Researchers from Columbia Engineering have established a framework for the design of bioactive injectable hydrogels formulated with extracellular vesicles (EVs) for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications.  Published today in Matter, Santiago Correa, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering, and his collaborators describe an injectable hydrogel platform that uses EVs from milk to address longstanding barriers in the development of biomaterials for regenerative medicine. EVs are particles naturally secreted by cells and carry hundreds of biological ...

About The Study: This comparative effectiveness study found that COVID-19 vaccinations averted 2.5 million deaths during 2020-2024 (sensitivity range estimates, 1.4-4.0 million). Estimates in this study are substantially more conservative than previous calculations focusing mostly on the first year of vaccination, but they still clearly demonstrate a major overall benefit from COVID-19 vaccination during the years 2020-2024. Most benefits in lives and life-years saved was secured for a portion of older persons, a minority of the global ...

About The Study: The results of this qualitative analysis using systems modeling suggest that National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget reductions may have far-reaching implications for scientific progress, the biomedical innovation environment, and health care costs. Beyond immediate budgetary impacts, systemic interactions shaping long-term biomedical research and public health must be considered in funding policies. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Mohammad S. Jalali, Ph,D,, email msjalali@mgh.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.2228) Editor’s ...

BALTIMORE, July 25, 2025: In the same vein as weather forecast models that predict developing storms, researchers now have developed a method to predict the cell activity in tissues over time.  The new software combines genomics technologies with computational modeling to predict cell changes in behavior, such as communication between cells that could cause cancer cells to flourish. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s (UMSOM) Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) co-led the study that published online on July 25 in the journal  Cell. It ...

Thanks to vaccinations against SARS-CoV-2 in the period 2020-2024 2.533 million deaths were prevented at global level, one death was avoided for every 5,400 doses of vaccine administered. The 82% of the lives saved by vaccines involved people vaccinated before encountering the virus, 57% during the Omicron period, and 90% involved people aged 60 years and older. In all, vaccines have saved 14.8 million years of life (one year of life saved for 900 doses of vaccine administered). These are some of the data released in an unprecedented study published ...

An international study estimates that scuba diving contributes between $8.5 and $20.4 billion to the global economy each year, supporting up to 124,000 jobs across 170 countries, offering an economic incentive for marine conservation.  The research, published today in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability (LINK TK) and co-authored by researchers from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, provides the first comprehensive estimate of the diving industry's worldwide economic impact.  The study is part of Atlas Aquatica, a project endorsed by the United ...

**EMBARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, JULY 25, AT 11 A.M. ET** Using mathematical analysis of patterns of human and animal cell behavior, scientists say they have developed a computer program that mimics the behavior of such cells in any part of the body. Led by investigators at Indiana University, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Oregon Health & Science University, the new work was designed to advance ways of testing and predicting biological processes, drug responses and other cell dynamics before undertaking more costly experiments with live cells.  With further work on the program, the researchers say it could ...

Each cell in our bodies carries about two meters of DNA in its nucleus, packed into a tiny volume of just a few hundred cubic micrometers—about a millionth of a milliliter. The cell manages this by winding the strings of DNA around protein spools. The protein-DNA complexes are called nucleosomes, and they ensure that DNA is safely stored. But this packaging into nucleosomes also poses a challenge: important cellular machinery must still access the genetic code to keep cells healthy and prevent diseases like cancer. One of the most important proteins in our cells is p53, the “genome’s guardian.” It helps ...

Ionic liquids (ILs) are a class of molten salts with a collection of exciting properties, which have been employed for wide-ranging applications across chemistry, biology, and materials science. However, their inherently high viscosity hampers the ability of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to explore their structure-property relationships on large spatiotemporal scales. Coarse-grained (CG) models address this challenge by retaining essential structural features while eliminating some atomic details, significantly reducing ...

To the point Energetic needs and social context shape aggression in female gorillas: A 25-year observational study of female gorillas shows that individual circumstances and social context can influence an individual's decision to engage in riskier aggressive behaviours. Aggression and social hierarchy: While most aggression was directed from higher- to lower-ranking gorillas, 42 per cent of aggressive interactions were directed from lower to higher ranks – more than expected. Taking risks: Female gorillas in reproductive ...

Autophagy is essentially the 'rubbish collection' of our cells. If there are problems in this process, which is so important for our health, diseases such as Parkinson's can result. In their latest study, leading cell biologists at the Max Perutz Labs at the University of Vienna investigated mitophagy – a form of autophagy – and came to a remarkable conclusion: the researchers have described a new trigger for mitophagy. This discovery has led to a reassessment of the hierarchy of factors ...

Northwestern University and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) scientists have developed a new process-based framework that provides a more accurate and dynamic approach to landslide prediction over large areas. While traditional landslide prediction methods often rely solely on rainfall intensity, the new approach integrates various water-related processes with a machine-learning model. By accounting for diverse and sometimes compounding factors, the framework offers a more robust understanding of what drives these destructive events. With further development, the new framework could help improve early warning systems, inform hazard ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An estimated 12% of first graders’ most-used media at home is educational, a new study suggests. Results also showed that higher use of educational media was associated with both more time spent reading and less overall time in front of a screen – a signal that educational video, app and game use is not replacing reading. A clearer picture of first graders’ TV or tablet time and factors related to their use of educational media may reveal opportunities for fitting ...

