Prime editing, a versatile form of gene editing that can correct most known disease-causing genetic mutations, now has a new vehicle to deliver its machinery into cells in living animals. A team of researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has engineered virus-like particles to deliver prime editors to cells in mice at a high enough efficiency to rescue a genetic disorder. In the new work published today in Nature Biotechnology, the team adapted engineered virus-like particles (eVLPs) that they had previously designed to carry base editors — ...

The origin of Earth and the Solar System inspires scientists and the public alike. By studying the present state of our home planet and other objects in the Solar System, researchers have developed a detailed picture of the conditions when they evolved from a disk made of dust and gas surrounding the infant sun some 4.5 billion years ago. Three rings hinting at two planets With the breathtaking progress made in star and planet formation research aiming at far-away celestial objects, we can now investigate the conditions in environments around young stars and compare them to the ones derived for the early Solar System. Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large ...

Unknown germs are a common occurrence in hospitals. Researchers at the University of Basel have spent many years collecting and analyzing them. They have identified many new species of bacteria, some of which are significant for clinical practice. Bacterial infections can be treated more efficiently if the cause of the disease is known. In most cases, all it takes to identify a pathogen is an analysis in a medical laboratory. Sometimes, however, the standard methods are insufficient – for example, if the species of bacteria has not yet been classified or ...

Including patients as partners for making decisions about their medical treatments is an important aspect of patient-centered care. A new study from England examined choices that patients with breast cancer make when considering where to have surgery for their condition and assessed how policies that offer such choices might affect inequalities in the health care system. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. For the study, investigators analyzed data from the National Health Service (NHS), the publicly ...

Certain populations of mosquitoes are more heat tolerant and better equipped to survive heat waves than others, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis. This is bad news in a world where vector-borne diseases are an increasingly global health concern. Most models that scientists use to estimate vector-borne disease risk currently assume that mosquito heat tolerances do not vary. As a result, these models may underestimate mosquitoes’ ability to spread diseases in a warming world. Researchers led by Katie M. Westby, a senior scientist at Tyson Research Center, Washington ...

PHILADELPHIA – Increasing patients’ out of pocket costs for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), medications, which have been shown to dramatically reduce the risk of HIV infection, could lead to a significant reduction in PrEP use and a rise in HIV infection rates, according to a new study co-led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study, published today in Health Affairs, was designed, in part, to explore the impact that out-of-pocket cost increases could have, depending on the outcome of an ongoing court case challenging certain ...

Orlando, Fla - More than two in five U.S. adults suffer from obesity, an epidemic that continues to trend upward. While bariatric surgery is an extremely effective treatment option, a new national survey by Orlando Health reveals common stigmas that may deter those who qualify for surgery from pursuing the treatment they need. “Treatment plans for obesity are tailored to each individual patient based on things like body mass index and existing medical conditions and may include medication, lifestyle changes, counseling and bariatric surgery,” said Andre Teixeira, MD, medical ...

The spectacular explosion of the mine at Hawthorn Ridge – a fortified German front-line position in the First World War – marked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, and remains one of the best-known pieces of film from the whole conflict. More than 60ft below the surface, British miners had dug a gallery for more than 900 metres from their lines and packed it with 40,000 lbs of explosives. It was one of 19 mines placed beneath German front positions that were detonated on 1st July, 1916 to mark the start of the offensive. But the detonation of the ...

A recent study found changes in blood flow in the retina could explain why some migraine patients experience visual symptoms. The findings could represent a long-sought observable marker for migraines that doctors can use to aid in the clinical treatment of the condition. While patients with migraines often experience symptoms such as pain around the eye, sensitivity to light, blind spots and visual blurring, the mechanisms behind those symptoms have not been well understood. UCLA Health researchers used a non-invasive imaging technique, known as optical coherence tomography angiography, or OCTA, ...

A network of scientists across the globe have identified more than 700 plant genera named for women. This is a nearly twenty-fold increase in the number of genera linked to women before the group started working on the list.  The project, which aimed to highlight the contribution of women to botany, was the result of social media conversations about plants named for people.   What began as a simple question about how many and which plant genera were named for women evolved into a global network of scientists who built ...

When the body encounters bacteria, viruses or harmful substances, its innate immune cells, neutrophils, assemble at the site to combat the invader. Bacteria and viruses have ways to avoid these defenses, however. Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes bubonic and pneumonic plague, for example, can hide from the immune system, allowing it to replicate in the body unhindered until it can overwhelm the host. This ability allowed Y. pestis to spread bubonic plague across Europe in the 14th Century, killing a third of the European population. While plague may not be a serious threat to human health in modern times, researchers at the University of Louisville are studying Y. ...

A paper published in Nature Communications Biology contributes to the growing appreciation for the outsize role that microbes play in everything from human digestion to crop yields: Microbes in the soil—fungi in this case—appear to be influencing forest diversity on a global scale. Forests on Earth exhibit a marked gradient from the equator toward the poles: Tropical forests near the equator tend to include a large number of different species, whereas forests nearer the poles support less plant diversity. One explanation for this phenomenon maintains that soil pathogens, including bacteria and fungi, help create this gradient. ...

