Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,515

Making science serve humanity: Jennifer Doudna, PhD, says CRISPR gene-editing technology should be accessible to all

The path that led Jennifer Doudna, PhD, and her colleagues to the development of CRISPR, the gene-editing tool that has revolutionized science and earned her a Nobel Prize, started with their deep curiosity and drive to understand how the most basic building blocks of life function.

When Doudna first decided to investigate precisely what systems bacteria use to adapt their immune systems to fight off viral infections, she had little expectation that the findings would ultimately provide the key to technology that could be used to safely alter genetic code.

“All of us [on the research team] realized that what had started as a fundamental research question was morphing into a very different kind of project; namely, one with enormous technical potential and also risks and opportunities that we had not appreciated when we started the work,” Doudna explained during a conversation with J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, chair of the AAMC Board of Directors and executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, at the opening plenary of Learn Serve Lead 2021: The Virtual Experience, on Monday, Nov. 8.

Brain Structure is Key to Understanding Human Cognition

A CNS 2021 provided an incredible opportunity to learn more how the anatomy and integrity of brain networks impact higher-level cognition.

In the 19th and 20th century, cases of individuals with brain injury, such as Phineas Gage or Henry Molaison, have advanced our understanding of the relationship between the anatomy of the brain and its function. Back then, methods were limited to investigate whole-brain structure and function. Now, cognitive neuroscientists have some ability to visualize and measure activity of the whole brain at once, as well as the computational tools to investigate complex network-level relationships between brain structure, brain function, and behavior.

As a doctoral student working on stroke recovery, attending the CNS 2021 symposium led by Danielle Bassett was an incredible opportunity to learn more about some of the most recent methods that have been developed to understand how the anatomy and integrity of brain networks impact higher-level cognition. Strokes highly disrupt anatomical and functional connectivity, leading to cognitive and motor impairments. In individuals with post-stroke language impairments, namely aphasia, evidence shows that the more functional brain networks recover an organization similar to healthy individuals the better the recovery (Kiran et al., 2019). Understanding the relationship between brain structure and function in health and disease is therefore essential to develop appropriate treatments.

At this CNS symposium, the speakers showed how different models can help us better understand brain structural organization and how this particular organization constrains cognitive processes. They also showed direct relationships between alteration of anatomical networks, caused by disease or behavioral training, and changes in behavioral performance.

China struggles to contain Delta variant of COVID

China’s zero-COVID-19 policy is showing strain as health authorities struggle to contain the growing spread of the Delta variant.
At least 1,000 locally-transmitted infections have been reported since mid-October in 20 provinces, prompting strict quarantine periods and area-specific lockdowns.
The onset of winter in China’s north is also helping disperse the disease.
Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reports from Beijing, China.

- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/
- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera/
- Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

#China #COVID #Delta

Powerful New Tool Can Peer Into the Vast Genetic Library Inside of Your Cells

The human genome can be thought of as a massive library, containing over 20,000 different “instruction manuals”: your genes. For example, there are genes which contain information to build a brain cell, a skin cell, a white blood cell, and so on. There are even genes that contain information about regulating the genome itself—like books that explain how to organize a library. The ability to regulate gene expression —in other words, the cell’s ability to turn various constellations of genes on or off—is the basis of why different cells (such as a muscle cell or a brain cell) have different forms and functions.

For any library to be useful to a reader, it needs to be organized in an easily searchable way. For example, all the books pertaining to world history may be on one shelf, whereas the cookbooks may be in an entirely different section of the library. In a cellular nucleus, there is over six feet of genetic material packed into a space 50 times smaller than the width of a human hair. How is the “library” in the nucleus organized? When a cell needs to regulate certain genes, how does the cellular machinery find the right ones amongst 20,000 others?

A new paper from the laboratory of Mitchell Guttman, professor of biology, uses a powerful new tool that can peer into the world of the cell’s genetic material (DNA.

Meet ROSA: Robot guides brain surgery at Houston VA

The Neuro-Network.

𝙈𝙚𝙚𝙩 𝙍𝙊𝙎𝘼: 𝙍𝙤𝙗𝙤𝙩 𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙨 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙩 𝙃𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙣 𝙑𝘼

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯. 𝘙𝘖𝘚𝘈, 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵, 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘫𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘝𝘈 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮 … See more.

