Lifeboat Foundation

A novel nanoparticle spray coating process has been shown to all but eliminate the growth of some of the world’s most dangerous bacteria in air filtration systems, significantly reducing the risk of airborne bacterial and viral infections.

That’s the principal finding of a study, led by researchers from IMDEA Materials Institute in collaboration with scientists from the Networking Biomedical Research Center in Respiratory Diseases (CIBERES) and Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC) in Madrid, Spain. The study was published in Materials Chemistry and Physics.

The study, “Control of microbial agents by functionalization of commercial air filters with metal oxide particles,” tested various spray coatings of silver (Ag₂O), copper (CuO) and zinc (ZnO) oxides as low-cost antiviral and antibacterial filters when applied to commercially available air filtration systems.

His father’s voice, the sounds of passing cars and scissors clipping his hair: An 11-year-old boy is hearing for the first time in his life after receiving a breakthrough gene therapy.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) which carried out the treatment – a first in the United States – said in a statement Tuesday the milestone represents hope for patients around the world with hearing loss caused by genetic mutations.

Aissam Dam was born “profoundly deaf” because of a highly rare abnormality in a single gene.

A University of Alberta research team has uncovered differences in the way male and female mice develop and resolve chronic pain, pointing to potential pathways for future targeted treatments for humans.

In recently published research in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, the team reports on its study of mice with chronic pain resulting from inflammation rather than direct injury. The researchers found that the female mice were more sensitive to the effects of immune cells called macrophages. They also identified an X chromosome-linked receptor that is critical for resolving both acute and chronic inflammation in both sexes.

“We’re always interested in understanding the triggers for pain, but in this study, we went up the next step to ask how pain resolves to determine how these immune cells are involved,” explains principal investigator Bradley Kerr, professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.

The fountain of youth has eluded explorers for ages.

Summary: Researchers found that T cells can be genetically reprogrammed to target and eliminate senescent cells, which contribute to aging-related diseases. By using CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T cells in mice, they achieved significant health improvements including lower body weight, enhanced metabolism, and increased physical activity.

This groundbreaking approach, offering long-term effects from a single treatment, could revolutionize treatments for age-related conditions like obesity and diabetes, transcending the potential of CAR T cells beyond their current use in cancer therapy.

Researchers discovered a method to expedite the study of bacterial gene regulation, which could help fight antibiotic resistance by analyzing DNA replication’s impact on gene expression.

Bacterial infections cause millions of deaths each year, with the global threat made worse by the increasing resistance of the microbes to antibiotic treatments. This is due in part to the ability of bacteria to switch genes on and off as they sense environmental changes, including the presence of drugs. Such switching is accomplished through transcription, which converts the DNA in genes into its chemical cousin in mRNA, which guides the building of proteins that make up the microbe’s structure.

For this reason, understanding how mRNA production is regulated for each bacterial gene is central to efforts to counter resistance, but approaches used to study this regulation to date have been laborious. In a new study, scientists revealed a trick that may speed such efforts.

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Study in Npj Digital Medicine evaluates COMPOSER, a deep learning model for early sepsis prediction, showing its effectiveness in improving patient care and reducing in-hospital mortality rates.

A review discusses the current state of CRISPR-mediated genetic manipulation in human cells, animals, and plants and considers its future potential.

People with unusually thin retinas are at greater risk of later developing bronchitis and other conditions, suggesting retinal scans could eventually become a component of routine health screening.

By Timmy Broderick

New research links mutation rates and lifespan. We visualize the data supporting this new framework for understanding cancer.