Anjie Zhen & team show rapamycin reduces HIV-mediated chronic inflammation and T cell exhaustion, delaying viral rebound and reducing viral reservoir in mice.
2UCLA AIDS Institute and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Join us this episode as we explore how a cutting-edge, high-throughput screening platform can identify lifespan-extending compounds in diverse model organisms, with Dr Kevin Perez, co-founder of Epiterna and Junior Group Leader at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and host Prof Brian Kennedy, Director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity at #NUSMedicine.
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How does the brain work? Where, and when, and why do neurons connect and send their signals? Scientists have created the largest wiring diagram and functional map of an animal brain to date to learn more. Research teams at Allen Institute, @BCMweb and @princeton worked together to map half a billion synapses, over 200,000 cells, and 4km of axons from a cubic millimeter of mouse brain, providing unparalleled detail into its structure and functional properties. The project is part of the Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) program, which seeks to revolutionize machine learning by reverse-engineering the algorithms of the brain. Research findings reveal key insights into brain activity, connectivity, and structure—shedding light on both form and function—within a region of the mouse visual cortex that plays a critical role in brain health and is often disrupted in neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and addiction. These insights could revolutionize our ability to treat neuropsychiatric diseases or study the influence of drugs and other changes on the brain.
This extraordinary achievement begins to reveal the elusive language the brain uses to communicate amongst its millions of cells and the cortical mechanisms of intelligence—one of the holy grails of science.
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To survey the real-world effectiveness and cost of optic nerve sheath meningioma (ONSM) treating with Gamma Knife Radiosurgery (GKRS), and compare with the external beam radiation therapy (EBRT).
Retrospective, comparative study that included patients with primary ONSM treated with either GKRS or EBRT in Samsung Medical Center, Korea. The treatment response, and treatment costs were compared between GKRS and EBRT groups.
There were 34 adult patients with primary ONSM treated with either GKRS (n = 25) or EBRT (n = 9) (follow-up period: 6–207 months). The local tumor control rates (GKRS: 92%; EBRT: 100%; P = 1) and vision preservation rates (GKRS: 64%; EBRT: 67%; P = 1) were similar in both groups. The mean gross tumor volume (GTV) decreased by 21.4 ± 19.7% after GKRS and 26.4 ± 18.7% after EBRT (P = 0.4803). The complication rates did not differ between two modalities. Factors associated with better visual outcomes were pretreatment BCVA 20/50 (odds ratio: 6.000, P = 0.0234) and the absence of intracranial tumor extension (odds ratio: 30.00, P = 0.0001). GKRS reduced the total costs of care by 43% under Korean National Health Insurance System (NHIS).
Nexus between genomic instability and metabolism in cancer.
Genomic damage detection and repair in the cells is enabled by the DNA-damage response (DDR).
Although DDR inhibition has been used to treat various cancers, drug resistance has been observed in the long run owing to the ability of tumor cells to undergo energetic metabolic reprogramming.
In addition, tumor cells’ ability to sense oxidative stress influenced by metabolic intermediates, leading to impaired redox metabolism, thus creating redox vulnerabilities.
The researchers in this review summarize recent advances in understanding the crosstalk between DDR and metabolism and discuss combination therapies that target DDR, metabolism, and redox vulnerabilities in cancer.
They also outline challenges in targeting metabolism and strategies to improve the shortcomings. https://sciencemission.com/Unraveling-the-nexus
The use of virtual reality haptic simulators can enhance skill acquisition and reduce stress among dental students during preclinical endodontic training, according to a new study published in the International Endodontic Journal. The study was based on collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Health Sciences and the University of Ondokuz Mayıs in Turkey as well as Grande Rio University in Brazil.
The study aimed to evaluate the influence of virtual reality (VR) haptic simulators on skill acquisition and stress reduction in endodontic preclinical education of dental students.
During preclinical training, dental students develop manual dexterity, psychomotor skills and confidence essential in clinical practice. VR and haptic technology are increasingly used alongside conventional methods, enabling more repetition and standardised feedback, among other things.
Cytochrome P450 (CYP) proteins are responsible for breaking down more than 80% of all Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs, reducing their effectiveness. However, how to prevent CYPs from doing this without off-target effects has puzzled researchers until now.
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have designed new drug frameworks that selectively target CYP3A4, one of the most critical CYP proteins. Structural insights from this work offer a roadmap for future drug developers to better evaluate drug interactions and selectively target CYP proteins. The findings are published in Nature Communications.
CYP3A4 breaks down drugs that treat various health conditions, including the anti-cancer agent paclitaxel and the COVID-19 therapeutic nirmatrelvir. CYP3A4 inhibitors are commonly co-administered to reduce CYP3A4’s effect. This includes ritonavir, which is combined with nirmatrelvir in Paxlovid for mild COVID-19 treatment. However, such CYP3A4 inhibitors often affect the similar but distinct CYP3A5 due to the two proteins’ shared features, such as large and promiscuous binding sites, in addition to other unintended CYPs.
For decades, scientists assumed that neural stem cells (NSCs) only occur in the brain and spinal cord. A new international study, led by Hans Schöler of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, has now refuted this assumption and discovered a new type of neural stem cell outside the central nervous system (CNS) that opens up enormous possibilities for the development of therapies for neurological diseases. The study is published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.
In 2014, an article titled “Stimulus-triggered fate conversion of somatic cells into pluripotency” was published in Nature. This publication initially caused quite a stir because it opened up a simple way to obtain pluripotent stem cells. The induction of pluripotent stem cells without the need for viral vectors, as Shinya Yamanaka had done and for which he received the Nobel Prize, would have been too good to be true.
Although the laboratory of Schöler at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, like many others, tried to repeat the experiment that described the “stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency” (STAP) based on treating somatic cells with low pH. However, the generation of pluripotent cells failed regardless of the culture conditions and tissues used—and the corresponding paper was eventually retracted several months after publication.
Bioinformaticians from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the university in Linköping (Sweden) have established that the genes in bacterial genomes are arranged in a meaningful order. In the journal Science, they explain that the genes are arranged by function: If they become increasingly important for faster growth, they are located near the origin of DNA replication. Accordingly, their position influences how their activity changes with the growth rate.
Are genes distributed randomly along the bacterial chromosome, as if scattered from a salt shaker? This opinion, which is held by a majority of researchers, has now been disputed by a team of bioinformaticians led by Professor Dr. Martin Lercher, head of the research group for Computational Cell Biology at HHU.
When bacteria replicate their genetic material in preparation for cell division, the process starts at a specific point on the bacterial chromosome and continues along the chromosome in both directions.