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Category: biotech/medical – Page 498

Study reveals unexpected link between dopamine and serotonin in the brain

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Columbia University and the University of San Francisco, have uncovered a previously unknown mechanism by which dopamine, a key brain chemical vital for movement and motivation, can affect brain activity indirectly by boosting serotonin. The study was published in Science Advances.

Dopamine is a key chemical messenger that supports many essential brain functions, including motivation, movement, and learning. Although dopamine acts throughout the brain, it plays an especially central role in the basal ganglia, a network of interconnected regions responsible for selecting which behaviors we express.

The basal ganglia and dopamine are deeply involved in neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, and many widely used medications target this network.

Particle accelerator waste could help produce cancer-fighting materials

Energy that would normally go to waste inside powerful particle accelerators could be used to create valuable medical isotopes, scientists have found.

Researchers at the University of York have shown that intense radiation captured in particle accelerator “beam dumps” could be repurposed to produce materials used in cancer therapy. The study is published in the journal Physical Review C.

Scientists have now found a way to make those leftover photons do a second job, without affecting the main physics experiments.

AlphaFold: The 50-year grand challenge cracked by AI

For half a century, scientists struggled to predict how proteins fold. A puzzle at the heart of understanding life and curing disease. Then, five years ago, the #alphafold team cracked the code.

Since then, more than 3 million researchers across 190+ countries have used AlphaFold’s freely available database of 200 million+ protein structures, accelerating discoveries in everything from drug design to disease-resistant crops, bee conservation, and plastic-eating enzymes.

Further reading:

Nanoflowers rejuvenate old and damaged human cells by replacing their mitochondria

Biomedical researchers at Texas A&M University may have discovered a way to stop or even reverse the decline of cellular energy production—a finding that could have revolutionary effects across medicine.

Dr. Akhilesh K. Gaharwar and Ph.D. student John Soukar, along with their fellow researchers from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, have developed a new method to give damaged cells new mitochondria, returning energy output to its previous levels and dramatically increasing cell health.

Mitochondrial decline is linked to aging, heart disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Enhancing the body’s natural ability to replace worn-out mitochondria could fight all of them.

Scientists reverse aging in blood stem cells by targeting lysosomal dysfunction

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered how to reverse aging in blood-forming stem cells in mice by correcting defects in the stem cell’s lysosomes. The breakthrough, published in Cell Stem Cell, identifies lysosomal hyperactivation and dysfunction as key drivers of stem cell aging and shows that restoring lysosomal slow degradation can revitalize aged stem cells and enhance their regenerative capacity.

Lysosomes are specialized structures that act as the cell’s recycling system, breaking down proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and lipids. Lysosomes accumulate and degrade waste, and eventually recycle it to be reused in biosynthetic processes. Lysosomes can also store nutrients to be released when needed. Lysosomes are recognized as pivotal for regulating metabolism in the cell, both catabolism (breaking down complex molecules to simple ones) and anabolism (building complex molecules from simpler ones).

The study, led by corresponding author Saghi Ghaffari, MD, Ph.D., Professor of Cell, Developmental, and Regenerative Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine and a member of the Black Family Stem Cell Institute, focuses on hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). These are the rare long-lived cells in the bone marrow responsible for generating all blood and immune cells.

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