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A 54-year-old Florida man diagnosed with leprosy adds to a growing number of cases detected in the south-eastern United States, which appears to be a new hotspot for the disease.

It follows recent alerts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the first cases of locally-acquired malaria in the US in two decades; four of which were in Florida.

Continue reading “Leprosy Appears to Be on The Rise in Florida” »

(NewsNation) — Eye scans could be able to detect Parkinson’s disease several years before the presentation of other symptoms, according to a new study.

The findings, published in the journal Neurology, add to growing evidence that eye scans could help detect neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

Researchers at University College Hospital and the Moorfields Eye Hospital used a type of 3D scan known as optical coherence tomography (OCT) which detected Parkinson’s disease markers an average of seven years before clinical symptoms.

High-resolution 3D retina images have specific markers that can indicate the risk of Parkinson’s in a person. A new AI program can identify these markers and tell whether or not you have the disease.

Although Parkinson’s disease (PD) is incurable, a non-profit National Council of Aging report suggests that early detection and treatment could help patients live a long and productive life even with the disease.

Continue reading “AI can detect Parkinson’s 7 years before clinical diagnosis” »

Human thrombin. Thrombin is the enzyme responsible for bleeding and for blood clotting, depending on how it’s activated, and has two DNA drug-binding sites. ©2023 Yoshimoto et al. CC-BY

Various medical circumstances, including heart attacks and extreme cases of COVID-19, necessitate the use of anticoagulants, medicines that prevent blood clots. But the most commonly used, heparin, can induce potentially fatal side effects by making the blood clots worse rather than better. This only happens in a minority of patients so effective treatments are not commonly explored. For the first time, researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, have proposed a side effect-free anticoagulating treatment that has so far proved effective in test mice and could be ready for human trials in just a few years.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought much woe to people around the world. And at the time of writing, though much of the world seems to have moved on, the effects of the pandemic continue to linger. One aspect of some extreme cases of COVID-19 that has not been widely reported is the complication brought on when the anticoagulant medicine heparin is used in an attempt to reduce blood clots in patients. A small number — up to 3% of recipients — suffer the side effect heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), a potentially fatal and rapid clotting of the blood, the opposite of the intended effect. Other medical issues, such as heart attacks, kidney dialysis, and even some surgeries, can also require anticoagulants.

Researchers headed by a team at Mass Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School, reported positive data from a Phase I clinical study evaluating a stem cell treatment known as cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cell transplantation (CALEC), in patients with significant chemical burns in one eye. Results from the study, reported in Science Advances, showed treatment to be safe and well tolerated in four patients who were followed for 12 months. The CALEC recipients experienced restored cornea surfaces, with two trial participants able to undergo subsequent corneal transplant, and two reporting significant improvements in vision without additional treatment.

The Phase I study was designed to determine preliminary safety and feasibility before advancing to a second phase of the trial, and the researchers consider the newly reported early findings to be promising. On the basis of these initial results the team started recruiting for a second phase of the trial that will investigate longer-term safety and efficacy in greater numbers of patients.

“Our early results suggest that CALEC might offer hope to patients who had been left with untreatable vision loss and pain associated with major cornea injuries,” said principal investigator Ula Jurkunas, MD, associate director of the Cornea Service at Mass Eye and Ear and an associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. “Cornea specialists have been hindered by a lack of treatment options with a high safety profile to help our patients with chemical burns and injuries that render them unable to get an artificial cornea transplant. We are hopeful with further study, CALEC can one day fill this crucially needed treatment gap.”

Talk with Your Allergy Care Team About Your Concerns.

If managing the social and emotional impacts of your atopic condition feels stressful and overwhelming, know that you’re not alone. More importantly, know that you don’t have to navigate those feelings alone either!

Your allergy healthcare team is a great place to start if you feel like you need additional support in managing your allergic condition. By discussing your concerns or struggles with them, they can offer useful evidence-based information, skills, and resources, as well as allied health care referrals.

Materials scientists aim to develop autonomous materials that function beyond stimulus responsive actuation. In a new report in Science Advances, Yang Yang and a research team in the Center for Bioinspired Energy Science at the Northwestern University, U.S., developed photo-and electro-activated hydrogels to capture and deliver cargo and avoid obstacles on return.

To accomplish this, they used two spiropyran monomers (photoswitchable materials) in the hydrogel for photoregulated charge reversal and autonomous behaviors under a constant electric field. The photo/electro-active materials could autonomously perform tasks based on constant external stimuli to develop intelligent materials at the molecular scale.

Continue reading “Hydrogel locomotion regulated by light and electric fields” »

Professor Ori Bar-Nur and his colleagues at ETH Zurich are pioneering the cultivation of muscle cells in the lab, currently using mouse cells as their primary model. While their current studies are centered on mouse cells, the team is also keen on exploring the potential of human and cow cells. The implications of their research are manifold: lab-cultured human muscle tissue could serve surgical needs, while human muscle stem cells might offer therapeutic solutions for those with muscle diseases. On the other hand, cultivating cow muscle tissue in labs could transform the meat industry by eliminating the necessity of animal slaughter.

For now, however, the ETH team’s research is focused on optimizing the generation of muscle stem cells and making it safer. They have now succeeded in doing so via a new approach.

The strange science experiment that blew a worm’s head off… and blew our minds.

This interview is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation.

Continue reading “The beauty of collective intelligence, explained by a developmental biologist | Michael Levin” »