How can health care systems increase diversity and inclusion in their workforce? UC Davis Health, recognized by Forbes as a "Best Employer in California", has developed a road map for increasing workforce diversity across the industry. While California banned the consideration of race or ethnicity in hiring at public institutions in 1996, UC Davis Health has since come up with a holistic outreach and local recruitment plan that has proven effective. And that approach is now receiving global attention through a new case study published in New England Journal ...

A study conducted by researchers at Ruppin Academic Center in Israel and Columbia University documents the broad impact on the mental health of Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, with sharp increases in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety in the aftermath Hamas' attack in October. The study, published in the Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine  Jan. 5, 2023, found the prevalence of probable PTSD, depression, and anxiety in the weeks following the attacks (29% for PTSD, ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Scientists have solved a cellular murder mystery nearly 25 years after the case went cold. Following a trail of evidence from fruit flies to mice to humans revealed that cannibalistic cells likely cause a rare human immunodeficiency. Now the discovery shows promise for enhancing an up-and-coming cancer treatment. “This paper takes us from very fundamental cell biology in a fly, to explaining a human disease and harnessing that knowledge for a cancer therapy,” ...

Researchers at the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center have identified a mechanism that causes severe gastrointestinal problems with immune-based cancer treatment. They also found a way to deliver immunotherapy’s cancer-killing impact without the unwelcome side effect. The findings are published in Science. “This is a good example of how understanding a mechanism helps you to develop an alternative therapy that’s more beneficial. Once we identified the mechanism causing the colitis, we could then develop ways to overcome this problem and prevent colitis while preserving the anti-tumor effect,” said senior ...

Reston, VA — The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) have issued a new procedure standard/practice guideline for estrogen receptor imaging of breast cancer patients using FES PET. The standard/guideline, published ahead of print in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, is intended to assist physicians in recommending, performing, interpreting, and reporting the results of 18F-FES PET studies for patients with breast cancer. More than two million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer ...

About three years before he retired, David Campbell noticed something weird happening as he typed. Whenever he tried to hit a letter, say “a,” he’d get “aaa,” like the keyboard was jamming or his finger was triple-tapping the key. That wasn’t the only thing that seemed off—his sense of smell was faltering. “Little things,” he says, “that I didn’t think of as being a big deal.” A couple of weeks after he retired in fall 2020, Campbell learned the little things weren’t ...

Climate campaigners will increasingly adopt “insider activist” roles, working to change or challenge their organisations from the inside rather than the outside, a new study says. Research led by the University of Exeter identifies different types of climate activists. As well as “insiders”, there are others who seek to undermine, or even damage, climate-recalcitrant organisations they are members of in the hope of change. The study says the growing climate backlash against traditional outside climate activism and rise of corporate “greenwashing” means collaborating or ...

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA – Conservation measures have successfully stopped declines in the African savanna elephant population across southern Africa, but the pattern varies locally, according to a new study. The evidence suggests that the long-term solution to elephant survival requires not only that areas are protected but that they are also connected to allow populations to stabilize naturally, an international research team says. Their study, published on January 5th in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, collected survey estimates and calculated growth rates for ...

Douglas Boin, Ph.D., a professor of history at Saint Louis University, made a major announcement at the annual meeting of the Archeological Institute of America, revealing he and his team discovered an ancient Roman temple that adds significant insights into the social change from pagan gods to Christianity within the Roman Empire.  “We found three walls of a monumental structure that evidence suggests belonged to a Roman temple that dates to Constantine's period,” Boin said. “It dates to the fourth century AD and it would ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Using a new technology developed at MIT, diagnosing lung cancer could become as easy as inhaling nanoparticle sensors and then taking a urine test that reveals whether a tumor is present. The new diagnostic is based on nanosensors that can be delivered by an inhaler or a nebulizer. If the sensors encounter cancer-linked proteins in the lungs, they produce a signal that accumulates in the urine, where it can be detected with a simple paper test strip. This approach could potentially replace or supplement the current gold standard for diagnosing lung cancer, low-dose computed tomography (CT). It ...

(Memphis, Tenn.—January 5, 2024) Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital are tackling Mycobacterium abscessus (Mab) antibiotic resistance. This naturally antibiotic-resistant pathogen is becoming more prevalent, highlighting the urgent need for novel therapeutics. To address this, the scientists designed new versions of the drug spectinomycin that overcome efflux, the main mechanism driving resistance. The work was published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.   Mab infections are increasingly found ...

East Hanover, NJ – January 5, 2023 – Following a historic high in November, slight declines were seen in the employment-to-population ratio and the labor force participation rate in December 2023 for people with and without disabilities. However, numbers still remain near the record levels achieved the previous month, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). Month-to-Month nTIDE Numbers (comparing November 2023 to December 2023) Based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Jobs ...

Technological advancements have enabled scientists to comprehensively explore genetic control elements, unraveling the complexities of gene activation mechanisms in our genetic code. New evidence challenges the simplistic view that cis-regulatory elements (CREs) are mere on/off switches for genes, emphasizing their ability to exhibit complex behaviors, such as the simultaneous enhancement of gene activity and initiation of gene transcription, e.g., simultaneous enhancer and promoter activities. These switches aren't only important for the enhancement ...