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Category: biotech/medical – Page 595

20 Years in the Making: Scientists Unveil Breakthrough Anticancer Weapon

A new twist on a decades-old anticancer strategy has demonstrated significant potential against various cancer types in a preclinical study conducted by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) is a prestigious private Ivy League research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin, Penn is one of the oldest universities in the United States. It is renowned for its strong emphasis on interdisciplinary education and its professional schools, including the Wharton School, one of the leading business schools globally. The university offers a wide range of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across various fields such as law, medicine, engineering, and arts and sciences. Penn is also known for its significant contributions to research, innovative teaching methods, and active campus life, making it a hub of academic and extracurricular activity.

Enhancing NAD+ Efficiency by Energizing Sirtuins

Researchers publishing in Physical Review X have discovered compounds that can double the efficiency of the sirtuin SIRT3 in processing NAD+.

Looking for a new way to boost enzymes

The researchers begin their paper by noting that most drugs administered to people are geared towards inhibition of particular enzymes in order to treat a disease. In this case, however, the goal is the opposite: to boost the function of an enzyme, thereby boosting a healthy phenotype rather than battling back a diseased one.

GLP-1 Drugs Offer Brain Benefits but May Pose Other Health Risks

Summary: A study analyzing data from over 2 million veterans found that GLP-1 receptor agonists, popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, provide significant neurological and behavioral health benefits, including reduced risks of addiction, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. However, they also pose risks for pancreatitis and kidney conditions, emphasizing the need for careful monitoring.

The drugs mimic hormones that curb appetite and aid weight loss but may act on brain regions tied to impulse control and inflammation, explaining their broad effects. Researchers stress that while the benefits are modest, they may be impactful for conditions with limited treatment options, highlighting both their potential and limitations.

Advancing Prosthetics: Restoring Touch Through Brain Stimulation

Groundbreaking research uses brain stimulation to restore touch in prosthetics. Precise, stable sensations bring natural-like feedback closer, improving motor control and quality of life.

Summary: Researchers are making strides in restoring touch sensations to prosthetic limbs through brain stimulation. By using electrodes in the brain’s touch center, they can evoke stable, precise sensations, even allowing users to feel the shape and motion of objects.

This breakthrough could enable prosthetic users to perform tasks requiring fine motor control with confidence. Long-term tests show consistent sensation locations, critical for real-world usability.

Advanced stimulation patterns further enhance the tactile experience, mimicking natural touch. These innovations mark significant progress toward neuroprosthetics that improve quality of life for people with limb loss or sensory impairments.

Laser Therapy Prompts Regeneration in Teeth

A small dose of low-power laser light activated dental stem cells in rat molars to generate dentin, one of the major components of teeth. The finding may lead to new approaches to develop low-cost, non-invasive therapies for treating dental disease and tooth damage.

Dentists currently use inert materials to repair damaged teeth. Tissue regeneration would be an attractive alternative, because inert materials can fail with time and don’t provide the full function of the tissue. Stimulating regeneration of teeth, however, is a major challenge. Teeth are composed of several parts, including the pulp at the core, dentin in the middle, and enamel on the surface.

Stem cells, found throughout the body, can give rise to specialized cells. Researchers have been able to coax stem cells to transform (differentiate) into many types of cells in the laboratory before infusing them into the body. But these techniques are time consuming and can bring unwanted side effects.

Parkinson’s Discovery Suggests We Could Already Have an FDA-Approved Treatment

Researchers have discovered how a cell surface protein called Aplp1 can play a role in spreading material responsible for Parkinson’s disease from cell-to-cell in the brain.

Promisingly, an FDA-approved cancer drug that targets another protein called Lag3 – which interacts with Aplp1 – blocks the spread in mice, suggesting a potential therapy may already exist.

In a paper published last year, an international team of scientists describes how the two proteins work together to help harmful alpha-synuclein protein clumps get into brain cells.

Eating Red Meat may Increase your Risk of Type 2 Diabetes—not a lot of people know that

Red meat has been a part of diets worldwide since early man. It is an excellent source of protein, vitamins (such as B vitamins) and minerals (such as iron and zinc). However, red meat has long been associated with increasing the risk of heart disease, cancer and early death. What may not be so well known is the link between red meat consumption and type 2 diabetes.

A paper published in The Lancet in September 2024 highlighted this link to type 2 diabetes using data from the Americas, the Mediterranean, Europe, south-east Asia and the Western Pacific (20 countries included).

This recent study, with nearly 2 million participants, found that high consumption of unprocessed red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, and processed meat, such as bacon, salami and chorizo, increased the incidence of type 2 diabetes.

First U.S. H5N1 Death Sparks Urgency: Scientists Warn That Bird Flu Is Mutating Faster Than Expected

Researchers at Texas Biomed have identified nine mutations in a strain of bird flu found in a person in Texas. Bad news: This strain shows an increased ability to cause disease and is more effective at replicating in the brain. Good news: Current approved antiviral treatments remain effective against this strain.

Researchers at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) have identified a strain of bird flu isolated from a human in Texas that carries a distinctive set of mutations, making it more adept at replicating in human cells and causing severe disease in mice. This strain was compared to one found in dairy cattle, and the findings are detailed in Emerging Microbes & Infections.

The discovery underscores a significant concern about the H5N1 strains of bird flu currently circulating in the U.S.: the virus.

Bacteria in polymers create cable-like structures that grow into living gels

Scientists at Caltech and Princeton University have discovered that bacterial cells growing in a solution of polymers, such as mucus, form long cables that buckle and twist on each other, building a kind of “living Jell-O.”

The finding could be particularly important to the study and treatment of diseases such as cystic fibrosis, in which the mucus that lines the lungs becomes more concentrated, often causing bacterial infections that take hold in that mucus to become life threatening. This discovery could also have implications in studies of polymer-secreting conglomerations of bacteria known as biofilms—the slippery goo on river rocks, for example—and in industrial applications where they can cause equipment malfunctions and health hazards.

The work is described in a paper published on January 17 in the journal Science Advances.

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