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Category: biotech/medical – Page 177

The study offers new genetic insights into dietary preferences and suggests the potential to target SI as a means to selectively decrease sucrose consumption on a population scale.

The study was led by Dr. Peter Aldiss, now a group leader in the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham, alongside Assistant Professor Mette K Andersen, at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Basic Metabolic Research in Copenhagen and Professor Mauro D’Amato at CIC bioGUNE in Spain and LUM University in Italy. It also involves scientists internationally from Copenhagen, Greenland, Italy, and Spain as part of the ‘Sucrase-isomaltase working group’

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“Our data support early resistance rehabilitation as a promising treatment to increase bone formation, bone healing strength, and promote full restoration of mechanical properties to pre-injury levels,” said Dr. Bob Guldberg.

How can implantable sensors help patients during their recovery? This is what a recent study published in npj Regenerative Medicine hopes to address as a team of researchers led by the University of Oregon investigated the use of implantable strain sensors to aid bone healing during rehabilitation from bone defect injuries. This study holds the potential to help provide patients with improved options regarding bone defect injuries while significantly reducing their rehabilitation time.

When it comes to rehabilitation, patients and doctors have always tried to find a middle-ground regarding the amount of strain needed to achieve the most desired outcomes, commonly called the “Goldilocks” principle. Therefore, this new study developed implantable sensors designed to monitor bone healing and determine if resistance training is a sufficient rehabilitation tool for patients. The researchers conducted an 8-week trial with laboratory rats split into three groups: resistance-trained, sedentary (inactive), and non-resistance.

In the end, the researchers found that while all three groups exhibited bone healing after the trial, the resistance-trained rats not only exhibited early signs of bone healing, but also exhibited increased tissue density, as well.

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Dr. Marta di Forti: “Our study indicates that daily users of high potency cannabis are at increased risk of developing psychosis independently from their polygenic risk score for schizophrenia.”

Is there a connection between cannabis use and developing psychosis? This is what a recent study published in Psychological Medicine hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how frequent cannabis use combined with a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia could lead to developing psychosis later in life. This study holds the potential to help researchers, medical professionals, and the public better understand how to identify the signs of psychosis in cannabis users and take necessary steps to address them as soon as possible.

For the study, the researchers conducted an observational study by obtaining data records of almost 150,000 individuals registered in United Kingdom and European Union medical databanks, one of which was the European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI), to examine records regarding patients who self-reported use and psychosis diagnoses. In the end, the researchers discovered a connection between individuals who self-reported lifetime frequent cannabis use and psychosis diagnoses, specifically regarding high potency cannabis which contains 10 percent or greater Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

“These are important findings at a time of increasing use and potency of cannabis worldwide,” said Dr. Marta di Forti, who is a Professor of Drug use, Genetics, and Psychosis at King’s College London and a co-author on the study. “Our study indicates that daily users of high potency cannabis are at increased risk of developing psychosis independently from their polygenic risk score for schizophrenia. Nevertheless, the polygenic risk score for schizophrenia might, in the near future, become useful to identify those at risk for psychosis among less frequent users to enable early preventative measures to be put in place.”

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Large-scale protein and gene profiling have massively expanded the landscape of cancer-associated proteins and gene mutations, but it has been difficult to discern whether they play an active role in the disease or are innocent bystanders. In a study published in Nature Cancer, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine revealed a powerful and unbiased machine learning-based approach called FunMap for assessing the role of cancer-associated mutations and understudied proteins, with broad implications for advancing cancer biology and informing therapeutic strategies.

“Gaining functional information on the genes and proteins associated with cancer is an important step toward better understanding the disease and identifying potential therapeutic targets,” said corresponding author Dr. Bing Zhang, professor of molecular and human genetics and part of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor.

“Our approach to gain functional insights into these genes and proteins involved using machine learning to develop a network mapping their functional relationships,” said Zhang, member of Baylor’s Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center and a McNair Scholar. “It’s like, I may not know anything about you, but if I know your LinkedIn connections, I can infer what you do.”

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And it’s not from Neuralink.

Recently, Semafor received an extraordinary iMessage. It was from Rodney Gorham, a paralyzed ALS patient, and he had sent it directly from his brain. Gorham has a brain implant called Stentrode. Unlike previous generations of brain-computer interfaces, the Stentrode, from the neurotechnology company Synchron, can be implanted without invasive brain surgery. But… what *are* brain-computer interfaces? How do they work? And where is this novel technology going?

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📝 — Bertran, et al.

Full text is available 👇

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most prevalent chronic hepatic disease; nevertheless, no definitive diagnostic method exists yet, apart from invasive liver biopsy, and nor is there a specific approved treatment. Runt-related transcription factor 1 (RUNX1) plays a major role in angiogenesis and inflammation; however, its link with NAFLD is unclear as controversial results have been reported. Thus, the objective of this work was to determine the proteins involved in the molecular mechanisms between RUNX1 and NAFLD, by means of systems biology. First, a mathematical model that simulates NAFLD pathophysiology was generated by analyzing Anaxomics databases and reviewing available scientific literature.

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A research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and BGI Research has unveiled the complex mechanisms through which immunoglobulins impact the aging process, a discovery that could transform our understanding of aging.

This research, published in Cell on November 4, not only charts a high-precision map of aging across various organs but also reveals the dual-edged sword of immunoglobulins in systemic aging.

The quest for systemic biomarkers and key drivers of aging has been a long-standing puzzle in the field of gerontology. This study, a collaborative effort between Guanghui Liu’s team from the Institute of Zoology (IOZ) of CAS, Ying Gu’s team from BGI Research, Weiqi’s Zhang team from the Beijing Institute of Genomics of CAS, and Jing Qu’s team also from IOZ, has provided compelling answers.

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A new study reveals a ‘nano-switch’ in ferredoxin that affects its electron transfer, which could lead to advancements in sensors and drug development.

Researchers in Japan have discovered a mechanism for controlling the potential of an “electron carrier” protein in the redox reaction that all organisms need to obtain energy. Through experiments, the precise 3D structure of the protein, including hydrogen atoms, was determined, and theoretical calculations using this data visualized the electronic structure of the iron-sulfur cluster.

The results revealed, for the first time, that the electric potential of the iron-sulfur cluster changes dramatically depending on the presence or absence of a single hydrogen atom at an amino acid side chain, a so-called “nano-switch” mechanism. This research, recently published in the journal eLife, not only deepens our scientific understanding of biological reactions but also provides crucial insights for the future development of ultra-sensitive sensors for oxygen and nitric oxide, as well as novel drugs.

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