Lifeboat Foundation

The blockbuster weight loss drug semaglutide can cut the progression of diabetic kidney disease, according to its manufacturer Novo Nordisk, adding to growing evidence that the medication has beneficial effects beyond treating Type 2 Diabetes and obesity.

Semaglutide — which is marketed under the name Ozempic for diabetes treatment and Wegovy for weight loss — managed to also reduce death from kidney disease and cardiovascular issues by 24 percent versus a placebo.

The results came from a Novo Nordisk clinical trial that had 3,533 participants with both diabetes and chronic kidney disease. High blood sugar from diabetes can damage kidneys and ultimately lead to chronic kidney disease, in which the organ has trouble filtering toxins from the blood.

Year 2023 face_with_colon_three

More than half a billion people worldwide are affected by type 2 diabetes, and yet researchers still don’t know what’s behind the condition’s breakdown in insulin functionality.

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University in the US have now pulled back the molecular curtain and figured out why insulin, the hormone that maintains stable blood sugar, often stops working at its full effect.

Continue reading “Scientists Think They’ve Found a New Cause of Type 2 Diabetes” »

A machine learning pipeline named ARTEMIS captures how the landscape of repeat genomic sequences shifts in patients with cancer, and could facilitate earlier detection and monitoring of tumor progression.

📄:

ARTEMIS is a new approach to characterizing genome-wide repeat elements in cancer and cell-free DNA.

These small particles that look like dust to the naked eye are highly detailed and can be customized to suit a wide variety of needs ranging from microfluidics to vaccine delivery and even microelectronics, a press release has said.

3D printing or additive manufacturing at a macroscale level has matured at the market level, where items like shoes, hearing aids, and even household goods can be made using this technique.

“Viruses, infections, and pandemics have become recurrent features in our lives, profoundly impacting human existence and even extending their reach to animals. Despite this, accessible, rapid, and affordable virus detection methods have been lacking,” said Xingcai Zhang, PhD, researcher, Harvard University, told GEN. “Our study aims to visualize viral infection states, predict infection duration, unravel the infection process, explore inhibition methods, and contribute to understanding viral disease transmission and pathogenesis.”

Viral infection of cells causes stress resulting in cell morphology differences over time. This study leveraged those known morphological changes to discern between infected and non-infected cells in culture. The standard practice for identifying infected cells, the methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay, requires the use of reagent treatments and chemical reactions which can take upwards of 40 hours per sample, which is destroyed in the process.

The method proposed in this paper uses a lensless light diffraction platform to detect diffraction patterns, which can be used to extract information such as contrast and inverse differential moment which are used to create diffraction fingerprints. The fingerprints can be monitored continuously in the same samples as there is no inherent damage to cells.

A person who lost their uterus to cancer, for example, could have an embryo created in the lab, like in IVF, but implant it in an artificial womb for gestation, rather than using a human surrogate, which is an ethically fraught practice.

By eliminating the need for surrogacy, artificial wombs could also make it easier for gay couples to have biological children. Further on the horizon, if scientists can replicate their success creating embryos from the DNA of same-sex mice in people, any two people might one day be able to have biological children related to both of them.

Continue reading “Scientists are growing animals in artificial wombs. Humans might be next” »

People often think of leprosy as a bygone disease, relevant primarily in biblical times. But in fact, it is still present in more than 120 countries, and the US is seeing an uptick in cases.

A collaborative project to bring the promise of cell therapy to patients with a deadly form of brain cancer has shown dramatic results among the first patients to receive the novel treatment.

In a paper published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from Mass General Cancer…

Cutting-edge therapy shrinks tumors in early glioblastoma trial.

Continue reading “‘Dramatic’ inroads against aggressive brain cancer” »

A genetically modified cow has produced milk containing human insulin, according to a new study. The proof-of-concept achievement could be scaled up to, eventually, produce enough insulin to ensure availability and reduced cost for all diabetics requiring the life-maintaining drug.

Unable to rely on their own supply due to damaged pancreatic cells, type 1 diabetics need injectable insulin to live. As do some type 2 diabetics. The World Health Organization estimates that of those who require insulin, between 150 and 200 million people worldwide, only about half are being treated with it. Access to insulin remains inadequate in many low-and middle-income countries – and some high-income countries – and its cost and unavailability have been well-documented.

In a newly published study led by the Department of Animal Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Universidade de São Paulo, researchers say they may have developed a way of eliminating insulin scarcity and reducing its cost using cows. Yep, cows.