Editor’s note: A recording of this virtual event is embedded above.
Artificial intelligence is proving a potent weapon against the pandemic, enabling researchers to comb through massive data sets to understand the virus and how to combat it. From drug development to immune response, STAT’s Casey Ross will talk to researchers and AI experts about how AI is accelerating a worldwide effort to crack Covid-19’s molecular code.
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Most of us are now familiar with apps that track what’s known as our ‘digital biomarkers’. These include the steps, we’ve taken, our heart rate, and our weight. In recent years startups have appeared which can, in a relatively turnkey manner, track our ‘biomedical markers’, such as cholesterol levels, for instance. Few, however, are seeking to combine the two to get a 360-degree view of how our bodies are doing.
Into this gap steps Humanity Inc., which will seek to do exactly that. Founded by two seasoned entrepreneurs, Humanity will combine digital and biomedical biomarkers into a consumer app that will fully launch next year.
Today it announces it’s initial seed fundraise of $2.5m, in a round led by Boston fund One Way Ventures and the legendary and long-time HealthTech Angel investor Esther Dyson, among others.
Honey appears to be a preferable treatment for cough or cold symptoms rather than antibiotics and over-the-counter medicines, according to a new systematic review that’s looked at the results from 14 previous studies — but the conclusions may not be quite so clear-cut as they appear at first.
“Honey is a frequently used lay remedy that is well known to patients,” write the researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK. “It is also cheap, easy to access and has limited harms.”
One particular area of interest is the comparison of honey to antibiotics. With antibiotics often causing side effects and antibiotic resistance on the rise, there are multiple advantages to using honey as an alternative remedy, the authors of the review point out.
Summary: Researchers identified a group of closely related genes that capture molecular links between Alzheimer’s and LATE, a common brain disorder that mimics Alzheimer’s symptoms.
Source: Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most common causes of dementia, and while most people might know someone who is affected by it, the genetic factors behind the disease are less known. A new study by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital uncovered a group of closely related genes that may capture molecular links between Alzheimer’s disease and Limbic-predominant Age-related TDP-43 Encephalopathy, or LATE, a recently recognized common brain disorder that can mimic Alzheimer’s symptoms. LATE is often combined with Alzheimer’s disease to cause a more rapid cognitive decline. The study’s results are published in Neuron.
Nearly three-quarters of older adults with dementia have filled prescriptions for medicines that act on their brain and nervous system, but aren’t designed for dementia, a new study shows.
That’s despite the special risks that such drugs carry for older adults—and the lack of evidence that they actually ease the dementia-related behavior problems that often prompt a doctor’s prescription in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. In fact, some of the drugs have been linked to worse cognitive symptoms in old adults.
The study looks at several classes of psychoactive drugs, including ones that the federal government has actively encouraged nursing homes to limit using in residents with dementia. The new study suggests a need to reduce prescribing to people living at home with dementia, too.
“I HOPE THIS STUDY CHANGES THE DIALOG AROUND HERPES RESEARCH AND OPENS UP THE IDEA THAT WE CAN START THINKING ABOUT CURE, RATHER THAN JUST CONTROL OF THE VIRUS.”
In a landmark study, researchers have successfully used gene editing to remove the oral herpes virus (HSV-1) in mice.
While previous research has mostly focused on treating and suppressing the sometimes painful symptoms of herpes, this study took a more radical approach by attempting to eliminate the virus altogether.
“The big jump here is from doing this in test tubes to doing this in an animal,” Keith Jerome, researcher at the University of Washington’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and senior author of a new study about the research published today in Nature Communications, said in a statement. “I hope this study changes the dialog around herpes research and opens up the idea that we can start thinking about cure, rather than just control of the virus.”
Scientists investigating Alzheimer’s treatments at the Salk Institute have uncovered some key mechanisms that enable an experimental drug to reverse memory loss in mouse models of the disease. The discovery not only bodes well for the possibility of clinical trials, but provides researchers with a new target to consider in the wider development of compounds to counter the degenerative effects of the condition.
The research centers on a drug called CMS121, which is a synthetic version of a chemical called fisetin that occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables. The Salk team’s previous studies concerning CMS121 have produced some very promising results, with one paper published last year describing how the drug influences age-related metabolic pathways in the brain, protecting against the type of degeneration associated with Alzheimer’s. This followed earlier studies demonstrating how fisetin can prevent memory loss in mice engineered to develop Alzheimer’s.
Work continues at Salk to understand how exactly fisetin and the synthetic variant CMS121 produces these anti-aging effects on the brain. In their latest study, the researchers again turned to mice engineered to develop Alzheimer’s, which were administered daily doses of CMS121 from the age of nine months. This is the equivalent to middle age in humans, with the mice already exhibiting learning and memory problems before the treatment began.
Google has announced a new technology, powered by an acquisition called Socratic, that will let students take photos of their math homework in order to get the solutions. Google says it wants the Lens-powered technology to help parents and caretakers who are homeschooling, likely for the first time, as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Bay Area based artist-inventor and amateur mycologist Phil Ross has an international patent pending on a method of producing fungus as a sustainable construction material. It may be surprising to hear that a biodegradable, durable, and non-toxic building material is on sale in the vegetable aisle at the supermarket. However, it’s not the tasty caps that Ross is after, but the root-like fibers of mushrooms form an enormous underground tangle called mycelium. Dried mycelium forms a lightweight mold and water resistant fire-proof material that is an effective insulator. It is also very sturdy stuff. Bob Engels of Gourmet Mushrooms notes, “Hardened steel blades on equipment at our farm need regular attention following their encounters with these massed threads of hyphae.”
Ross reported that multiple saw blades and metal files were destroyed while shaping the five hundred mycelium bricks he grew into an archway. The archway was a 6×6 foot sculpture titled Mycotectural Alpha, and was likely the first man-made structure made entirely out of mushrooms. Others have taken notice of the potential of fungus—a new start-up called Evocative Design producing mycelium alternatives to styrofoam and insulation material has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Agriculture.
Ross’s “biotechnical” artwork encompasses drawings, paintings, sculptures, prototypes, and extensive materials research. Over the past 15 years he has been experimenting with fungus, growing and shaping mushrooms in sterile laboratory-like environments, even learning to make his own air filters to provide the necessary clean air. He says mycelium bricks can be grown in about a week from a mixture poured into a mold, but the more organic-looking mushroom sculptures that are created by adding or subtracting gas or air from their growing environment can take years to create. the artist explains how the “myotecture” bricks are made:
