our knowledge of it far from complete,” said Dr. Gus Cothran, a professor emeritus in the VMBS’ Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences (VIBS). “In fact, scientists used to believe that the Y chromosome ...

Along Colombia's Pacific coast, a small shellfish called piangua has been a crucial part of local communities for generations. This humble mollusk is a vital source of income and nutrition for many coastal residents. As a regional resource that can be sustainably utilized, it represents a bioeconomy opportunity and is an example for other regions. But now, scientists are raising the alarm about its future. A new study reveals that piangua populations are showing concerning signs of decline, largely due to overharvesting. Researchers used cutting-edge DNA analysis to examine these shellfish in two key locations along Colombia's ...

INDIANAPOLIS, November 18, 2024— The American Heart Association and the Indianapolis Colts this past weekend brought cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) training to the Colts Regional Flag Football tournament. At the Kickoff event held at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center on Saturday, Nov. 16 more than 100 youth athletes, coaches and league administrators learned lifesaving skills to build their confidence and capabilities to respond in the event of a cardiac emergency. The following day, walk-up style Hands-Only CPR instruction was again available to guests attending the tournament at the Center Grove Bantom ...

As rates of obesity, as defined by body mass index (BMI), continue to climb in the United States, so have efforts to lose weight, including a new era of weight-loss drugs. Yet a new systematic review and meta-analysis published today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that cardiorespiratory fitness was a stronger predictor of both cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality than BMI. The researchers found that fit individuals across all BMI categories had statistically similar risks of death from all causes or cardiovascular disease. By contrast, unfit individuals ...

  LA JOLLA, CA—In most people, the lung-infecting pathogens known as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV) trigger mild cold-like symptoms. But in infants and seniors, these viruses can cause severe pneumonia and even death. Vaccines against both viruses, however, have been difficult to design. Now, Scripps Research scientists have analyzed the structure and stability of a critical RSV and hMPV protein to better design vaccines that target it. Their research, ...

November 19, 2024 - Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel – In a recent study, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center has shed light on physician attitudes toward novel anti-amyloid treatments (ATT) for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), revealing a spectrum of opinions across key specialties. With Israel’s health system structured to provide universal healthcare, the high out-of-pocket costs for new AD therapies have raised questions among medical professionals about the feasibility and practicality of implementing these treatments. The study, conducted ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (11/19/2024) — Published in Child Psychiatry and Human Development, a research team led by the University of Minnesota Medical School found that Creativity Camp, a two-week arts intervention delivered as a day camp, had a positive impact on mental health and well-being in adolescents with depression.  The idea behind the study is that engaging in the arts offers a pathway for exploring and expanding new ways of thinking, developing insights and sparking self-discovery. “As a clinician, I am deeply aware of the urgent need for new treatment options for teens with depression. The findings in this report are promising, and I hope they ...

Brain-imaging data collected from fetuses and infants has revealed a rapid surge in functional connectivity between brain regions on a global scale at birth, possibly reflecting neural processes that support the brain’s ability to adapt to the external world, according to a study published November 19th, in the open-access journal PLOS Biology led by Lanxin Ji and Moriah Thomason from the New York University School of Medicine, USA. Understanding the sequence and timing of brain functional network ...

Des Plaines, IL — A new study that investigates low-dose ketamine (LDK) as an adjunct to morphine for treating acute pain has been published in the October issue of Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM). The study, titled Low-dose ketamine as an adjunct to morphine: A randomized controlled trial among patients with and without current opioid use highlights the potential of low-dose ketamine as a valuable tool in pain management, providing a safe and effective option for emergency medicine physicians managing acute pain.  Pain remains one of the most common and challenging complaints ...

Research Highlights: A clinical trial with adults who have atrial fibrillation (AFib) and an implanted heart device found similar improvements to the amount of time they experienced arrhythmia regardless of whether they received standard care (education pamphlets about healthy diet and exercise), followed a lifestyle/risk factor modification program, or took metformin and followed a lifestyle/risk factor modification program. AFib burden, a measure of how much time a patient experiences atrial arrhythmia, improved during the treatment period — particularly in the standard of care and lifestyle risk factor modification groups. Lifestyle and risk factor modification was associated ...

Cognitive neuroscientists in Trinity College Dublin have published new research describing a brand new approach to making habit change achievable and lasting.  This innovative framework has the potential to significantly improve approaches to personal development, as well as the clinical treatment of compulsive disorders (for example obsessive compulsive disorder, addiction, and eating disorders). The research was led by Dr Eike Buabang, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the lab of Professor Claire Gillan in the School of Psychology and has been published as a paper, Leveraging ...

Research Highlights: The oral medication muvalaplin may safely lower high levels of lipoprotein(a), also known as Lp(a), an independent, inherited risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Muvalaplin is a small molecule inhibitor that prevents the bonding of the two protein components that combine to make Lp(a). There are no currently FDA-approved medications to lower Lp(a) levels, though other medications are currently being evaluated in clinical trials. Muvalaplin is the first oral medication developed to lower Lp(a) levels. Results ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Eradivir, a preclinical biotech company, has developed a patent-pending antiviral therapeutic that reduces lung viral loads of advanced-stage influenza in preclinical studies quicker and more effectively than currently available therapies. A single intranasal dose of EV25, a bispecific small molecule developed by Eradivir, acts faster than the current standard of care, eliminating the detectable virus within 24 hours. EV25 also has a window of efficacy of 96 hours postinfection, which is broader than the current standard of care. A ...

Every fall, millions of Medicare beneficiaries have the chance to pick a new stand-alone prescription drug plan that may be better suited for them, but most stick with the same plan. A new study published today in Health Affairs Scholar suggests that 52% of Medicare beneficiaries with stand-alone Part D plans did not switch because they made no plan comparisons at all for 2024. Many of these beneficiaries (41%) also reported not knowing how to switch plans.   “Comparing these Medicare Part D plans is hard, so many beneficiaries just don’t do it. But beneficiaries who don’t compare plans may not notice if they are sticking with more expensive plans or ...