Houston VA surgeons successfully complete VA’s first use of ROSA, a minimally invasive robotic device, on an Army Veteran from Oklahoma.

As the U.K. nears elimination of cervical cancer, the U.S. isn’t close

A decade ago, a London cancer prevention researcher predicted that the United Kingdom’s national HPV vaccination campaign would take more than 15 years to prevent a majority of cervical cancers. So when he analyzed the data this year, he was stunned to find that the vaccine may already have nearly eliminated cervical cancer in the U.K. among young women.

“If this is right,” Peter Sasieni of King’s College London said of his findings, cervical cancers “could be reduced to about 50 – just 50 cancers in the whole of the U.K. for women under 30. It’s really quite exciting to see that day come – excitement and just joy.”

That joy was tempered with envy in the United States, where some of Sasieni’s peers lamented that the HPV vaccination rate for teenage girls lags far behind — about 59% in the U.S. vs. more than 85% in the U.K. The analysis, published last week in the Lancet, suggests the U.K. has notched a major public health victory against cancer through vaccinating the vast majority of young women against HPV, said Allison Kempe, a pediatrics professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine who did not work on the study.

Health Canada adds autoimmune disorder warning to AstraZeneca, J&J COVID-19 vaccines

Health Canada is updating the labels for the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines to add immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), an autoimmune condition, as a potential side effect.

In a statement on Tuesday, the agency said very rare cases of ITP have been reported internationally after receiving the Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca) and Janssen (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines.

ITP is a disorder that can cause easy or excessive bruising and bleeding, which results from unusually low blood platelet levels.

Specific Molecular Mechanism that controls the Transition from Acute to Chronic Pain

Previously unrecognized control point identified as target for drugs that block transition. A new study led by University of California, Irvine researchers is the first to reveal the specific molecular mechanism that controls the transition from acute to chronic pain, and identifies this mechanism as a critical target for disease-modifying medicines.

Findings from the study, titled “NAAA-regulated lipid signaling governs the transition from acute to chronic pain,” published today in Science Advances, show that disabling N-acylethanolamine acid amidase (NAAA) — an intracellular enzyme-in the spinal cord during a 72 hour time window following peripheral tissue injury halts chronic pain development in male and female mice.

“Delineating the nature, localization and timing of the events involved in pain chronicity is necessary to pinpointing control nodes in the process that can be targeted by new classes of disease-modifying medicines beyond analgesics,” said Daniele Piomelli, Distinguished Professor in the UCI School of Medicine Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology. “This study is the first to identify that NAAA, a previously unrecognized control node, can be effectively targeted by small-molecule therapeutics that inhibit this enzyme, and block the transition from acute to chronic pain.”

NVIDIA’s new AI brain for robots is six times more powerful than its predecessor

NVIDIA has launched a follow-up to the Jetson AGX Xavier, its $1,100 AI brain for robots that it released back in 2018. The new module, called the Jetson AGX Orin, has six times the processing power of Xavier even though it has the same form factor and can still fit in the palm of one’s hand. NVIDIA designed Orin to be an “energy-efficient AI supercomputer” meant for use in robotics, autonomous and medical devices, as well as edge AI applications that may seem impossible at the moment.

The chipmaker says Orin is capable of 200 trillion operations per second. It’s built on the NVIDIA Ampere architecture GPU, features Arm Cortex-A78AE CPUs and comes with next-gen deep learning and vision accelerators, giving it the ability to run multiple AI applications. Orin will give users access to the company’s software and tools, including the NVIDIA Isaac Sim scalable robotics simulation application, which enables photorealistic, physically-accurate virtual environments where developers can test and manage their AI-powered robots. For users in the healthcare industry, there’s NVIDIA Clara for AI-powered imaging and genomics. And for autonomous vehicle developers, there’s NVIDIA Drive.

The company has yet to reveal what the Orin will cost, but it intends to make the Jetson AGX Orin module and developer kit available in the first quarter of 2022. Those interested can register to be notified about its availability on NVIDIA’s website. The company will also talk about Orin at NVIDIA GTC, which will take place from November 8th through 11th.