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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,249

A New Healthcare Framework for Aging Populations

A new publication by an international team of scientists has proposed a new healthcare framework to help older people stay healthier for longer by improving the development of therapies that target age-related diseases.

Society is aging, and we need to change healthcare for the better

This new publication urges World Health Organization (WHO), governments, and the medical science community to work together and develop classifications and staging systems using a new framework as a basis for diagnosing and treating age-related diseases.

By turning stem cells into brain cells, Aspen Neuroscience hopes to rewind the progress of Parkinson’s disease

The idea of a cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease starts out simple: Symptoms of the progressive disease are largely driven by the deaths of dopamine-producing neurons found deep within the brain. With lower levels of the neurotransmitter come the characteristic tremors, rigidity and slow movements.

By replacing those lost nerve cells with new dopamine producers, researchers hope to renew the brain’s connection to the body’s muscles and improve a person’s overall motor function.

But in the brain, everything becomes more complicated. On top of the risk of immune system rejection that comes with any kind of living tissue transplant, it’s important to make sure the implanted cells function correctly and do not pick up any dangerous genetic mutations as they grow.

Jumbo Phage Deploys Cloaking Device against CRISPR Defenses

Scientists at the University of Otago in New Zealand say they have discovered how viruses that specifically kill bacteria can outwit bacteria by hiding from their defenses. These findings are important for the development of new antimicrobials based on viruses and provide a significant advance in biological knowledge, according to the researchers.

Lead researcher Peter Fineran, PhD, professor, explained that the rise in multi-drug resistant bacteria is leading to the development of alternative therapeutics, including viruses (bacteriophages) that specifically kill bacteria. However, bacteria can become resistant to phages.

Phages are the most abundant biological entities on the planet and are important for global ecosystems, but they can also be used to kill bacterial pathogens, continued Fineran. To defend themselves from the phage invasion, bacteria have developed CRISPR-Cas defense systems, but the phages have come up with ways to avoid these bacterial defenses.

Dementia study reveals how proteins interact to stop brain signals

Fresh insights into damaging proteins that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease could aid the quest for treatments.

A study in mice reveals how the two proteins work together to disrupt communication between brain cells.

Scientists observed how proteins—called amyloid beta and tau—team up to hamper key genes responsible for brain messaging. By changing how genes are expressed in the brain, the proteins can affect its normal function.

The Top 10 Websites for Science in 2019

Millions of scientific papers are published each year, detailing new discoveries, reviewing the state of research, and opining on important matters. But most people don’t delve into daunting databases to learn the latest science news – who has time for that? Rather, they stay up to date with the help of various news outlets, which dig up and report on the stories that matter. At RealClearScience, we strive to steer you towards the best of these sources and castigate the worst. Near the end of the calendar year, we recognize what we perceive to be the leading websites for science content. Here are our picks for 2019:

Honorable Mentions:

For fantastic coverage of health and medicine, check out STAT.

Low-risk ultrasound procedure revolutionizes prostate cancer treatment

A new treatment shows promise for revolutionizing prostate cancer treatment, offering a minimally-invasive and relatively low-risk alternative to traditional surgeries and radiotherapies. Called TULSA, this method uses sound waves to eliminate the diseased tissue in the prostate, leaving the rest of the healthy tissues behind. According to the researchers, patients treated with this method experience ‘minimal side effects.’

Immunotherapy study shows how to stop cancer hiding from immune cells

The immune system is already our best defense against cancer, but sometimes it needs help. After all, cancer has a knack for deceiving it and hiding from immune cells, giving itself time to grow and spread. Now, researchers at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia have identified one way it does so, and found a method to counter it in mouse tests.

T and NK cells act like the foot soldiers of the immune system, searching the body for invading pathogens and attacking them. But their activity can be regulated by other immune cells, such as mucosal-associated invariant T cells (MAIT cells), telling them when to attack and when to stand down.

During the new study, the QIMR researchers discovered that if MAIT cells were switched on, they would prevent T and NK cells from attacking tumors. The tumors seem to have figured this out too – the team found that cancer cells actively turn on MAIT cells by displaying molecules called MR1 on their surfaces.

Researchers develop vaccine that targets Crohn’s disease and obesity

Researchers with INSERM in Paris have detailed their development of a new vaccine strategy that shows promise for treating inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease, as well as metabolic conditions like obesity. Key to the vaccine’s potential effectiveness is gut microbiota, abnormalities of which have been linked to a variety of health conditions. The new vaccine works by modifying these bacteria to protect the intestinal wall.

Doctors successfully transplanted a heart after it stopped beating in a first-its-kind procedure in the US

The procedure, donation after circulatory death or DCD, involves taking organs from a donor whose heart has stopped beating after being taken off of life support after a fatal injury or illness when there is no potential for recovery.

Conventional organ donations occur after brain death, which means that while all brain functions have stopped and the person is legally and clinically dead, machines can continue to keep oxygen and blood flowing throughout the body, preserving the healthy organs for donation.

After a circulatory death, however, organs are deprived of oxygen as the circulatory system shuts down, potentially damaging the donor organs and making it difficult to use them for transplant.