A simple blood test picking up on biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease could help experts diagnose this condition sooner and less invasively. However, the test has not yet been brought to market.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 666
Michigan lawmaker introduces bill requiring state health plans to cover cutting-edge cancer treatments
A Michigan state senator introduced a bill that would require health insurance companies in the state to cover cutting-edge cancer treatments, even if they are not categorized as a “cancer drug.”
State Sen. Jeff Irwin (D-Mich.) announced his new bill in a video on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday. The legislation would build on an existing law that already says cancer drugs must be covered by health insurance companies.
Blocking Key Potein may Halt Progression of Alzheimer’s disease
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found that inhibiting a key protein can stop the destruction of synapses and dendritic spines commonly seen in Alzheimer’s disease.
The study, whose first author is Tyler Martinez, a student in the Pharmacology and Molecular Medicine PhD program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, was published recently in the journal eNeuro.
The researchers, using rodent neurons, found that targeting a protein called Mdm2 with an experimental cancer drug known as nutlin, stopped neurotoxic amyloid-b peptides that accumulate in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from overly pruning synapses.
Long-term Analysis reveals SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Vaccine-induced Antibody Responses are Long-Lasting
A long-term analysis conducted by leading microbiologists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai reveals that antibody responses induced by COVID-19 vaccines are long-lasting. The study results, published online in the journal Immunity challenge the idea that mRNA-based vaccine immunity wanes quickly.
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in late 2019 sparked the global pandemic that is now in its fifth year. Vaccines that were developed at record speed have saved millions of lives. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning immunity have decreased the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic disease. The common perception now is that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity wanes quickly.
However, this assumption is largely based on data from short-term studies that include a very limited number of data points following peak responses.
3D-printed skin closes wounds and contains hair follicle precursors
Science: In future maybe wounds be cured and closed in seconds by 3D printing regeneration.
Fat tissue holds the key to 3D printing layered living skin and potentially hair follicles, according to researchers who recently harnessed fat cells and supporting structures from clinically procured human tissue to precisely correct injuries in rats. The advancement could have implications for reconstructive facial surgery and even hair growth treatments for humans.
The team’s findings were published March 1 in Bioactive Materials. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the team a patent in February for the bioprinting technology it developed and used in this study.
“Reconstructive surgery to correct trauma to the face or head from injury or disease is usually imperfect, resulting in scarring or permanent hair loss,” said Ibrahim T. Ozbolat, professor of engineering science and mechanics, of biomedical engineering and of neurosurgery at Penn State, who led the international collaboration that conducted the work.
Dancing cells show how the brain awakens from anesthesia
According to a Mayo Clinic study published in Nature Neuroscience, the cells that act as the central nervous system’s first line of defense against harm also play a role in helping the brain awaken from anesthesia. This discovery could help pave the way for innovative methods that address post-anesthesia complications.
When coming out of anesthesia, more than one-third of patients can experience either extreme drowsiness or hyperactivity, a side effect called delirium. Mayo researchers found that special immune cells in the brain called microglia can act to shield neurons from the aftereffects of anesthesia to awaken the brain.
“This is the first time we’ve seen microglia enhance and boost neuronal activity by physically engaging the brain circuits,” says Mayo Clinic neuroscientist Long-Jun Wu, senior author of the study.
Scientists shine new light on the future of nanoelectronic devices
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform technologies as diverse as solar panels, in-body medical sensors and self-driving vehicles. But these applications are already pushing today’s computers to their limits when it comes to speed, memory size and energy use.
Fortunately, scientists in the fields of AI, computing and nanoscience are working to overcome these challenges, and they are using their brains as their models.
That is because the circuits, or neurons, in the human brain have a key advantage over today’s computer circuits: they can store information and process it in the same place. This makes them exceptionally fast and energy efficient. That is why scientists are now exploring how to use materials measured in billionths of a meter— nanomaterials—to construct circuits that work like our neurons. To do so successfully, however, scientists must understand precisely what is happening within these nanomaterial circuits at the atomic level.
An evolutionary mystery 125 million years in the making
Plant genomics has come a long way since Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) helped sequence the first plant genome. But engineering the perfect crop is still, in many ways, a game of chance. Making the same DNA mutation in two different plants doesn’t always give us the crop traits we want. The question is why not? CSHL plant biologists just dug up a reason.
CSHL Professor and HHMI Investigator Zachary Lippman and his team discovered that tomato and Arabidopsis thaliana plants can use very different regulatory systems to control the same exact gene. Incredibly, they linked this behavior to extreme genetic makeovers that occurred over 125 million years of evolution.
The scientists used genome editing to create over 70 mutant strains of tomato and Arabidopsis thaliana plants. Each mutation deleted a piece of regulatory DNA around a gene known as CLV3. They then analyzed the effect each mutation had on plant growth and development. When the DNA keeping CLV3 in check was mutated too much, fruit growth exploded. They published their findings in PLoS Genetics.
Advance in taxol biosynthesis could lead to large-scale production of anticancer drug
Paclitaxel is the world’s best-selling plant-based anticancer drug and one of the most effective anticancer drugs over the past 30 years. It is widely used in the treatment of various types of cancer, including breast cancer, lung cancer, and ovarian cancer.
In the late 1990s and early 21st century, the annual sales of paclitaxel exceeded $1.5 billion and reached $2.0 billion in 2001, making it the best-selling drug in 2001. In 2019, the market for paclitaxel and its derivatives was approximately $15 billion, and it is expected to reach $20 billion by 2025.
As an anticancer drug, the molecular structure of paclitaxel is extremely complex, with highly oxidized, intricate bridged rings and 11 stereocenters, making it widely recognized as one of the most challenging natural products to synthesize chemically. Since the first total synthesis of paclitaxel was reported by the Holton and Nicolaou research groups in 1994, more than 40 research teams have been engaged in the total synthesis of paclitaxel.
Long COVID may be triggered by low iron levels, scientists discover
New research has identified iron deficiencies in the blood as a major culprit in long COVID cases.
A new report from the University of Cambridge was able to connect that low iron levels contributed to inflammation and anemia and halted healthy red blood cell production in patients just two weeks after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
Many of those individuals reported having long COVID — which has recently been associated with a frightening IQ loss from brain fog — within months, according to the study, published in Nature Immunology.