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Dr. Tia Rains, Ph.D., VP Customer Engagement & Strategic Development, Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition

Innovation in the amino-sciences for health, wellness, and aging — dr. tia rains phd, VP customer engagement & strategic development, ajinomoto.

Dr. Tia Rains, Ph.D., is Vice President of Customer Engagement & Strategic Development at Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition North America, Inc. (https://www.ajihealthandnutrition.com/), a division of Japanese food and biotechnology Ajinomoto Corporation (https://www.ajinomoto.com/), which produces seasonings, cooking oils, frozen foods, beverage, sweeteners, amino acids, and pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Rains has over 20 years of experience working on health and wellness initiatives within the food and beverage sector, and enjoys working at the intersection of nutrition research and communications, with the goal of advancing credible research in nutrition and developing truthful messaging on new research results in the context of the body of nutrition evidence.

Dr. Rains most recently headed up the Egg Nutrition Center (ENC) as it’s Executive Director.

Prior to joining ENC, Dr. Rains was the Senior Director of Metabolic Sciences at Biofortis Clinical Research, a global contract research organization specializing in the design and conduct of clinical research for leading food, beverage, and supplement companies around the world.

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Microsoft data breach exposes 38M records including Social Security numbers

THE personal records of 38million people were accidentally leaked on the open internet due to a flaw in more than a thousand Microsoft web apps, according to reports.

American Airlines, Ford, J.B. Hunt, the Maryland Department of Health, the New York City Municipal Transportation Authority, and New York City public schools were among the companies and organizations affected by the mistake.

The data mistakenly shared online included information from a number of Covid-19 contact tracing platforms, vaccination sign-ups, job application portals, and employee databases, according to Wired.

The Hyperlipidaemic Drug Fenofibrate Significantly Reduces Infection by SARS-CoV-2 in Cell Culture Models

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has caused a significant number of fatalities and worldwide disruption. To identify drugs to repurpose to treat SARS-CoV-2 infections, we established a screen to measure the dimerization of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the primary receptor for the virus. This screen identified fenofibric acid, the active metabolite of fenofibrate. Fenofibric acid also destabilized the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the viral spike protein and inhibited RBD binding to ACE2 in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and whole cell-binding assays. Fenofibrate and fenofibric acid were tested by two independent laboratories measuring infection of cultured Vero cells using two different SARS-CoV-2 isolates. In both settings at drug concentrations, which are clinically achievable, fenofibrate and fenofibric acid reduced viral infection by up to 70%. Together with its extensive history of clinical use and its relatively good safety profile, this study identifies fenofibrate as a potential therapeutic agent requiring an urgent clinical evaluation to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for a pandemic, which has cost over 1.9 million lives worldwide so far (Dhama et al., 2020; World Health Organization, 2020; Wu et al., 2020). The emergence of new virus variants with higher transmissibility rates is seeing rapid increases in infection rates and deaths across the world. Several vaccines have undergone accelerated approval and are being rolled out worldwide (Baden et al., 2021; Voysey et al., 2021). While the clinical data are very promising, the vaccines are not recommended or suitable in all patient groups, e.g., children, those with hyperimmune disorders, and those using immunosuppressants (Meo et al., 2021), and with the global spread of viral variants of concern, e.g., Alpha-B.1.1.7, Beta-B.1.351, Gamma-P.1, and Delta-B.1.617.2, it is presently unclear whether the current vaccines will offer sufficient protection to emerging strains (Meo et al., 2021).

The evolution of commercial drug delivery technologies

Drug delivery technologies have enabled the development of many pharmaceutical products that improve patient health by enhancing the delivery of a therapeutic to its target site, minimizing off-target accumulation and facilitating patient compliance. As therapeutic modalities expanded beyond small molecules to include nucleic acids, peptides, proteins and antibodies, drug delivery technologies were adapted to address the challenges that emerged. In this Review Article, we discuss seminal approaches that led to the development of successful therapeutic products involving small molecules and macromolecules, identify three drug delivery paradigms that form the basis of contemporary drug delivery and discuss how they have aided the initial clinical successes of each class of therapeutic. We also outline how the paradigms will contribute to the delivery of live-cell therapies.

This Review Article discusses how delivery challenges associated with small molecules, nucleic acids, peptides, proteins and cells led to the development of commercial products and are now informing the delivery of live-cell therapeutics.

Mahabbah: I am pleased to announce that my science fiction story “Mahabbah” has been published by After Dinner Conversation

My story centers on the concept of a genetically modified virus (named) which infects the brain and gives people enhanced empathy. The narrative takes place in a fictional middle eastern city called Fakhoury and explores bioethical themes. Love acts as a central motif which ties the story together. Note that this piece will be available online for a limited time, after which you will need to pay for the magazine. I encourage you to check out my story!

Read Philosophy Ethics Short Stories with your friends, family, book club, and students. Each story comes with suggested discussion questions.

9 Best Sleep Trackers and Apps for Longevity in 2022

Obstructive sleep apnea is widely “underrecognized and underdiagnosed.” But individuals with moderate to severe sleep apnea have a notable elevated risk of mortality from cancer and stroke compared to individuals without. People with obstructive sleep apnea and parasomnia have higher risks of breast cancer. The same study finds that parasomnia also increases the risk of oral cancer.

Update 8/23/2021: This post has been updated since we originally published it in October 2020. I evaluated additional top sleep trackers and apps for 2,022 added Biostrap, updated the post to reflect most recent pricing, and added additional commentary on my reviews. The post has been cleaned up and links were made current.

I didn’t used to have a harmonious relationship with sleep. In fact, sleep used to be a source of anxiety for me. I have parasomnia, an amalgam of disorders that, occasionally, give me hypnopompic hallucinations Severe hallucinations when waking up from a deep sleep. 0 night terrors Nightmares that lead the dreamer to wake up screaming and thrashing without recollection of the dream itself 0 and, most dangerously, somnambulism The fancy word for ‘sleepwalking.’ 0 which has led me to drive while sleeping and scare the living piss out of my poor husband after we watched Paranormal Activity together (it didn’t help that I was mutely standing over him at 4:15 AM with my eyes wide open).

So it should come as no surprise that I’ve built quite the relationship with my own sleep metrics and have more than a layman’s knowledge of sleep science. Which brings me to this article.

Sudden Death From Deep in the Brain?

Dravet syndrome (DS) is a developmental and epileptic encephalopathy with an increased incidence of sudden death. Evidence of interictal breathing deficits in DS suggests that alterations in subcortical projections to brainstem nuclei may exist, which might be driving comorbidities in DS.

Summary: Researchers have identified a circuit within the brain that may be responsible for respiratory dysfunction and sudden death associated with Dravet syndrome.

Source: Vanderbilt University

Risk of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is among comorbidities present in Dravet Syndrome (DS), a rare, catastrophic form of epilepsy in which seizures begin in infancy, with most cases due to mutations in a single gene, SCN1A.

Breathing issues have been reported in patients and in mouse models of DS, and a recent study implicated respiratory decline in SUDEP in DS mice.

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