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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,549

World population forecast to decline for the first time in centuries

Stein Emil Vollset, the study’s lead author and Professor of Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), elaborated on the findings.

“The last time that global population declined was in the mid 14th century, due to the Black Plague,” he told IFLScience. “If our forecast is correct, it will be the first time population decline is driven by fertility decline, as opposed to events such as a pandemic or famine.”

Some countries, however, are forecasted to see an increase in population.

Are Scientists Homing in on a Cure for Parkinson’s Disease?

Researchers have refined a molecule that shows promise for the prevention of Parkinson’s disease.… See more.

Summary: Researchers have refined a molecule that shows promise for the prevention of Parkinson’s disease.

Source: University of Bath

A molecule that shows promise in preventing Parkinson’s disease has been refined by scientists at the University of Bath in the UK, and has the potential to be developed into a drug to treat the deadly neurodegenerative disease.

Professor Jody Mason, who led the research from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at Bath, said: “A lot of work still needs to happen, but this molecule has the potential to be a pre-cursor to a drug. Today there are only medicines to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s—we hope to develop a drug that can return people to good health even before symptoms develop.”

New FDA-approved eye drops could replace reading glasses for millions: “It’s definitely a life changer”

A newly approved eye drop hitting the market on Thursday could change the lives of millions of Americans with age-related blurred near vision, a condition affecting mostly people 40 and older.

Vuity, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in October, would potentially replace reading glasses for some of the 128 million Americans who have trouble seeing close-up. The new medicine takes effect in about 15 minutes, with one drop on each eye providing sharper vision for six to 10 hours, according to the company.

Toni Wright, one of the 750 participants in a clinical trial to test the drug, said she liked what she saw.

We finally know why the brain uses so much energy

The brain is considered a very expensive organ to run.

Your brain may be leaking … energy, according to a new study that may explain why your noggin consumes 20% of the energy needed to keep your body running.

The study researchers found that tiny sacs called vesicles that hold messages being transmitted between brain cells may be constantly oozing energy, and that leakage is likely a trade-off for the brain being ready to fire at all times, according to a new study published Dec. 3 in the journal Science Advances.

Simulating matter on the quantum scale with AI

These longstanding challenges are both related to how functionals behave when presented with a system that exhibits “fractional electron character.” By using a neural network to represent the functional and tailoring our training dataset to capture the fractional electron behaviour expected for the exact functional, we found that we could solve the problems of delocalization and spin symmetry-breaking. Our functional also showed itself to be highly accurate on broad, large-scale benchmarks, suggesting that this data-driven approach can capture aspects of the exact functional that have thus far been elusive.

For years, computer simulations have played a central role in modern engineering, making it possible to provide reliable answers to questions like “will this bridge stay up?” to “will this rocket make it into space?” As technology increasingly turns to the quantum scale to explore questions about materials, medicines, and catalysts, including those we’ve never seen or even imagined, deep learning shows promise to accurately simulate matter at this quantum mechanical level.

CRISPR gene therapy, ultrasound and drugs team up against liver cancer

Researchers in China have developed a new three-pronged method to fight liver cancer that shows promise in tests in mice. The technique combines drugs and CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing into lipid nanoparticles, then activates them with ultrasound.

One emerging treatment against cancer is known as sonodynamic therapy (SDT), which involves delivering drugs to the tumor and then activating them with ultrasound pulses. That produces reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can induce oxidative stress on the cancer cells to kill them. Unfortunately, cancer can counter this attack with antioxidant enzymes, reducing the method’s efficiency.

So for the new study, the researchers investigated a way to remove that defense system. The team suspected that they could use CRISPR to switch off a gene called NFE2L2, which cancer cells use to set off their antioxidant defenses. The team packaged both the CRISPR machinery and the ROS-producing drugs into lipid nanoparticles, which could be activated with ultrasound pulses.

Nanotechnology for genome editing in multiple muscles simultaneously

Many intractable diseases are the result of a genetic mutation. Genome editing technology promises to correct the mutation and thus new treatments for patients. However, getting the technology to the cells that need the correction remains a major challenge. A new study led by CiRA Junior Associate Professor Akitsu Hotta and in collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited as part of the T-CiRA Joint Research Program reports how lipid nanoparticles provide an effective means for the delivery to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in mice.

Last year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry to the discoverers of CRISPR-Cas9 cemented the impact of genome editing technology. While CRISPR-Cas9 can be applied to agriculture and livestock for more nutritious food and robust crops, most media attention is on its medical potential. DMD is just one of the many diseases that researchers foresee a treatment using CRISPR-Cas9.

“Oligonucleotide drugs are now available for DMD, but their effects are transient, so the patient has to undergo weekly treatments. On the other hand, CRISPR-Cas9 effects are long lasting,” said Hotta.