Category: biotech/medical – Page 1364
The Israeli inventor of a “precision medicine” for COVID-19 is “very optimistic,” after an 88-person hospital trial entered its final day without a single patient ending up on a ventilator.
Placebo study still to come, but inventor says medication ‘could be a game changer’ after around 9 out of 10 participants in Greek trial are released from hospital within 5 days.
But 2-AG is almost immediately converted to arachidonic acid, a building block for inflammatory compounds called prostaglandins. The researchers showed that the ensuing increase in arachidonic acid levels resulted in the buildup of a particular variety of prostaglandin that causes constriction of tiny blood vessels in the brain where the seizure has induced thatprostaglandin’s production, cutting off oxygen supply to those brain areas.
Summary: The release of 2-AG, a natural endocannabinoid that is suggested to be the brain’s equivalent to THC, dampens down seizure activity but increases post-seizure oxygen deprivation in the brain.
Source: Stanford
A marijuana-like chemical in the brain, mirroring its plant-based counterpart, packs both ups and downs.
The problem with impure RNA is that it can trigger reactions, like swelling, that can be harmful, and even life-threatening. For example, impure RNA can cause inflammation in the lungs of a patient with cystic fibrosis. Conventionally manufactured RNA has to undergo a lengthy and expensive process of purification. “Rather than having to purify RNA,” says Craig Martin, the paper’s senior author and professor of chemistry at UMass, “we’ve figured out how to make clean RNA right from the start.”
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently unveiled their discovery of a new process for making RNA. The resulting RNA is purer, more copious and likely to be more cost-effective than any previous process could manage. This new technique removes the largest stumbling block on the path to next-generation RNA therapeutic drugs.
If DNA is the blueprint that tells the cells in our bodies what proteins to make and for what purposes, RNA is the messenger that carries DNA’s instruction to the actual protein-making machinery within each cell. Most of the time this process works flawlessly, but when it doesn’t, when the body can’t make a protein it needs, as in the case of a disease like cystic fibrosis, serious illness can result.
One method for treating such protein deficiencies is with therapeutics that replace the missing proteins. But researchers have long known that it’s more effective when the body can make the protein it needs itself. This is the goal of an emerging field of medicine—RNA therapeutics. The problem is, the current methods of producing lab-made RNA can’t deliver RNA that is pure enough, in enough quantities in a way that’s cost-effective. “We need lots of RNA,” says Elvan Cavaç, lead author of the paper that was recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, MBA student at UMass Amherst, and a recent Ph.D. graduate in chemistry, also from UMass. “We’ve developed a novel process for producing pure RNA, and since the process can reuse its ingredients, yielding anywhere between three and ten times more RNA than the conventional methods, it also saves time and cost.”
MRNA vaccines have to potential to end the COVID19 pandemic. How do they work? Are they safe? And how could they’ve been developed so quickly?
The main idea of mRNA vaccines is to trick our bodies to produce part of a virus. This kickstarts our immune response, without getting us sick. All that’s needed is a part of the virus’s DNA or RNA, packaged into mRNA. Cool!
(mRNA is the technology behind the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna & CureVac)
💡 Follow-up video.
Summary: Researchers believe they have found a cause of memory loss in epilepsy patients by recording single neurons in the brain.
Source: Cedars Sinai.
The discovery could offer a way to measure the effectiveness of memory-restoring therapies including medications and deep-brain stimulation. It also could be a step toward recovering lost memory among patients with a variety of brain conditions.
A great beginning, but more research is needed.
While there are treatments for temporarily alleviating the symptoms of dementia, there is currently no cure available. The search is therefore on to identify lifestyle factors, such as diet, that can reduce individuals’ risk of developing the condition.
Previous research into possible links between eating foods rich in flavonoids and reduced risk of cognitive decline later in life has been inconclusive, however.
This link shows a global tracker of the virus mostly the virus keeps evolving oddly enough unseen from most viruses. Also the virus doesn’t like extreme cold.
Since December 2019, the disease has spread to every continent and case numbers continue to rise.
Circa 2020
On 8 May 2020, the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) reported the case of the first cat infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Spain. It was a 4-year-old cat called Negrito, who lived with a family affected by COVID-19, with one case of death.
Coinciding with these facts, the animal presented severe respiratory difficulties and was taken to a veterinary hospital in Badalona (Barcelona), where it was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Due to a terminal condition the hospital decided to do a humanitarian euthanasia.
The necropsy, performed at the High Biosafety Level Laboratories of the Animal Health Research Center (CReSA) at IRTA, confirmed that Negrito suffered from feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and had no other lesions or symptoms compatible with a coronavirus infection.
At the University of Chicago, scientists have developed an absolutely innovative, promising treatment for COVID-19 in the form of nanoparticles with the ability to trap SARS-CoV-2 viruses inside the body and use the body’s own immune system to kill them.
The “nanotraps” lure the virus by imitating the target cells infected by the virus. When the virus gets trapped by the nanotraps, it is then sequestered from other cells and targeted for destruction by the immune system.
Theoretically, these nanotraps could be used on different variants of the virus, resulting in a promising new way to suppress the virus in the future. The therapy is still in the early stages of testing, but the researchers believe that it could be administered through a nasal spray as a treatment for COVID-19.