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Category: biotech/medical – Page 17

Parkinson’s-linked α-synuclein blocks protein transport in neurons, disrupting cells’ waste recycling

Parkinson’s disease affects more than 10 million people worldwide. The disease is characterized by the buildup of abnormal clumps of the protein alpha-synuclein inside brain cells, but scientists have long struggled to understand exactly how these toxic forms of the protein cause neurons to malfunction and eventually die.

Researchers from the Tofaris lab, part of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences and based in the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, combined advanced molecular analyses of human stem cell models of Parkinson’s disease with studies of postmortem brain tissue from people with Parkinson’s disease to investigate the earliest stages of the disease process.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Immune Cells Help Tumors Grow

Cancer adapts and overcomes many different obstacles in order to survive. Since tumors are masses of rapidly growing cells, it takes a lot of nutrients, signaling, and proteins to help maintain proliferation. Over the last two decades, researchers have discovered that nerves provide tumors with signals, neurotransmitters, growth factors, and molecules to aid in cancer genesis, growth, survival, and progression. This process of nerves growing around and within the tumor is known as ‘tumor innervation’ or ‘nerve hacking’. This provides a source of nutrients for the tumor and makes the tumor microenvironment (TME) more complex or difficult to treat. Solid tumors in particular benefit from nerve hacking and more nerves innervating the tumor correlate with worse outcomes in patients. Therefore, researchers are working on understanding this process and how to best treat patients with increased tumor innervation.

Novel research published by scientists at the University of Oklahoma demonstrated how breast cancer cells can attract nerves to fuel their growth. It has been a mystery how nerves get to the tumor, until recently. This new study in Cell Death & Differentiation concludes that triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) uses the body’s own immune system to interconnect with nerves. The study performed by Dr. Maureen A. Cox and others clearly show that a specialized immune cell, known as a macrophage, is directly responsible for nerve hacking and tumor progression.

Cox is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology within the College of Medicine at the University of Oklahoma. Her work focuses on the nervous systems and how nerves and immune cells interact to respond to cancer. Specifically, Cox investigates how immune cells facilitate nerve growth and subsequently promote cancer through indirect mechanisms.

Boron layers could set a superconductivity record, theoretical study predicts

Scientists in China predict that stacking two microscopic layers of boron could set a new record for superconductivity. Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with zero resistance. Traditional types need temperatures close to absolute zero to work, requiring complex and expensive cooling equipment.

However, in this new research published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team predicted a single-element superconductor that works at a much less extreme temperature. If replicated in the real world, it could mean much lower cooling costs and a major step toward improving the efficiency of power grids and technologies like medical MRI scanners and maglev trains.

Currently, the best-known elemental superconductor, scandium, reaches 36 Kelvin (K) (−237°C [-395°F]) only at about 260 gigapascals of pressure. In the new study, scientists predict a threshold of 68 K (−205°C [-337°F]) for the stacked boron layers.

Scientists May Have Reversed One Cause of Aging | MOONSHOTS

A new longevity breakthrough could change how scientists think about aging.

This discussion explores why discoveries like these could reshape the future of healthy aging.

This clip is from the following episode: • Mira Murati’s 975B Open Model, Ramin Hasan…

Recorded on July 16, 2026
Views are my own thoughts; not Financial, Medical, or Legal Advice.

Ramin hasani is the co-founder and CEO of liquid AI

Connect with Peter:

Continue reading “Scientists May Have Reversed One Cause of Aging | MOONSHOTS” | >

Wearable ultrasound patch boosts REM sleep without drugs or surgery

REM sleep disruptions have been associated with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Current approaches to sleep problems, including medication and behavioral therapy, may cause side effects or may not directly address the underlying factors that interfere with REM sleep.

Future Trials for Insomnia, Depression and PTSD

The team plans to conduct larger studies to verify the initial results and evaluate whether NEUSLeeP could help people with PTSD, depression and chronic insomnia. The researchers also see potential uses in home sleep monitoring, neuroscience research and personalized sleep treatments.

A Florida diver, after more than 20,000 dives, built an underwater nursery that grew 25,000 threatened corals for dying reefs

Along Florida’s barrier reef, the only living coral barrier reef in the United States and the third largest barrier reef system in the world, marine scientists and coastal communities have witnessed decades of severe ecological collapse. Widespread coral bleaching, rising sea surface temperatures, ocean acidification, and infectious conditions such as stony coral tissue loss disease have drastically reduced historic living coral cover across the Florida Keys.

Drug temporarily reverses autism-like brain changes in adult mice within hours

A new mouse study led by UCLA Health suggests that inflammation during pregnancy can trigger autism-like changes in offspring, but those brain and behavioral effects may be rapidly, though temporarily, reversible in adulthood with a single dose of the immunosuppressive drug rapamycin.

Even mild inflammation during midpregnancy has been shown to result in autism-like symptoms in offspring, abnormal brain growth, seizures and heightened sensitivity to everyday sensory input that persist into adulthood.

In the study published in the journal Nature Communications, UCLA researchers found that a single dose of rapamycin significantly improved brain signaling and behavioral symptoms in these offspring within about two hours, too short a time to correct underlying physical brain changes caused by maternal inflammation.

Researchers Find a Way To Make Pancreatic Cancer Visible to the Immune System

A combination treatment exposed hidden pancreatic cancer cells to the immune system, reduced their spread, and helped mice live longer.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School have uncovered one reason pancreatic cancer is so difficult for the immune system to recognize and attack. The discovery points to a potential way to make immunotherapy more effective against a disease that has historically resisted many immune-based treatments.

The findings, published in Science Immunology, show that some pancreatic cancer cells can avoid destruction by shutting down the molecular system that normally reveals them to immune cells. Once these cells become harder to detect, they are more likely to survive, spread, and establish tumors elsewhere in the body.

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