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Category: biotech/medical – Page 410

The ‘pivot penalty’: Exploring career risks for researchers who don’t stay in their own lane

In 2020, Yian Yin teamed up with economists at Northwestern University to look at the impact of researchers who had shifted their focus to study the COVID pandemic. He saw that these researchers faced a “pivot penalty”—their COVID-related work received less attention than previous contributions in their old field—and the greater the pivot, the worse the penalty.

As Yin and his colleagues continued their analyses, however, they discovered the pivot penalty wasn’t just a side effect of the pandemic. It occurred any time a scientist, inventor, or organization struck out in a new direction instead of staying in their lane.

“This is really a universal pattern that appears very widespread across science and technology—across different fields, research outcomes, , and team sizes,” said Yin, who was then a research fellow at Northwestern, and is now an assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

A high-protein diet improves birds’ ability to tolerate infection, study finds

Whether you feed bread to ducks at the local pond or hang a bird feeder on your back porch, the food you’re offering wild birds plays a role in their ability to tolerate infection. New research from the University of Arkansas has found that canaries fed a high-protein diet fared better when it came to immune function and tolerating infection than canaries fed a high-lipid (fatty) diet.

The findings included molecular analysis of blood draws, revealing how different diets trigger the expression of different immune-related genes, both before and after .

“Our results are exciting because of the importance of human-supplemented food in wildlife disease systems, especially , which are commonly provided with supplemental food via ,” said Erin Sauer, a first co-author of the study.

Boson sampling finds first practical applications in quantum AI

For over a decade, researchers have considered boson sampling—a quantum computing protocol involving light particles—as a key milestone toward demonstrating the advantages of quantum methods over classical computing. But while previous experiments showed that boson sampling is hard to simulate with classical computers, practical uses have remained out of reach.

Now, in Optica Quantum, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) present the first practical application of boson sampling for image recognition, a vital task across many fields, from forensic science to medical diagnostics. Their approach uses just three photons and a linear optical network, marking a significant step towards low energy quantum AI systems.

Sensitive yet tough photonic devices are now a reality

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have achieved a long-sought milestone in photonics: creating tiny optical devices that are both highly sensitive and durable—two qualities that have long been considered fundamentally incompatible.

This rare coexistence of sensitivity and durability could lead to a new generation of photonic devices that are not only precise and powerful but also much easier and cheaper to produce at scale. This could open the door to advanced sensors and technologies ranging from highly sensitive medical diagnostics and environmental sensors to more secure communication systems, all built into tiny, chip-scale devices.

Achieving both properties has been a challenge because devices that are sensitive enough to detect tiny changes in their environment are often fragile and prone to breaking down if even the smallest imperfections arise during manufacturing. This makes them expensive and difficult to produce at scale. Meanwhile, making such devices more rugged often means compromising their precision.

Restoring youth: Scientists use engineered cells to restore vitality in primates

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Capital Medical University utilized gene editing to create senescence-resistant human mesenchymal progenitor cells (SRCs). In a 44-week trial on aged macaques, biweekly intravenous SRC injections induced no adverse effects and spurred multi-system rejuvenation in 10 major physiological systems and 61 tissue types. Treated macaques displayed enhanced cognitive function and diminished age-related degeneration. The SRCs work by releasing exosomes that curb cellular senescence and inflammation. This study presents the first primate-level proof of cell therapy’s safety and efficacy in reversing aging, presenting a potential multi-system approach for human anti-aging research.

Dissecting the cell cycle regulation, DNA damage sensitivity and lifespan effects of caffeine in fission yeast

Caffeine has long been associated with health benefits, including a reduced risk of age-related diseases. However, the specifics of how caffeine interacts with cellular mechanisms and nutrient and stress-responsive gene networks have remained elusive — until now.

In this pioneering research, published in the journal Microbial Cell, scientists used fission yeast, a single-celled organism with surprising similarities to human cells, to delve deeper into caffeine’s impact.

The researchers discovered that caffeine influences aging by engaging an ancient cellular energy system.

A few years ago, the same team found that caffeine prolongs cell life by acting on a growth regulator known as TOR (Target of Rapamycin). TOR is a molecular switch that regulates cell growth based on available food and energy and has been part of the evolutionary landscape for over 500 million years.

However, their latest study unveiled a surprising new finding: caffeine does not directly act on the TOR switch. Instead, it activates AMPK, a cellular fuel gauge that is conserved through evolution in both yeast and humans.

“When your cells are low on energy, AMPK kicks in to help them cope,” senior author Charalampos (Babis) Rallis, a reader in genetics, genomics and fundamental cell biology at Queen Mary University of London, said in a news release. “And our results show that caffeine helps flip that switch.”

Intriguingly, AMPK is also the target of metformin, a common diabetes medication currently under scrutiny for its potential to extend human lifespan when used alongside rapamycin.

Continue reading “Dissecting the cell cycle regulation, DNA damage sensitivity and lifespan effects of caffeine in fission yeast” | >

New AI Model Diagnoses Brain Tumors With 99% Accuracy, Without Surgery

An MRI scan revealed a brain tumor located in a difficult area, and performing a biopsy would carry significant risks for the patient, who had initially sought medical help due to double vision. Cases like this, discussed by a multidisciplinary team of cancer specialists, led researchers at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, along with their collaborators, to search for alternative diagnostic methods.

Their solution is an AI model that analyzes specific features in the genetic material of tumors, particularly their epigenetic fingerprint, which can be obtained from sources such as cerebrospinal fluid. As reported in the journal Nature Cancer, the model classifies tumors both rapidly and with high accuracy.

Nanobody hitchhikers boost immunotherapy potency in cancer treatment

Researchers led by John T. Wilson, Vanderbilt University associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and biomedical engineering, have developed a new approach using a molecularly designed nanobody platform that seeks to make immunotherapy more effective in the treatment of cancer.

The research, “Potentiating Cancer Immunotherapies with Modular Albumin-Hitchhiking Nanobody-STING Agonist Conjugates,” is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Immunotherapy is revolutionizing cancer treatment, but few patients benefit from the treatment, according to researchers. However, Wilson and his Immunoengineering Lab at Vanderbilt, along with collaborators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, SOMBS, and the College of Arts and Sciences, aim to solve this problem.

New study reveals genetic link between brain criticality and human cognition

A new study has revealed compelling evidence that brain criticality—a dynamic balance between neural excitation and inhibition—has a strong genetic foundation and is associated with cognitive performance. The research was published on June 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Led by Prof. Liu Ning from the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Prof. Yu Shan from the Institute of Automation of CAS, the team analyzed resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) data from the Human Connectome Project S1200 release. The dataset included 250 , 142 , and 437 unrelated individuals, providing a robust framework for examining the heritability of critical brain dynamics.

The results showed that brain criticality is significantly influenced by , with stronger genetic effects observed in primary sensory cortices compared to higher-order association regions. These findings suggest that the capacity of the brain to maintain near-critical dynamics—previously associated with optimal information processing and cognitive flexibility—is, to a substantial degree, inherited.

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