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Category: biotech/medical

The first functional semiconductor made from graphene has been created at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This could enable smaller and faster electronic devices and may have applications for quantum computing.

Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology.

Semiconductors, which are materials that conduct electricity under specific conditions, are foundational components of electronic devices like the chips in your computer, laptop, and smartphone. For many decades, their architecture has been getting smaller and more compact – a trend known as Moore’s Law. This has enabled gigantic leaps in a vast range of technologies, from general computing speeds and video game graphics, to the resolution of medical scans and the sensitivity of astronomical observatories.

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The therapy—developed at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC)—relies on both the immune system to fight key aspects of Alzheimer’s, plus modified cells that zero in on the brain protein plaques that are a hallmark of the disease.

In patients with Alzheimer’s, amyloid-beta protein forms plaques that prevent nerve cells from signaling each other. One theory is that this might cause irreversible memory loss and behavior changes characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.

The new study was recently published in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration. Researchers used genetically modified immune-controlling cells called Tregs to target amyloid-beta.

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A new study published in Nature Cell Biology by Mark Alkema, PhD, professor of neurobiology, establishes an important molecular link between specific B12-producing bacteria in the gut of the roundworm C. elegans and the production of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter important to memory and cognitive function.

There is growing recognition among scientists that diet and gut microbiota may play an important role in brain health. Changes in the composition of the microbiome have been linked to neurological disorders such as anxiety, depression, migraines and neurodegeneration. Yet, teasing out the cause and effect of individual bacteria or nutrients on brain function has been challenging.

“There are more bacteria in your intestine than you have cells in your body,” said Woo Kyu Kang, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Alkema lab and first author of the current study. “The complexity of the brain, the hundreds of bacterial species that comprise the gut microbiome and the diversity of metabolites make it almost impossible to discern how bacteria impact brain function.”

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Chronic liver diseases such as hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Fibrosis—the thickening and scarring of connective tissue—plays a major role in these liver diseases but detection of fibrosis is limited to biopsy, which suffers from limitations including the risk of complications, sampling only a tiny fraction of the liver, and an inability to serially monitor disease progression due to its invasive nature.

To provide better diagnosis and treatment of , researchers are working to use non-invasive imaging (MRI) to detect and quantify liver fibrosis throughout the entire organ, which would enable earlier detection and the ability to monitor as well as the effects of treatment over time.

Adapting MRI for detecting such as fibrosis involves the development of tissue-specific MRI contrast agents that target diseased tissue such as the collagen that accumulates in fibrotic liver. To develop such agents, researchers have been challenged to design and synthesize compounds that must find and bind the tissue target, provide a strong signal under MRI, and rapidly clear from the system to minimize any toxicity.

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Summary: Scientists are using epigenetic clocks to reveal our biological age, a true marker of health.

A new study delves into the immune system’s role in understanding and improving the accuracy of these clocks. Their innovative approach sheds light on the relationship between immune cell composition and biological age, with a focus on the balance between naïve and memory immune cells.

This research has significant implications for aging insights, health interventions, and targeted cancer treatments.

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YSM researchers are using deeplearning AI models to improve detection of patients at risk for multiple hospitalizations due to asthma and COPD.

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are two of the most common lung diseases worldwide, and exacerbation of these conditions can negatively impact health and increase health care costs. A new study shows that deep learning, a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses large amounts of data to process information, can improve detection of patients with these diseases who are at increased risk for multiple hospitalizations.

The study was published Dec. 13, 2023, in the journal Respiratory Research.

In the study, researchers identified electronic health record (EHR) characteristics of severe asthma and COPD exacerbations. They then evaluated four machine learning models and one deep learning model in predicting hospital readmissions using EHR data. The researchers found that multilayer perceptron, a deep learning method, had the best performance.

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