Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 374

National clinical guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 vary significantly around the world, with under-resourced countries the most likely to diverge from gold standard (World Health Organization; WHO) treatment recommendations, finds a comparative analysis published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.

And nearly every recommends at least one treatment proven not to work, the analysis shows.

Significant variations in national COVID-19 have been suspected since the advent of the pandemic, but these haven’t been formally quantified or studied in depth, note the researchers.

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Rice University engineers have developed the smallest implantable brain stimulator demonstrated in a human patient. Thanks to pioneering magnetoelectric power transfer technology, the pea-sized device developed in the Rice lab of Jacob Robinson in collaboration with Motif Neurotech and clinicians Dr. Sameer Sheth and Dr. Sunil Sheth can be powered wirelessly via an external transmitter and used to stimulate the brain through the dura ⎯ the protective membrane attached to the bottom of the skull.

The device, known as the Digitally programmable Over-brain Therapeutic (DOT), could revolutionize treatment for drug-resistant depression and other psychiatric or neurological disorders by providing a therapeutic alternative that offers greater patient autonomy and accessibility than current neurostimulation-based therapies and is less invasive than other brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

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Advances in gene sequencing technology and computing power have significantly increased the availability of bioinformatic data and processing capabilities. This convergence provides an ideal opportunity for artificial intelligence (AI) to develop methods to control cellular behavior.

In a new study, Northwestern University researchers have reaped fruit from this nexus by developing an AI-powered transfer learning approach that repurposes publicly available data to predict combinations of gene perturbations that can transform cell type or restore diseased cells to health.

The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Generative A.I. technologies can write poetry and computer programs or create images of teddy bears and videos of cartoon characters that look like something from a Hollywood movie.

Now, new A.I. technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today.

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The process, called primary endosymbiosis, has only happened twice in the history of the Earth, with the first time giving rise to all complex life as we know it through mitochondria. The second time that it happened saw the emergence of plants.

Now, an international team of scientists have observed the evolutionary event happening between a species of algae commonly found in the ocean and a bacterium.

“The first time we think it happened, it gave rise to all complex life,” said Tyler Coale, a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Santa Cruz, who led the research on one of two recent studies that uncovered the phenomenon.

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“We want to better understand what causes cancer to resist or respond to immunotherapy to help design more effective strategies for patients,” said senior author Gregory Beatty, MD, PhD, an associate professor of hematology-oncology and the director of clinical and translational research for the Penn Pancreatic Cancer Research Center. “Our findings show that liver cells—with their release of SAA proteins—effectively serve as an immune checkpoint regulating anticancer immunity, making them a promising therapeutic target.”

The study builds on previous research from the team, including co-lead authors Meredith Stone, PhD, a research associate, and Jesse Lee, a graduate student, into liver inflammation in cancer: In a 2019 study, they showed how it promotes pancreatic tumor metastasis to that organ. In 2021, researchers from the Beatty Lab observed that systemic inflammation, involving many of the same molecules implicated in liver metastasis, is associated with worse responses to immunotherapies in pancreatic cancer patients.

The latest study was designed to investigate in more detail how liver inflammation may block the effects of these immune-boosting therapies.

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I found this on NewsBreak:

The crew of the International Space Station has stumbled upon a drug-resistant bacteria on board, leaving them baffled as to how it arrived.

Scientists working in the low orbit lab have confirmed the discovery, which raises concerns about the potential evolution of more robust bacteria that could defy current treatments. The unique microgravity environment of the ISS is suspected to be a factor in the bacteria’s persistence.

The origin of the bacteria remains a mystery to the team, who can’t recall how it might have been introduced to the station. Life in space presents different growth conditions for organisms, leading to alternative evolutionary paths compared to their Earth-bound counterparts.

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