Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 6

A pioneering method to simulate how nanoparticles move through the air could boost efforts to combat air pollution, suggests a study in the Journal of Computational Physics.

Tiny particles found in exhaust fumes, wildfire smoke and other forms of airborne pollution are linked with serious health conditions such as stroke, and cancer, but predicting how they move is notoriously difficult, researchers say.

Now, scientists have developed a new computer modeling approach that dramatically improves the accuracy and efficiency of simulating how nanoparticles behave in the air. In practice, this could mean simulations that can currently take weeks to run could be completed in a matter of hours, the team says.

Read more | >

Persons with Parkinson’s disease increasingly lose their mobility over time and are eventually unable to walk. Hope for these patients rests on deep brain stimulation, also known as a brain pacemaker.

In a current study, researchers at Ruhr University Bochum and Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany, investigated whether and how stimulation of a certain region of the brain can have a positive impact on ambulatory ability and provide patients with a higher quality of life. To do this, the researchers used a technique in which the are activated and deactivated via light. Their report is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Read more | >

Researchers led by Maike Sander, Scientific Director of the Max Delbrück Center, have developed a vascularized organoid model of hormone secreting cells in the pancreas. The advance, published in “Developmental Cell,” promises to improve diabetes research and cell-based therapies.

An international team of researchers led by Max Delbrück Center Scientific Director Professor Maike Sander has for the first time developed an organoid model of human pluripotent stem cell-derived pancreatic islets (SC-islets) with integrated vasculature. Islets are cell clusters in the pancreas that house several different types of hormone-secreting cells, including insulin-producing beta cells. Researchers in the Sander lab at the University of California, San Diego, found that SC-islet organoids with blood vessels contained greater numbers of mature beta cells and secreted more insulin than their non-vascularized counterparts. The vascularized organoids more closely mimicked islet cells found in the body. The study was published in “Developmental Cell.”

“Our results highlight the importance of a vascular network in supporting pancreatic islet cell function,” says Sander. “This model brings us closer to replicating the natural environment of the pancreas, which is essential for studying diabetes and developing new treatments.”

Read more | >

Google DeepMind has developed a groundbreaking AI that can solve complex real-world problems like delivery planning and route optimization without needing exact answers or perfect data. By integrating a method called MCMC layers into neural networks, the system learns to make smart, flexible decisions in real time—even under tough constraints. This new approach outperforms older models and could transform industries like logistics, healthcare scheduling, and city traffic management.

🤖 What’s Inside:
DeepMind’s New AI That Solves Real-World Problems Without Exact Data.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.14240
How MCMC Layers Make Neural Networks Smarter at Planning.
AI vs Classical Methods in Solving NP-Hard Logistics Tasks.

🎥 What You’ll See:
Why traditional AI fails at scheduling and delivery planning.
How Google’s new AI tackles chaotic, constraint-heavy problems in milliseconds.
The secret behind MCMC layers and simulated annealing in neural networks.
Real-world results that could reshape logistics, healthcare, and urban planning.

📊 Why It Matters:
This isn’t about smarter chatbots—it’s about AI solving the hardest real-life decisions with speed and flexibility. From dynamic routing to hospital schedules, DeepMind’s breakthrough shows AI can finally plan like a pro—even with messy, incomplete data.

#ai #deepmind #google

Read more | >

Amidst the continued struggle to treat non-small-cell lung cancer, a new study led by Stanford University scientists suggests that a patient’s response to immunotherapy may hinge on how immune cells cluster around tumors. Their results reveal that spatial arrangements of certain immune cells within tumors can serve as powerful predictors of treatment response, surpassing existing biomarker tests.

Lung cancer leads global cancer mortality, and non-small-cell variants make up more than 80% of cases. Immune checkpoint inhibitors have transformed therapy yet help only 27–45% of recipients.

Reliable predictive biomarkers for immunotherapy response have eluded clinicians, who currently rely on PD-L1 immunohistochemistry, tumor mutational burden, and microsatellite stability tests, each offering modest predictive performance across trials and are prone to inconsistency.

Read more | >

Paolo Fiorina & team show TMEM219 blockade re-establishes intestinal self-renewal properties in inflammatory bowel disease:

The figure shows colon samples of naive mice, mice receiving T cells plus PBS, and mice receiving T cells plus anti-p40 or ecto-TMEM219.

1International Center for T1D, Pediatric Clinical Research Center Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi, Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.

2Division of Endocrinology, ASST Fatebenefratelli-Sacco, Milan, Italy.

3Enthera, Milan, Italy.

Read more | >

A research team affiliated with UNIST has unveiled a novel extracorporeal blood purification technology that captures and removes bacteria from the bloodstream by leveraging sticky, clot-like surfaces. This breakthrough could pave the way for new treatments against deadly systemic infections, including sepsis, even those caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The work is published in Advanced Science.

Led by Professor Joo H. Kang, from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNIST, the research team announced the development of an innovative extracorporeal bacterial purification device that utilizes artificial blood clots. Similar to dialysis, the technique involves extracting infected blood outside the body, adsorbing bacteria onto artificial thrombi, and then returning the purified blood to the patient.

The newly developed extracorporeal blood purification device (eCDTF) features a spiral structure inserted into the central tube. Inside this spiral, artificial blood clots are embedded, which attract and trap bacteria flowing through the tube. Composed solely of without any cellular components like , these artificial thrombi facilitate effective bacterial adhesion to the device’s surface.

Read more | >

Scientists have uncovered a critical role for rapid DNA repair in maintaining genome stability. A new study reveals that repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs) in nuclear DNA in plants serves as a powerful safeguard against the integration of foreign DNA from chloroplasts—a phenomenon that, while important for evolution, can be highly destabilizing to the genome. The research expands our knowledge about plant genome evolution and also has relevance to the medical field.

The findings, presented by Dr. Enrique Gonzalez-Duran and Prof. Dr. Ralph Bock from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Nature Plants, shed new light on endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT)—an ongoing evolutionary process in which genes from organelles such as chloroplasts and mitochondria are relocated into the nuclear genome.

While successful gene transfers help the nucleus to better coordinate its function with that of the organelles, they also pose risks: Mutations arising from DNA insertion can disrupt essential nuclear genes and provoke harmful rearrangements.

Read more | >

Researchers have identified how variations in a gene called TRIO can influence brain functions and result in distinct neurodevelopmental diseases. The study, published in the journal eLife, could pave the way for future therapeutic developments.

TRIO encodes a diverse group of proteins that control the function and structure of the cytoskeleton—a cell’s internal scaffolding. Rare damaging variants in this gene have been identified in individuals with , , schizophrenia, and related disorders. However, the mechanisms underlying the associations aren’t yet understood.

“It’s really extraordinary that different variants in this can have such dramatically different effects on and function,” says Anthony Koleske, Ph.D., Ensign Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and the study’s senior author.

Read more | >