Lifeboat Foundation

Reverse Aging Revolution

A team of University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists has developed the first 3D-printed brain tissue that can grow and function like typical brain tissue.

It’s an achievement with important implications for scientists studying the brain and working on treatments for a broad range of neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

“This could be a hugely powerful model to help us understand how brain cells and parts of the brain communicate in humans,” says Su-Chun Zhang, professor of neuroscience and neurology at UW–Madison’s Waisman Center. “It could change the way we look at stem cell biology, neuroscience, and the pathogenesis of many neurological and psychiatric disorders.”

Washington state is experiencing its first known outbreak of a potentially deadly fungus, according to public health officials.

Four patients in the last month have tested positive for Candida auris, or C. auris, Public Health — Seattle & King County said in a release.

The first case occurred in a patient who had recently been admitted to Kindred Hospital Seattle, which was identified through a proactive screening program.

The rare condition posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) involves strange, troubling issues with vision and spatial awareness – including difficulty judging distances, seeing movement, and recognizing objects – and a new study highlights its close relationship to Alzheimer’s disease in more detail than ever before.

PCA and Alzheimer’s have long been linked with each other, because they share a lot of the same pathological changes in the brain. However, the rarity of PCA has made it hard for researchers to fully assess it in relation to Alzheimer’s.

To address that, an international team of researchers analyzed data on 1,092 individuals with PCA, finding that it was a very strong predictor for Alzheimer’s: in 94 percent of cases, tell-tale Alzheimer’s brain changes were observed, and were most likely contributing to PCA.

Summary: Researchers developed the world’s first 3D-printed brain tissue that grows and behaves similarly to natural brain tissue, marking a significant leap forward for neurological and neurodevelopmental disorder research.

This novel 3D-printing technique uses a horizontal layering approach and a softer bio-ink, allowing neurons to interconnect and form networks akin to human brain structures.

The ability to precisely control cell types and arrangements provides unparalleled opportunities to study brain functions and disorders in a controlled environment, offering new avenues for drug testing and understanding brain development and diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Heartbeat-induced pulsations of cerebral blood vessels can directly entrain neuronal activity.

An AI algorithm outperformed other screening methods in identifying cervical precancer. The approach could be especially valuable in low-resource settings.

A team of molecular engineers have developed a type of plastic that can be shape-shifted using tempering. In their paper published in the journal Science the team, from the University of Chicago, with a colleagues from the US DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and the NASA Glenn Research Center, describe how they made their plastic and how well it was able to shape shift when they applied various types of tempering.

Haley McAllister and Julia Kalow, with Northwestern University, have published a Perspective piece in the same issue of Science outlining the work.

Over the past several years, it has become evident that the use of plastics in products is harmful to not only the environment but also human health —bits of plastic have been found in the soil, the atmosphere, the oceans, and the human body.

Some hereditary genetic defects cause an exaggerated immune response that can be fatal. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool, such defects can be corrected, thus normalizing the immune response, as researchers led by Klaus Rajewsky from the Max Delbrück Center now report in Science Immunology.

Familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (FHL) is a rare disease of the immune system that usually occurs in infants and young children under the age of 18 months. The condition is severe and has a high mortality rate. It is caused by various gene mutations that prevent cytotoxic T cells from functioning normally. These are a group of immune cells that kill virus–infected cells or otherwise altered cells.

If a child with FHL contracts a virus—such as the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), but also other viruses—the cytotoxic T cells cannot eliminate the infected cells. Instead, the immune response gets out of control. This leads to a cytokine storm and an excessive inflammatory reaction that affects the entire organism.