SAN ANTONIO – The ZEST clinical trial, designed to evaluate niraparib (Zejula) for the prevention of breast cancer recurrence in patients with circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), failed to accrue enough patients positive for ctDNA, according to results presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), held December 10-13, 2024. As some of the lessons learned from this trial, investigators suggest beginning ctDNA testing during treatment rather than waiting for treatment completion as done in ZEST, and including patients with high- risk ...

SAN ANTONIO – A machine learning (ML) model incorporating both clinical and genomic factors outperformed models based solely on either clinical or genomic data in predicting which patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer would have better outcomes from adding CDK4/6 inhibitors to endocrine therapy as first-line treatment, according to results presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), held December 10-13, 2024. While the use of CDK4/6 inhibitors combined with endocrine therapy have significantly improved outcomes in patients with HR-positive, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers are shining a light on cancer cells’ energy centers – literally – to damage these power sources and trigger widespread cancer cell death. In a new study, scientists combined strategies to deliver energy-disrupting gene therapy using nanoparticles manufactured to zero in only on cancer cells. Experiments showed the targeted therapy is effective at shrinking glioblastoma brain tumors and aggressive breast cancer tumors in mice. The research team overcame a significant challenge to break ...

DALLAS, December 13, 2024 — The American Heart Association and Major League Baseball (MLB) brought cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) training to the League’s annual Winter Meetings held in Dallas this week. Attendees from all 30 Major League Clubs and many organizations across the baseball industry learned lifesaving skills needed to respond confidently and capably in the event of a cardiac emergency. According to American Heart Association data, 9 out of ...

More than six million Americans are affected by Alzheimer’s disease, a form of dementia marked by accumulation of amyloid-β within the brain. Amyloid-β is a relatively small protein that forms toxic plaques in the brain contributing to the harmful effects of Alzheimer's disease. Another protein, hyperphosphorylated tau (pTau), also accumulates as toxic neurofibrillary tangles. Together, amyloid-β plaques and pTau tangles result in brain damage, neuroinflammation and ultimately brain death. Gene expression studies have already identified ...

(Carlisle, Pa.) — A new study in the journal Scientific Reports offers a rare glimmer of hope in the face of climate change, suggesting glacial rivers and lakes may play a crucial role in mitigating the effects of  methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that recent studies have shown emerging as glaciers melt in warming global temperatures. This new study, led by Dickinson College Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Kristin Strock, looked at what happens when glaciers melt and release trapped methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Strock, a 2019 National Geographic Explorer, led an all-female team of researchers ...

Over the last decade, the global market for plant-based beverages has seen remarkable growth, with oat, almond, soy and rice drinks emerging as popular alternatives to cow’s milk in coffee and oatmeal during this time. One of the likely reasons for millions of liters of plant-based drinks ending up in the shopping baskets of consumers is that their climate footprint is often lower than that of cow’s milk. But consumers would be mistaken if they considered plant-based beverages healthier than cow’s milk. This is highlighted in a new study conducted by the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with the University ...

A team at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) has developed a comprehensive set of innovative genetic tools and mouse lines, called iFlpMosaics, designed to enhance the study of gene function and its implications in health and disease. The groundbreaking study, led by Dr. Rui Benedito and published in Nature Methods, presents a pioneering approach that overcomes critical limitations of existing methods for generating genetic mosaics. These innovations will enable scientists to more accurately investigate the effects of somatic mutations on cellular biology and disease. The study highlights the iFlpMosaics toolkit's utility across different experimental setups, ...

Philadelphia, December 13, 2024 – Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Stanford University have revealed the molecular structure of TRACeR-I, a protein platform for reprogramming immune responses. A better understanding of its structure may help optimize designs for the platform, which can be used to develop cancer treatments by either directly modifying immune cells or by creating proteins that help immune cells locate cancer cells. The findings were published today by the journal Nature ...

Also known as Virgo A or NGC 4486, M87 is the brightest object in the Virgo cluster of galaxies, the largest gravitationally bound type of structure in the universe. It came to fame in April 2019 after scientists from EHT released the first image of a black hole in its center. Led by the EHT multi wavelength working group, a study published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Journal presents the data from the second EHT observational campaign conducted in April 2018, involving over 25 terrestrial and orbital telescopes. The authors report the first observation of a high-energy gamma-ray flare in over a decade from the supermassive black hole M87, based on nearly ...

A new database of African hippo populations has revealed huge gaps in our knowledge of where the megaherbivores live and thrive, with populations fragmented and reliant on protected areas. Hippos are classified as “vulnerable to extinction” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and have been called the “neglected megafauna”, with a lack of scientific attention and much less research into their lives and habitats than other large mammals. University of Leeds School of Biology Postgraduate Researcher Hannah Lacy ...

Sometimes, moving just a few inches can go a long way. Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have developed a promising technique for head and neck reconstruction that shifts the placement of transferred tissue with blood vessels attached, offering a safer, faster option for patients with complex tissue defects, especially those at high risk. Head and neck reconstruction plays a crucial role in the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer. The goal is to preserve functions vital for breathing, ...

Precursor lesions of pancreatic cancer are very difficult to characterise with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). But now, in a new study, researchers led by Noam Shemesh and Carlos Bilreiro – respectively head of the Preclinical MRI lab at Champalimaud Research and a doctor at the Champalimaud Clinical Centre’s Radiology Department – have shown, for the first time, that a particular form of MRI, called Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), is capable of robustly detecting pre-malignant lesions in the pancreas. ...

