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Category: biotech/medical – Page 123

Burden of Central Nervous System Cancer in the United States

While incidence rates for central nervous system cancer remained stable from 1990 to 2021, both mortality and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) declined. Disparities by geography, age, sex, and sociodemographic status highlight needs for targeted health policy reforms and resource redistribution.

Findings In this cross-sectional study, analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021 data on US CNS cancers revealed that although the incidence rate remained relatively stable, both disability-adjusted life-years and mortality rates declined. However, substantial disparities persisted across geographical location, age, sex, and sociodemographic profile.

Meaning The persistent disparity in CNS cancer burden highlights the urgent need to reevaluate public health policies and redistribute health care resources to better support marginalized and underserved populations.

Contaminating plasmid sequences and disrupted vector genomes in the liver following adeno-associated virus gene therapy

A valuable paper examining the presence of AAV manufacturing contaminants in a human patient’s liver. These results will hopefully be leveraged for improving the safety of gene therapies in the future.

Analyses of liver biopsies from a child with spinal muscular atrophy treated with adeno-associated virus gene therapy who developed hepatitis reveal contaminating manufacturing plasmids and disrupted vector genomes, possibly resulting from recombination events.

Widespread liver dysfunction in Down syndrome

Patients with detectable virus-specific T cells before checkpoint inhibitor therapy in PML demonstrated better survival rates and functional recovery than those without.

Question Are pretreatment JC virus-and/or BK virus-specific T cells in the blood associated with the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML)?

Findings In this cohort study of 111 patients with PML treated with ICIs, those with detectable virus-specific T cells (n = 21) had significantly higher response rates and longer survival than both T cell–negative patients (n = 22) and those with unknown status (n = 68).

Carotid Artery Stenosis—Impactful Bias in Ischemic Stroke Classification

💬 Editorial: Stroke risk classification that relies solely on carotid stenosis severity overlooks patients with nonobstructive but high-risk carotid plaques, underestimating the true contribution of carotid disease to ischemic stroke.

Recent European Society of Cardiology guidelines and Carotid Plaque–RADS offer improved risk stratification by accounting for plaque features, with evidence showing significant gains in predictive accuracy.

This Viewpoint argues that risk classification in ischemic stroke should be expanded beyond stenosis severity to encompass other complementary features, such as plaque morphology, composition, and inflammation.

Stress-reduction molecule has potential to treat aging and metabolic disorders

University of Queensland researchers say the discovery of a new stress reduction role for a naturally occurring molecule in the body could lead to new drugs and treatment for metabolic disorders and aging.

Professor Steven Zuryn, a molecular geneticist from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute, was part of a team that found that very small RNA molecules, called microRNAs, bind to genes and prevent them from being over-activated.

MicroRNAs were discovered in C. elegans about 30 years ago and have since been shown to be important in human health and disease. This initial discovery led to the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Visceral Fat Removal Extends Lifespan: Who Has The Lowest?

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Continue reading “Visceral Fat Removal Extends Lifespan: Who Has The Lowest?” | >

Exploring the neural mechanisms that enable conscious experience

Recently, there has been convergence of thought by researchers in the fields of memory, perception, and neurology that the same neural circuitry that produces conscious memory of the past not only produces predictions of the future, but also conscious perception of the present.

In a new perspective in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, researchers explain that although our conscious perception appears to simply mirror the external world, due to neural processing delays this intuitive feeling must be wrong. Instead, unconscious perceptual mechanisms represent a timeline that is then consciously remembered. Because the default mode network, along with the frontoparietal control and salience networks, are critical for simulation and memory, they are also critical for consciousness.

“The same simulation processes are used whether we are consciously remembering the past, experiencing the present or imagining the future. Perceptual mechanisms represent an ongoing, editable, ‘best estimate’ of our past, present, and future. There is no hard boundary between conscious perception and memory at milliseconds to seconds timescales,” explains corresponding author Andrew Budson, MD, professor of neurology at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.

Sami Tellatin — Kilimo — Leading The Way To A Water-Positive Future

Leading The Way To A Water-Positive Future — Sami Tellatin — Head of Water & Climate Solutions, [Kilimo](https://www.facebook.com/agrokilimo?__cft__[0]=AZYVjPpsA2hiLM5-TRnxJRoTmkVIP8k9Hro7mpHQd6HkG9roy2B0jBJyWOF7RxuqTpjcE0BjwYcznt__ZsPQBKTYGtf5mRXVr0xUT7RzlbzkSECEuWuYt0aFqjGwwCAKMCXdjJofqt5U9mF08TfSYqYpa8pmedmmVDH3rTrwH4QaMQKi6UK55095pUIWFEwu4DM&__tn__=-]K-R)

Sami Tellatin is Head of Water & Climate Solutions at Kilimo (https://kilimo.com/en/), an organization that connects companies with farmers in the same watershed to implement water-positive practices, generate measurable water savings, and secure resources for both communities and companies.

Kilimo’s operations already span 7 countries, helping steward water resources across more than 500,000 acres of land and partnering with global leaders like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and major CPGs.

In her role, Sami leads the design and deployment of scalable water-positive solutions that help companies, farmers, and communities address water scarcity through more efficient and sustainable irrigation practices.

Prior to this role, Sami co-founded FarmRaise, an enterprise that unlocks funding for farmers and ranchers seeking to invest in their profitability and sustainability, allowing farmers to learn which public and private funding opportunities they’re eligible for and streamlines the application process, moving the industry toward one common application that unlocks funding to drive conservation practice adoption.

Continue reading “Sami Tellatin — Kilimo — Leading The Way To A Water-Positive Future” | >

Cancer tumors may protect against Alzheimer’s by cleaning out protein clumps

Cancer and Alzheimer’s are two of the most common chronic diseases associated with aging. For years, doctors have known about a curious aspect of these two conditions: people who survive cancers are significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer’s. While this link has been observed in the data for some time, the biological reasons for it have remained a mystery. Now, a new study published in the journal Cell has discovered a possible explanation.

In the Alzheimer’s brain, abnormal levels of a naturally occurring protein called amyloid-beta clump together to form plaques. The plaques disrupt communication between brain cells, eventually leading to cognitive decline and memory loss. Current medicines struggle to remove these clumps, but this new research suggests that cancer might be sending in a biological cleanup crew.

To see whether and how cancer provides this protection, researchers at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China used advanced mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. They transplanted three types of tumors (lung, colon and prostate cancer) into the mice and found that the amyloid plaques in their brains shrank significantly.

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