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National Eye Institute (NEI) researchers profiling epigenomic changes in light-sensing mouse photoreceptors have a clearer picture of how age-related eye diseases may be linked to age-related changes in the regulation of gene expression. The findings, published online April 21 in Cell Reports, suggest that the epigenome could be targeted as a therapeutic strategy to prevent leading causes of vision loss, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD). NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

“Our study elucidates the molecular changes and biological pathways linked with aging of rod photoreceptors, light-sensing cells of the retina. Future investigations can now move forward to study how we can prevent or delay vision loss in aging and hopefully reduce the risk of associated neurodegeneration” said the study’s lead investigator, Anand Swaroop, Ph.D., senior investigator and chief of the NEI Neurobiology, Neurodegeneration, and Repair Laboratory.

Each organism is born with a genome, a library of genes that control all the body’s cellular and tissue functions. Expression of those genes—when information stored in DNA is converted into instructions for making proteins or other molecules—is modulated and maintained by the organism’s epigenome. The epigenome tags the DNA code to modify gene expression in ways that can be favorable and unfavorable for survival.

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#News, #Covid

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday unveiled a coronavirus ‘heat map’ powered by Facebook data which is aimed at helping track the spread of the disease and plan for reopening society. The first map (pictured) is based on more than two million responses to surveys which asked users in the US to self-report symptoms over a period of 10 days in April.

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Researchers from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh today published research showing how they’d solved a frustrating problem for people who use a brain-computer interface (BCI) to control prosthetic devices with their thoughts.

While the research itself is interesting – they created an algorithm that keeps the devices from constantly needing to be re-calibrated to handle the human brain’s fluctuating neuronal activity – the real takeaway here is how close we are to a universal BCI.

BCIs have been around for decades in one form or another, but they’re costly to maintain and difficult to keep working properly. Currently they only make sense for narrow use – specifically, in the case of those who’ve lost limbs. Because they’re already used to using their brain to control an appendage, it’s easier for scientists and researchers to harness those brainwaves to control prosthetic devices.

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In a study published in Nature, a UCLA-led team of researchers describe how the nanomachine recognizes and kills bacteria, and report that they have imaged it at atomic resolution. The scientists also engineered their own versions of the nanomachine, which enabled them to produce variations that behaved differently from the naturally occurring version.

Their efforts could eventually lead to the development of new types of antibiotics that are capable of homing in on specific species of microbes. Drugs tailored to kill only a certain species or strain of bacteria could offer numerous advantages over conventional antibiotics, including lowering the likelihood that bacteria will develop resistance. In addition, the tailored drugs could destroy harmful cells without wiping out beneficial bugs in the gut microbiome, and they could eventually offer the possibilities of being deployed to prevent bacterial infections, to kill pathogens in food and to engineer human microbiomes so that favorable bacteria thrive.

The particle in the study, an R-type pyocin, is a protein complex released by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa as a way of sabotaging microbes that compete with it for resources. When a pyocin identifies a rival bacterium, it kills the bacterium by punching a hole in the cell’s membrane. P. aeruginosa, frequently a cause of hospital-acquired illness, is found in soil, in water and on fresh produce. The germ is commonly studied and its biology is well understood.

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Klotho has been called the “king of anti-aging proteins.” It is an important biomarker and promising gene therapy treatment for Chronic Kidney Disease. It is more strongly correlated with IQ than any single gene, making it a potential nootropic and intelligence enhancing gene therapy.

https://biovivascience.myshopify.com/blogs/news/klotho-queen…g-proteins

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a series of soluble, stabilized cytokine receptors that could feasibly be injected into COVID-19 patients to help reduce the effects of cytokine storm by binding to excess cytokines.

#COVID19 #Coronavirus #Therapeutics

Independent research teams describe soluble cytokine receptors that might tackle cytokine storm, and suggest that a little known function of neutrophils may be involved in severe COVID-19 disease.

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