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Category: biotech/medical – Page 56

DeepChopper model improves RNA sequencing research by mitigating chimera artifacts

Scientists in the laboratory of Rendong Yang, Ph.D., associate professor of Urology, have developed a new large language model that can interpret transcriptomic data in cancer cell lines more accurately than conventional approaches, as detailed in a recent study published in Nature Communications.

Long-read RNA sequencing technologies have transformed transcriptomics research by detecting complex RNA splicing and gene fusion events that have often been missed by conventional short-read RNA-sequencing methods.

Among these technologies includes nanopore direct RNA sequencing (dRNA-seq), which can sequence full-length RNA molecules directly and produce more accurate analyses of RNA biology. However, previous work suggests this approach may generate chimera artifacts—in which multiple RNA sequences incorrectly join to form a single RNA sequence—and limit the reliability and utility of the data.

Microfluidic method boosts control and separation of tiny particles—a promising tool for medical research

In nanoscale particle research, precise control and separation have long been a bottleneck in biotechnology. Researchers at the University of Oulu have now developed a new method that improves particle separation and purification. The promising technique could be applied, for example, in cancer research.

Separating nanosized particles remains a persistent challenge in biotechnology. Once particle size drops below a few hundred nanometers, their behavior becomes dominated by diffusion—the random walk of particles. This weakens the forces used to guide them, causing separation accuracy to collapse.

A microfluidics research group led by Professor Caglar Elbuken at the University of Oulu has developed a new solution to the problem. The method significantly improves the separation and purification of both small synthetic particles and nanoscale vesicles secreted by living cells.

Ordered ‘supercrystal’ could make lasers faster, smaller and more efficient

An advance from Monash University could pave the way for faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient lasers and other light-based technologies. Engineers have developed a new type of perovskite material arranged into an ordered “supercrystal.” In this structure, tiny packets of energy called excitons work together rather than individually, allowing the material to amplify light far more efficiently. The findings, published in Laser & Photonics Reviews, could have applications in communications, sensors, and computing, improving the performance of devices that rely on light, such as sensors in autonomous vehicles, medical imaging, or electronics.

Corresponding author Professor Jacek Jasieniak at Monash Materials Science and Engineering highlighted the potential for faster, more energy-efficient optical devices. “What’s exciting here is that we’re not changing the material itself, but how it’s organized. By assembling nanocrystals into an ordered supercrystal, the excitations created by light can cooperate rather than compete, which allows light to be amplified much more efficiently,” Professor Jasieniak said.

Dr. Manoj Sharma, who led the experimental work at Monash, said their approach revealed new possibilities in nanocrystal assemblies. “By assembling nanocrystals into a highly ordered supercrystal, we show that optical gain is no longer limited by single-particle biexcitons, which are inefficient and prone to energy losses, but instead arises from collective excitonic interactions across the whole structure,” Dr. Sharma said.

Can medical AI lie? Large study maps how LLMs handle health misinformation

Medical artificial intelligence (AI) is often described as a way to make patient care safer by helping clinicians manage information. A new study by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and collaborators confronts a critical vulnerability: when a medical lie enters the system, can AI pass it on as if it were true?

Analyzing more than a million prompts across nine leading language models, the researchers found that these systems can repeat false medical claims when they appear in realistic hospital notes or social-media health discussions.

The findings, published in The Lancet Digital Health, suggest that current safeguards do not reliably distinguish fact from fabrication once a claim is wrapped in familiar clinical or social-media language. The paper is titled “Mapping LLM Susceptibility to Medical Misinformation Across Clinical Notes and Social Media.”

The role of the Cer1 transposon in horizontal transfer of transgenerational memory

Could a hybrid biohardware using neural orgamoids and silicon make minduploading easier.

