Elon Musk has done a lot of things in his life but doctors demand answers from Musk after his Neuralink tech scared them.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 516
Immunotherapy treatments including chimeric antigen T cell receptors and bispecific antibodies show promising results against B cell cancers.
With six approved drugs, siRNA is now an established therapeutic modality poised for expansion.
Aging reversed in dogs face_with_colon_three
Age-related decline in mobility and cognition are associated with cellular senescence and NAD+ depletion in dogs and people. A combination of a novel NAD+ precursor and senolytic, LY-D6/2 was examined in this randomized controlled trial. Seventy dogs were enrolled and allocated into placebo, low or full dose groups. Primary outcomes were change in cognitive impairment measured with the owner-reported Canine Cognitive Dysfunction Rating (CCDR) scale and change in activity measured with physical activity monitors. Fifty-nine dogs completed evaluations at the three-month primary endpoint, and 51 reached the six-month secondary endpoint. There was a significant difference in CCDR score across treatment groups from baseline to the primary endpoint (p=0.02) with the largest decrease in the full dose group. There were no significant differences between groups in changes in measured activity. However, the proportion of dogs that improved in frailty and owner-reported activity levels and happiness was higher in the full dose group than other groups. Adverse events occurred equally across groups. All groups showed improvement in cognition, frailty, and activity suggesting placebo effect and benefits of trial participation. We conclude that LY-D6/2 significantly improves owner-assessed cognitive function and may have broader effects on frailty, activity and happiness as reported by owners.
The authors have declared no competing interest.
‘Can control computer mouse with thoughts’: Says Elon Musk on Neuralink’s first human patient as he successfully recovers
Posted in biotech/medical, computing, Elon Musk, neuroscience | 1 Comment on ‘Can control computer mouse with thoughts’: Says Elon Musk on Neuralink’s first human patient as he successfully recovers
Elon Musk disclosed that a human patient implanted with a brain chip from the company has fully recovered and demonstrated the ability to control a computer mouse using their thoughts.
Cytotoxic T-lymphocytes are important effectors in the clearance of virally infected and cancerous cells, and defects in their function give rise to many pathologies.
Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) are key effectors of the adaptive immune system that recognize and eliminate virally infected and cancerous cells. In naive CD8+ T cells, T-cell receptor (TCR) engagement drives a number of transcriptional, translational and proliferation changes over the course of hours and days leading to differentiation into CTLs. To gain a better insight into this mechanism, we compared the transcriptional profiles of naive CD8+ T cells to those of activated CTLs. To find new regulators of CTL function, we performed a selective clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) screen on upregulated genes and identified nuclear factor IL-3 (NFIL3) as a potential regulator of cytotoxicity. Although NFIL3 has established roles in several immune cells including natural killer, Treg, dendritic and CD4+ T cells, its function in CD8+ CTLs is less well understood. Using CRISPR/Cas9 editing, we found that removing NFIL3 in CTLs resulted in a marked decrease in cytotoxicity. We found that in CTLs lacking NFIL3 TCR-induced extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation, immune synapse formation and granule release were all intact while cytotoxicity was functionally impaired in vitro. Strikingly, NFIL3 controls the production of cytolytic proteins as well as effector cytokines. Thus, NFIL3 plays a cell intrinsic role in modulating cytolytic mechanisms in CTLs.
CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) are key effectors of the adaptive immune response that precisely recognize and eliminate virally infected and cancerous cells. In naive CD8+ T cells, T-cell receptor (TCR) engagement induces a number of transcriptional, translational and proliferation changes over the course of hours and days leading to differentiation into CTLs [1,2]. TCR ligation of differentiated CTLs drives a rapid response and the formation of a transient area of plasma membrane specialized in signalling and polarized secretion, termed the immune synapse [3]. CTLs undergo rapid rearrangements in microtubule and actin cytoskeletons as the centrosome and microtubule network polarize towards the synapse and cortical actin is transiently depleted [4–7].
The researchers from UCL created a reusable vest to diagnose hypertrophic cardiomyopathy–an inherited heart muscle condition.
Inside her small office, with a window overlooking the iconic Kerckhoff Hall student centre at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), chemical biologist Mireille Kamariza is pursuing her big dream. Since 2015, she has steadily worked to stop transmission of deadly tuberculosis (TB) superbugs, which in 2022 infected more than 10 million people and killed more than one million.
As a PhD student working with Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, now a chemist at Stanford University in California, she developed a fluorescent diagnostic test that could be used for quick detection of TB, especially in resource-poor settings. In 2019, alongside Bertozzi, Kamariza founded the biotech start-up company OliLux Biosciences, based in Los Angeles, to develop reliable tools for detecting TB that are tailored to the complex needs of poorer countries. Nature sat down with Kamariza to talk about her progress in testing these diagnostic tools for use in the real world, and the uphill battle in fighting the spread of TB.
A new advance by Stanford engineers could lead to particle accelerators being widely available in science, medicine, and industry.
Stanford researchers are getting closer to building a tiny electron accelerator based on “accelerator-on-a-chip” technology with broad potential applications in studying physics as well as medical and industrial uses.
The researchers have demonstrated that a silicon dielectric laser accelerator, or DLA, can now both speed up and confine electrons, creating a focused beam of high-energy electrons. “If the electrons were microscopic cars, it’s as if, for the first time, we’re steering and we have our foot on the gas,” said Payton Broaddus, PhD ’23 in electrical engineering and the lead author on a paper published on February 23 detailing the breakthrough in Physical Review Letters.