New research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden highlights the possibility of screening people with type 2 diabetes for liver damage at the same time as they undergo screening for eye disease. The study is published in Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology. More than half of all people with type 2 diabetes have steatotic (or fatty) liver disease, but most do not realise it since liver disease rarely causes any symptoms in the earlier stages. Over time, liver fibrosis can develop. This is a type of scarring of the liver that can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer in some patients. International ...

New research finds that giraffes much prefer flat terrain and do not traverse slopes of more than 20°, which severely limits the areas in, and outside, protected reserves they can access. The findings, which is are yet to be published, will be presented at the British Ecological Society’s (BES) Annual meeting in Liverpool on the 13th December. A new study analysing the movements of 33 GPS collared giraffes in South Africa has found that they avoid steep terrain and are unable to navigate slopes with a gradient of more than 20° , most likely due to the energy required and the risk of falling. The researchers from the University of Manchester ...

1. A research team from NIMS and UTokyo has proposed and demonstrated that the transverse magneto-thermoelectric conversion in magnetic materials can be utilized with much higher performance than previously by developing artificial materials comprising alternately and obliquely stacked multilayers of a magnetic metal and semiconductor. 2. When a temperature gradient is applied to a magnetic conductor, a charge current is generated in a direction orthogonal to directions of both temperature gradient and magnetization of the magnetic conductor. This transverse magneto-thermoelectric phenomenon, ...

-With images-   Durham University scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery in marine geoscience, revealing unprecedented insights into the dynamics of Earth’s longest runout sediment flows.   By using seabed seismographs placed safely outside the destructive paths of powerful underwater avalanches of sediment, researchers have successfully monitored turbidity currents—a natural phenomenon that shapes deep-sea landscapes, damages telecommunication cables, and transports large quantities of sediment and organic carbon to the ocean floor.   The study recorded two massive turbidity ...

Despite awe-inspiring diversity, nearly every lifeform – from bacteria to blue whales – shares the same genetic code. How and when this code came about has been the subject of much scientific controversy.  Taking a fresh approach at an old problem, Sawsan Wehbi, a doctoral student in the Genetics Graduate Interdisciplinary Program at the University of Arizona, discovered strong evidence that the textbook version of how the universal genetic code evolved needs revision. Wehbi is the first author of a study published in the journal PNAS suggesting the order with which amino acids – the code's building blocks –  were recruited is at odds with ...

A program designed to prepare future teachers and K-12 students for a lifetime of innovation recently received a $572,890 boost from the National Science Foundation. The ChangeMaker K-12 program, designed by faculty from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s College of Education & Human Development, received a second round of grant funding to expand the teacher prep program to other universities. The new partners are the University of Louisiana Monroe, Louisiana Tech University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The project is led by Dr. Doug Williams, director of UL Lafayette’s Center for Innovative Learning and Assessment Technologies, along with Dr. Aimee Barber, ...

A team of researchers at USC and the University of Utah has received a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to map out how an incurable eye disease affects the wiring that powers vision in the eye, in hopes of discovering ways to slow or prevent blindness. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a progressive disease with four known stages that affects the retina, the area at the back of the eye where light is turned into electrical signals that the brain processes to produce sight. The research ...

AI will soon receive a dose of empathy with the goal of helping to match people with depression to their best-fit medication. A team led by Farrokh Alemi, a professor in the College of Public Health (CPH), and Kevin Lybarger, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), received $1,049,998 in research funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to continue their work on developing an AI system that helps patients find the right depression medications. With this funding support, Co-PIs Alemi and Lybarger will hone large language models (LLMs) to address known challenges in ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The Midwest played a central role in the growth of Black freedom movements in the 20th century. It was a key site for incubating and expanding the ideas of political activist Marcus Garvey, not only in the U.S., but globally, said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of African American studies and history Erik S. McDuffie. McDuffie examined the influence of Garvey and the importance of the Midwest in the growth of Black internationalism and radicalism in his new book, “The Second Battle for Africa: Garveyism, the U.S. Heartland and Global Black Freedom.” McDuffie ...

In most research labs, the scientists are on the same page about why they’re pursuing a research project. But the Rubin Lab at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus isn’t an ordinary research lab. The lab is examining how aggression affects vision in female fruit flies, but Janelia Senior Group Leader Gerry Rubin doesn’t care too much about the specific answer. Instead, he simply wants to see if the neuroscience research tools that he spent the last decade building are adequate to uncover the underlying mechanisms at play.    Postdoc Katie Schretter, on the other hand, is interested in understanding how neurons in the fly brain ...

HOUSTON, Dec. 12 2024 – A group of ambitious students from the University of Houston and Texas A&M University, identifying as the “Dream Team,” secured third place in the prestigious global Switch Competition. This annual virtual event, sponsored by the Switch Energy Alliance, challenges university students to develop innovative solutions for addressing energy poverty worldwide — a critical issue affecting millions. The team is comprised of Sarah Grace Kimberly and Pranjal Sheth, both senior finance majors at UH, and Nathan Hazlett, a finance graduate student at A&M who previously earned a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering. Competing ...

For experiments that require ultra-precise measurements and control over atoms — think two-photon atomic clocks, cold-atom interferometer sensors and quantum gates — lasers are the technology of choice, the more spectrally pure (emitting a single color/frequency), the better. Conventional lab-scale laser technology currently achieves this ultra low-noise, stable light via bulky, costly tabletop systems designed to generate, harness and emit photons within a narrow spectral range. But what if these atomic applications ...