Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 414

“Forever Chemicals” Called PFAS Show Up in Your Food, Clothes, and Home

Forever chemicals affect your genes, according to a recent study.

Scientists have identified 11 genes that are consistently impacted by exposure to harmful chemicals that are found in everything from drinking water to food packaging.

Forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, are a global health concern. PFAS or “per-and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances” are also found in common household objects such as non-stick pans, stain or water-resistant materials as well as paints, carpets and clothes.

They are persistent in the environment and can accumulate in our bodies over time. They have been linked to a range of negative health outcomes, including impacting our genes. Some of the 11 genes that were impacted by PFAS are vital for neuronal health, and they showed altered expression levels after exposure to PFAS compounds. This discovery suggests these genes could serve as potential markers for detecting and monitoring PFAS-induced neurotoxicity.

However, the study also revealed that hundreds of other genes responded differently depending on the exact PFAS compound. While PFAS are known to accumulate in the brain due to their ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, this research provides new insights into the intricate ways these chemicals can interfere with gene expression and potentially disrupt our health. Concerns about PFAS stem from their potential health effects, which may include immune deficiency, liver cancer, and thyroid abnormalities. Due to their persistence and potential health risks, many governments are taking steps to regulate or ban the use of PFAS in various products.

These toxic chemicals are so common in consumer products and manufacturing that they’re everywhere—including inside our bodies.

Continue reading ““Forever Chemicals” Called PFAS Show Up in Your Food, Clothes, and Home” | >

CAR T-cells enable record-breaking 18-year nerve cancer remission

A cancer therapy that uses genetically engineered immune cells, called CAR T-cells, has kept a person free of a potentially fatal nerve tumour for a record-breaking 18 years.⁠ ⁠ “This is, to my knowledge, the longest-lasting complete remission in a patient who received CAR T-cell therapy,” says Karin Straathof at University College London, who wasn’t involved in the treatment. “This patient is cured,” she says.⁠ ⁠ Doctors use CAR T-cell therapy to treat some kinds of blood cancer, like leukaemia. To do this, they collect a sample of T-cells, which form part of the immune system, from a patient’s blood and genetically engineer them to target and kill cancer cells. They then infuse the modified cells back into the body. In 2022, a follow-up study found that this approach had put two people with leukaemia into remission for around 11 years, a record at the time.⁠ ⁠

Hope for ovarian cancer: New immunotherapy target

In a study published in Science Advances, Mayo Clinic researchers found a new immunotherapy target called a cryptic antigen that may be key in helping the immune system fight tumors in ovarian cancer.

Cryptic antigens are part of a protein — known as epitopes — that are usually hidden or inaccessible to the immune system and may be present in tumor cells.

“These findings underscore the need to look at alternate sources of target antigens for ovarian cancer,” says Marion R. Curtis, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic senior associate consultant in immunology and senior author of the study.

Dr. Billy W. Loo Jr., MD PhD — Stanford Medicine / TibaRay — Curing Cancer In A Flash

Curing Cancer In A Flash — Dr. Bill Loo, Jr., MD, PhD — Professor, Stanford Medicine / Co-Founder, TibaRay Inc

Dr. Billy W. Loo Jr., MD PhD (https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/6839) is a Professor of Radiation Oncology, a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute, the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS), and of Bio-X Interdisciplinary Biosciences Institute. He is a physician-scientist Radiation Oncologist and Bioengineer who directs the Thoracic Radiation Oncology Program and is Principal Investigator of the FLASH Sciences Lab at Stanford (https://med.stanford.edu/loo-lab.html).

Dr. Loo’s clinical specialty is precision targeted radiotherapy for lung/thoracic cancers, including stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR). Dr. Loo is a recognized expert in thoracic cancers serving on multiple national committees (including as writing member or vice-chair) that publish clinical guidelines on the treatment of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, particularly the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN).

Dr. Loo’s clinical research is in clinical trials and implementation of new treatment techniques for lung cancer, and development of new medical imaging methods for measuring organ function and predicting response to cancer treatment. He also has developed novel applications of SABR including treatment of pulmonary emphysema and cardiac arrhythmias.

