Study suggests high blood pressure may originate early in life and that preventing overweight and obesity during the developmental years could help reduce the substantial disease burden associated with high blood pressure in later life. *This is an early press release from the European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2024) Venice 12-15 May. Please credit the Congress if using this material* Children and teenagers living with overweight or obesity are more likely to have high blood pressure as adults (aged 50-64 years), suggesting the processes behind the condition could begin as early as childhood, suggests new research being ...

**Note: the release below is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 27-30 April). Please credit the congress if you use this story** A population-wide observational study to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 April) shows an association between tuberculosis (TB) and cancer, with those with current or previous TB more likely ...

Previous smallpox vaccination contributes significantly to higher neutralising antibodies following first MVA-BN dose **Note: the release below is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 27-30 April). Please credit the congress if you use this story** New research to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 ...

New research to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 April) shows that the antibodies produced by Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara - Bavarian Nordic (MVA-BN) vaccination against mpox wane significantly within a year of receiving the vaccination – but in people with pre-existing immunity due to childhood smallpox vaccination in childhood, antibody levels remain high in almost all cases. The study is presented by PhD student Dr. Marc Shamier, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, Netherlands, from a research team led by Dr Rory de Vries. During the 2022-2023 ...

New research to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 April) details the case of a man who had received two doses of the monkey pox vaccine in Autumn, 2022 yet experienced a ‘breakthrough’ mpox infection in January 2024. The authors believe breakthrough should be considered in fully vaccinated individuals engaging in high-risk behaviors. They also call for further research on the need for booster ...

Researchers from Lund University in Sweden have identified distinct molecular signatures associated with the clinical signs of sepsis that could provide more accurate diagnosis and prognosis of sepsis, as well as help to target specific therapies at patients who would benefit most, according to new research being presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 April). “A simple blood test when combined with a personalised risk model has the potential to save lives by providing more accurate sepsis diagnosis and determining who may go on to develop more severe clinical ...

*This is an early press release from the European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2024) Venice 12-15 May. Please credit the Congress if using this material* New research being presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Venice, Italy (12-15 May), identifies the optimum body weight range for adults with type 2 diabetes to minimise their risk of dying from any cardiovascular disease, including heart failure, heart disease, stroke, and chronic kidney disease. The findings, based on health data from the UK Biobank, indicate that for adults aged 65 years or younger, maintaining a body mass index (BMI) within the normal range of 23–25 kg/m² was associated with the ...

Waltham — March 29, 2024 — Parents voice strong concerns about social media sharing of images of children undergoing craniofacial surgery, reports a survey study in the April issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  "Pediatric plastic surgeons must understand that consent and assent are necessary before posting patient images online," comments senior author Kenneth L. Fan, MD, of Georgetown ...

Researchers Produce Grafts that Replicate the Human Ear Using state-of-the-art tissue engineering techniques and a 3D printer, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell Engineering have assembled a replica of an adult human ear that looks and feels natural. The study, published online in Acta Biomaterialia on March 16, offers the promise of grafts with well-defined anatomy and the correct biomechanical properties for those who are born with a congenital malformation or who lose an ear later in life. “Ear reconstruction requires multiple surgeries and an incredible amount of artistry ...

BOSTON, United States  — 29 March, 2024  — Based on the success of its 2023 HF-GRO program effort, Hevolution Foundation is issuing a call for applications for the 2024 iteration of the program. HF-GRO is an international effort to accelerate progress in healthy aging research. The major goal is to identify and support research that will further the Hevolution’s mission of extending healthy lifespan for the benefit of all humanity.  HF-GRO will ...

HOUSTON – (March 29, 2024) – Gas vesicles are hollow structures made of protein found in the cells of certain microorganisms, and researchers at Rice University believe they can be programmed for use in biomedical applications. “Inside cells, gas vesicles are packed in a beautiful honeycomb pattern. How this pattern is formed has never been thoroughly understood. We are presenting the first identification of a protein that can regulate this patterning, and we believe this will be a milestone in molecular microbiology,” said George Lu, assistant professor of bioengineering and a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas scholar. Lu and colleagues have published ...

Alexandria, VA – The American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) has named the recipients of the 2024 Student Competition for Advancing Dental Research Application (SCADA). The recipients were recognized during the Opening Ceremonies of the 53rd Annual Meeting of the AADOCR, which was held in conjunction with the 102nd General Session of the International Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research and the 48th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, on March 13-16, 2024 in New Orleans, LA. The winners are: CLINICAL RESEARCH & PUBLIC HEALTH CATEGORY 1st ...

AURORA, Colo. (March 29,  2024) –Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and collaborators across the country have conducted the largest and most diverse study of men with extra X or Y chromosomes in the US using a large dataset of military veterans. The results could lead to better diagnoses of these underrecognized conditions and earlier treatment of associated diseases. The study was published today in JAMA Network Open. “One in 400 males have an additional X or Y chromosome, however 86 percent of these individuals are not diagnosed,” said ...