Psychological and philosophical studies have long shown that a person's subjective moods and emotions have a significant impact on how they experience the “meaning in life.” Philosopher Matthew Ratcliffe pointed out that a person’s mood vividly operates in the background of perception and plays a major role in how they grasp the meaning of their life. In psychology as well, there have been empirical studies investigating how mood affects the perception of life’s meaning. Meanwhile, phenomenology has revealed that the lived, first-person experience of the body deeply influences the way we perceive ...

The origin of some neuropsychiatric diseases, such as autism, bipolar disorder, or depression, and certain neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, can be found in very early stages of brain formation in the fetus. That is, earlier than previously recognized, according to a study by the Hospital del Mar Research Institute and Yale University, published in Nature Communications. The work focused “on searching for the origin of mental illnesses in the earliest stages of fetal development, especially in the brain stem cells”, explains Dr. Gabriel Santpere, Miguel Servet researcher and coordinator of the Neurogenomics Research Group at ...

Apart from carrying the information to encode proteins in, RNA molecules can adopt intricate 2D and 3D structures. Specifically, the same RNA molecule can switch between ON and OFF structures, modulating the ability of ribosomes to bind to the RNA and translate it into proteins. A new study, led by University of Groningen molecular biologist Danny Incarnato and authored by postdoctoral researcher Dr Ivana Borovska, identifies hundreds of such regulatory RNA switches in E.coli bacteria and human cells. It was published in Nature Biotechnology on 25 July. Several years ago, Incarnato developed a method to ...

Millions suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a debilitating condition often overlooked due to the lack of diagnostic tools, may be closer to personalized care, according to new research that shows how the disease disrupts interactions between the microbiome, immune system, and metabolism. The findings—potentially relevant to long COVID due to its similarity with ME/CFS—come from data on 249 individuals analyzed using a new artificial intelligence (AI) platform that identifies disease biomarkers from stool, blood, and other routine lab tests. “Our study achieved 90% ...

A new artificial intelligence model can improve the process of drug and vaccine discovery by predicting how efficiently specific mRNA sequences will produce proteins, both generally and in various cell types. The new advance, developed through an academic-industrial partnership between The University of Texas at Austin and Sanofi, helps predict how much protein cells will produce, which can minimize the need for trial-and-error experimentation, accelerating the next generation of mRNA therapeutics. Messenger RNA (mRNA) contains instructions for which proteins to make and how to make them, enabling our bodies to grow and carry out the day-to-day ...

Despite lower speed limits in school zones, child pedestrian injuries are most common near schools. Now, a new study led by researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) has found that automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras reduced the number of speeding vehicles by 45 per cent in urban school zones.   The study, published in Injury Prevention, evaluated the impact of mobile ASE cameras deployed across 250 school zones in the City of Toronto between July 2020 and December 2022. The results showed that in addition to a ...

Grief after the loss of a loved one is a natural response – an inevitable part of living and loving. But in a minority of the bereaved, grief is so overwhelming that it can lead to physical and mental illnes, even if they don’t necessarily qualify for a diagnosis with the mental health condition ‘prolonged grief disorder’. For example, studies have shown that people who recently lost a loved one use healthcare services more often, and have an increased mortality rate, over the short term. Now, researchers from Denmark have shown that bereaved people with persistent high levels of intense grief used more healthcare services and were ...

A new study published by researchers from the University of Oxford, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), CIFOR-ICRAF, and institutional partners reveals a disconnect between media and public perceptions on the risks of consuming wild meat in Central Africa during COVID-19 and sheds light on the complex relationship between media reporting, community beliefs, and behaviour change — offering important lessons for wildlife management and public health strategies. Key findings:  COVID-19 increased media coverage of wild meat, and the discourse focused on disease risk.  The news sometimes influenced people in Central Africa to shift ...

A research team in Korea has experimentally demonstrated, for the first time in the world, a nonlinear wave phenomenon that changes its frequency—either rising or falling—depending on which direction the waves come from. Much like Janus, the Roman god with two faces looking in opposite directions, the system exhibits different responses depending on the direction of the incoming wave. This groundbreaking work opens new horizons for technologies ranging from medical ultrasound imaging to advanced noise control.   The joint research team, led by Professor Junsuk Rho of POSTECH’s Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Electrical ...

An analysis of studies incorporating data from almost 30 million people has highlighted the role that air pollution – including that coming from car exhaust emissions – plays in increased risk of dementia. Dementias such as Alzheimer's disease are estimated to affect more than 57.4 million people worldwide, a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases by 2050. The impacts on the individuals, families and caregivers and society at large are immense. While there are some indications that the prevalence of dementia is decreasing in Europe and North America, ...

It can take years for humans to solve complex scientific problems. With AI, it can take a fraction of the time. Dr. Shuiwang Ji, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University and a leading expert in the emerging field of AI for science and engineering — commonly referred to as AI4Science — is at the forefront of using AI to accelerate scientific problem solving.  Ji, along with other Texas A&M researchers, has recently published a paper in Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning outlining the uses and benefits of AI4Science. This collaborative paper features ...

TUCSON, Ariz. — Researchers at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health found that certain kinds of long-lasting chemicals firefighters are exposed to may affect the activity of genes linked to cancer and other diseases. The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research. The study is among the first to connect common industrial chemicals called PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – to changes in microRNAs, or miRNAs, which are molecules that act as guardrails to help control gene expression.  PFAS are found in a wide range ...