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Category: biotech/medical – Page 225

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have recently discovered several prominent biomarkers that allow for the early diagnosis of dementia and/or mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In a recently published article, evidence has been presented that patients with diabetes type 2 exhibited more changes to their brains than healthy controls, including the shrinking of certain brain areas. These changes occurred earlier in life, and some of the patients developed MCI sooner than others.

The Older Controls at Risk for Dementia (BIOCARD) study is a long-term trial which has been conducted for the past 27 years with the goal of determining how medical conditions and other factors might be impacting cognitive function and perhaps even affecting the biological age of the brain as a whole. BIOCARD was originally a National Institutes of Health initiative, which began in 1995 and later continued at Johns Hopkins University from 2015 to 2023. The cohort consisted of 185 participants, with an average age of 55 years and normal cognitive function.

The trial subjects received routine brain scans and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tests for 20 years, in order to measure changes in brain structures and levels of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists have been increasingly using CSF to attempt to uncover early signs of neurodegenerative disease, since it is a minimally-invasive procedure which is inexpensive and widely available.

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As Canadians brace for “vitamin D winter”—months when the sun’s angle is too low to produce the vitamin in the skin—a McGill University study explains why vitamin D deficiency early in life is associated with a higher risk of autoimmune diseases.

During childhood, the thymus helps train immune cells to distinguish between the body’s own tissues and harmful invaders. A vitamin D deficiency at that stage of life causes the thymus to age more quickly, the researchers discovered.

The study is published in the journal Science Advances.

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Researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a nanomedicine that increases the penetration and accumulation of chemotherapy drugs in tumor tissues and effectively kills cancer cells in mice.

The study, published in Science Advances, addresses a…

Research effectively used nanoparticles to deliver chemo drugs directly to tumors in mice.

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Breast cancer is a major health concern worldwide, and early detection is crucial for effective treatment. Traditional imaging methods, such as mammography, have limitations, especially for women with dense breast tissue. Photoacoustic imaging, which combines light and sound to create detailed images of breast tissue, offers a promising alternative. However, recent research has highlighted a significant challenge: skin tone bias.

A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University recently investigated how skin tone affects the visibility of targets in photoacoustic imaging.

As reported in Biophotonics Discovery, the study focused on three image reconstruction methods: fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based reconstruction, delay-and-sum (DAS) beamforming, and short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC) beamforming. The study used simulations with different wavelengths (757800, and 1,064 nm), target sizes (0.5 to 3 mm), and skin tones (ranging from very light to dark).

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A new variant of human mpox has claimed the lives of approximately 5% of people with reported infections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2023, many of them children. Since then, it has spread to several other countries. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on August 14. In addition, a different but rarely fatal mpox variant was responsible for an outbreak that has spread to more than 100 countries since 2022.

There is an urgent need for faster and more cost-effective diagnostic tools to curb the spread of mpox and to prepare for the possibility of a future global pandemic. Researchers from University of California School of Medicine, Boston University, and their colleagues have now developed an optical biosensor that can rapidly detect monkeypox, the that causes mpox. The technology could allow clinicians to diagnose the disease at the point of care rather than wait for .

The team’s study is published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

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Researchers at New York University have devised a mathematical approach to predict the structures of crystals—a critical step in developing many medicines and electronic devices—in a matter of hours using only a laptop, a process that previously took a supercomputer weeks or months. Their novel framework is published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Researchers led by the University of California, Irvine are the first to reveal how two neural circuits located in the brain’s retrosplenial cortex are directly linked to spatial navigation and memory storage. This discovery could lead to more precise medical treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive disorders by allowing them to target pathway-specific neural circuits.

The study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, identified two types of RSC pathways, connected to different parts of the brain, each with its own pattern of inputs and functions.

“By demonstrating how specific circuits in the RSC contribute to different aspects of cognition, our findings provide an anatomical foundation for future studies and offer new insights into how we learn and remember the space around us,” said lead and co-corresponding author Xiangmin Xu, UC Irvine Chancellor’s Professor of anatomy and neurobiology and director of the campus’s Center for Neural Circuit Mapping.

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Think back to that basic biology class you took in high school. You probably learned about organelles, those little ‘organs’ inside cells that form compartments with individual functions.

For example, mitochondria produce energy, lysosomes recycle waste and the nucleus stores DNA. Although each organelle has a different function, they are similar in that every one is wrapped up in a membrane.

Membrane-bound organelles were the textbook standard of how scientists thought cells were organized until they realized in the mid-2000s that some organelles don’t need to be wrapped in a membrane.

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Science Corporation, a biotech startup launched by a Neuralink cofounder, claims that it’s achieved a breakthrough in brain-computer interface technology that can help patients with severe vision loss.

In preliminary clinical trials, legally blind patients who had lost their central vision received the company’s retina implants, which restored their eyesight and even allowed them to read books and recognize faces, the startup announced last week.

“To my knowledge, this is the first time that restoration of the ability to fluently read has ever been definitively shown in blind patients,” CEO Max Hodak, who was president of Neuralink before founding Science Corp, said in a statement.

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