HOUSTON, March 29, 2024 – Three top researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have accepted joint appointments in various capacities at the University of Houston. These appointments are part of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) Argonne signed recently with the Greater Houston Partnership. The MoU creates greater collaboration across academia, industry, private investors and government to accelerate and scale decarbonization efforts in the region, with the goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, according to an Argonne press release. “This strategic collaboration leverages the combined strengths ...

INDIANAPOLIS – More than 90% of people with Down syndrome, the most common chromosomal disorder in humans and the most frequent genetic cause of intellectual disability, are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease by ages 55-60. A new study recently published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology uses leading-edge cryo-electron microscopy imaging technology to determine whether differences exist between the protein structures in those with Alzheimer’s disease and those with both Alzheimer’s disease and Down syndrome. “Just like in Alzheimer’s disease, the neuropathological phenotype in those with ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Scripps Research scientists have found that LY2444296—a compound that selectively blocks the kappa opioid receptor (KOP)—may reduce drinking in cases of alcohol dependence in animal studies. The findings, which were published March 9, 2024, in Scientific Reports, could eventually inform new treatment options for people who experience alcohol use disorder (AUD). “Compounds designed to selectively block the KOP are very promising because this receptor is involved in a lot of mental illnesses, such as ...

DENVER — (MARCH 29, 2024) Food allergies occur often in childhood and can be severe or even fatal. Researchers at National Jewish Health are working to develop a program to prevent food allergies and have now identified early predictors of the condition.         During a recent study just published online in the March 2024 issue of the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, skin tape strips were collected from the forearms of newborns at the age of two months, an age before there ...

New research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison decodes the evolutionary pathway of regulatory proteins, the molecules that help control gene expression. The findings from the Raman Lab in the Department of Biochemistry recently published their findings in the journal Cell Systems. Here’s a rundown on what they discovered: Proteins acquire and lose functions through evolutionary processes as cells adapt to changes in their environment over time. Protein evolution is well studied in certain enzymes but is understudied in regulatory proteins, which help control gene expression. A new, ...

Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”), a clinical-stage generative artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, today announced that five preclinical programs have been accepted as poster presentations in the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024 (AACR 2024) happening April 5-10 in San Diego. Abstracts are now available on the AACR website. Insilico’s drug discovery efforts are driven by its validated and commercially viable AI drug discovery platform, Pharma.AI, ...

BOSTON – For adults hospitalized for alcohol-related reasons, receiving a prescription for an alcohol use disorder (AUD) medication at the time of discharge may lower their risk of return to hospital within 30 days of discharge, including emergency room visits and readmissions. That’s according to a recent study published in JAMA Network Open led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University of Pittsburgh. For the study, the investigators identified 9,834 alcohol-related hospitalizations among 6,794 Medicare Part D beneficiaries across the United States in 2016. Only 2.0% of hospitalizations involved filled ...

Fifty million Americans are on a financing plan to pay off medical or dental bills, with one-quarter of those bearing some interest. Increasingly, medical payment products (MPPs) – which include credit cards and loans administered by hospitals, physician practices, or third-party companies – have come under scrutiny by the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and the Treasury.  The agencies’ concern is that the products may be sidestepping a broad range of patient and consumer protections and inflating ...

This publication is a call to action for governments and agencies to develop, legislate and enforce IAQ standards. Boerstra: “Traditionally, governments have regulated outdoor air. But inhabitants of industrialized countries now spend more than 90% of their time indoors.” As a result, indoor pollutants have major consequences for our long-term health. Bluyssen: “For example, we now know that tiny airborne particles can pass directly from lungs to bloodstream, where they cause all kinds of diseases.” And indoor air is also a prime transmitter of pathogens, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 ...

Your ability to remember and recall moments in time is important for recording life-defining moments and everyday information like where you parked the car. Now researchers reporting in the journal Cell on March 29 have new insight into how those episodic memories are encoded in the brain based on studies of how chickadees store food. Their study finds that chickadees activate unique neural patterns, which they liken to barcodes, each time they cache food in a certain spot. When they go back to retrieve that stored food, their brains light back ...

NEW YORK, NY — Black-capped chickadees have extraordinary memories that can recall the locations of thousands of morsels of food to help them survive the winter. Now scientists at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute have discovered how the chickadees can remember so many details: they memorize each food location using brain cell activity akin to a barcode. These new findings may shed light on how the brain creates memories for the events that make up our lives. "We see the world through our memories of objects, places and people," said Dmitriy Aronov, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute and an ...

Researchers Yuta Sunakawa, Ko Mochizuki, and Atsushi Kawakita of the University of Tokyo discovered the first orchid species pollinated by gall midges, a tiny fly species. This is the first documented case of an orchid species found to be pollinated by gall midges, and it makes the orchids the eleventh such plant family. The findings were published in the journal Ecology. The family of orchids is rich both in numbers and variety. Their range of shapes and sizes is due to having evolved to attract different animal pollinators. However, scientists have only mapped ...