Animals face both external and internal dangers: pathogens threaten from the environment, and unstable genomic elements threaten from within. C. elegans protects itself from pathogens by “reading” bacterial small RNAs, using this information to both induce avoidance and transmit memories for four generations. Here, we found that memories can be transferred from either lysed animals or from conditioned media to naive animals via Cer1 retrotransposon-encoded virus-like particles. Moreover, Cer1 functions internally at the step of transmission of information from the germline to neurons and is required for learned avoidance. The presence of the Cer1 retrotransposon in wild C. elegans strains correlates with the ability to learn and inherit small-RNA-induced pathogen avoidance. Together, these results suggest that C.

Plasma Proteome Profiling of Centenarian Across Switzerland Reveals Key Youth‐Associated Proteins

The full list of differentially expressed proteins was compared to the list of aging biomarkers in blood determined by the TAME working group (Justice et al. 2018), see full list of APs in Table S2d. Of the seven aging biomarkers selected by TAME as gold standard, five proteins (CST3, GDF15, IL6, NPPB, TNF) were available and significantly differentially expressed when comparing healthy controls with centenarians or with geriatric patients; two proteins (CRP, IGF1) were unavailable from the Olink panels (Cardiometabolic I and Inflammation I).

On the expanded list of blood-based biomarkers (74 total) selected by TAME, when comparing healthy controls with centenarians, 47 biomarkers were not available in both panels (63.5%). Of the available markers, 23 were significantly differentially expressed in centenarians (85.2%) and 4 were not significantly differentially expressed in centenarians (14.8%). When comparing healthy controls with geriatric patients, 47 biomarkers were not available in both panels (63.5%); 25 were significantly differentially expressed in the geriatric group (92.6%), and only 2 were not significantly differentially expressed in hospitalized geriatric patients (7.4%). Only 2 proteins (SERPINE1, SOD1) among the 25 proteins available in the SWISS100 dataset demonstrated different results in both comparisons (Healthy2Cent and Healthy2Geriatric). Thus, both the short and expanded list of blood-based biomarkers proposed by TAME as APs are highly reproducible in the SWISS100 study based on proximity extension assay. Table S2d contains the complete list of DEPs in blood with age that overlap between both studies.

‘Remnant’ Cholesterol Cut by More Than 60 Percent in New Drug Trial

Hopes are high for a powerful new compound aimed at lowering blood fat levels responsible for potentially fatal heart disease. In a recent trial, the oral drug, TLC-2716, lowered blood triglycerides by almost 40 percent and remnant cholesterol by more than 60 percent.

The drug was tested in a clinical trial involving 100 healthy adults to assess its effects on a metabolic switch that is active in the liver and gut, and involved in making and handling fats. The trial was the first of its kind on humans, and more testing is required.

Researchers initially isolated the switch, called Liver X Receptor ⍺ (LXR⍺), through analysis of large human genetics databases. Then they linked it to blood-fat-related metabolic disorders using Mendelian randomization, a powerful technique for linking gene expression and outcomes.

DNA-protein cross-links promote cGAS-STING–driven premature aging and embryonic lethality

Unrepaired DNA-protein crosslinks—highly toxic tangles of protein and DNA—cause a process that leads to premature aging and embryonic lethality in mice.

The findings in Science reveal a previously unrecognized link between defective DNA repair and immune-driven inflammatory disease.

DNA-protein cross-links (DPCs) are highly toxic DNA lesions that block replication and transcription, but their impact on organismal physiology is unclear. We identified a role for the metalloprotease SPRTN in preventing DPC-driven immunity and its pathological consequences. Loss of SPRTN activity during replication and mitosis lead to unresolved DNA damage, chromosome segregation errors, micronuclei formation, and cytosolic DNA release that activates the cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)–stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway. In a Sprtn knock-in mouse model of Ruijs-Aalfs progeria syndrome, chronic cGas-Sting signaling caused embryonic lethality through inflammation and innate immune responses. Surviving mice displayed aging phenotypes beginning in embryogenesis, which persisted into adulthood.

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