The research focus of the FLASH Sciences Lab at Stanford, directed by Dr. Loo, is the development and study of extremely rapid FLASH therapy to optimize the biological therapeutic index of cancer radiotherapy, and the technological infrastructure for this basic research and its clinical translation.

Continue reading “Dr. Billy W. Loo Jr., MD PhD — Stanford Medicine / TibaRay — Curing Cancer In A Flash” | >

Exploring the dark side of Staph aureus, a bacterium resistant to multiple drugs—even those yet to be tested in humans

British physician and microbiologist Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin nearly 100 years ago, was the first to warn of the dangers of antibiotic resistance.

In his 1945 Nobel Prize speech, 27 years after his breakthrough discovery, Fleming put the world on notice foretelling a potentially dark future for his miracle drug in the event of abuse or overuse of the medication. It was a warning that spelled trouble ahead for a vast segment of the pharmacopeia known as antimicrobial drugs.

Now, microbiologists in Hungary and China are collaborating on ways to predict drug resistance among strains of Staphylococcus aureus when exposed to antibiotics in the drug development pipeline—drugs that have yet to reach the marketplace.

MIT Neuroscientists Discover a Tiny Brain Receptor That Could Transform Fragile X Treatment

MIT neuroscientists have made a breakthrough in treating fragile X syndrome by leveraging a novel neurotransmitter signaling pathway. By targeting a specific subunit of NMDA receptors, they successfully reduced excessive protein synthesis in the brain, a hallmark of the disorder. Their approach, tested in fragile X model mice, not only corrected molecular imbalances but also improved synaptic function and reduced disease symptoms.

Deep-tissue transcriptomics and subcellular imaging at high spatial resolution

Limited color channels in fluorescence microscopy have long constrained spatial analysis in biological specimens. Here, we introduce cycle Hybridization Chain Reaction (HCR), a method that integrates multicycle DNA barcoding with HCR to overcome this limitation. cycleHCR enables highly multiplexed imaging of RNA and proteins using a unified barcode system. Whole-embryo transcriptomics imaging achieved precise three-dimensional gene expression and cell fate mapping across a specimen depth of ~310 μm. When combined with expansion microscopy, cycleHCR revealed an intricate network of 10 subcellular structures in mouse embryonic fibroblasts. In mouse hippocampal slices, multiplex RNA and protein imaging uncovered complex gene expression gradients and cell-type-specific nuclear structural variations.

The inner ear of Neanderthals reveals clues about their enigmatic origin

New research on the inner ear morphology of Neanderthals and their ancestors challenges the widely accepted theory that Neanderthals originated after an evolutionary event that implied the loss of part of their genetic diversity. The findings, based on fossil samples from Atapuerca (Spain) and Krapina (Croatia), as well as from various European and Western Asian sites have been published in Nature Communications.

Neanderthals emerged about 250,000 years ago from European populations—referred to as “pre-Neanderthals”—that inhabited the Eurasian continent between 500,000 and 250,000 years ago. It was long believed that no significant changes occurred throughout the evolution of Neanderthals, yet recent paleogenetic research based on DNA samples extracted from fossils revealed the existence of a drastic genetic diversity loss event between early Neanderthals (or ancient Neanderthals) and later ones (also referred to as “classic” Neanderthals).

Technically known as a “bottleneck,” this genetic loss is frequently the consequence of a reduction in the number of individuals in a population. Paleogenetic data indicate that the decline in took place approximately 110,000 years ago.

The World’s First Faceless, Synthetic ‘Human’ Is Straight-Up Nightmare Fuel

We knew this day would come. For years now, scientists have been trying to make Westworld a reality with their advances in android robots.

From lab-grown muscle tissue to robots with bones, ligaments and tendons, android robots have rapidly been getting more and more lifelike.

Now, a company named Clone Robotics has created something they are calling the Protoclone – a “faceless, anatomically accurate, synthetic human with over 200 degrees of freedom, over 1,000 Myofibers, and over 200 sensors.” Sound terrifying? Just wait until you see video of it twitching and spasming its way into action.

/* */