Lifeboat Foundation

In a new study, researchers grew cordyceps mushrooms on six different kinds of insects. They found that mushrooms grown amid high levels of oleic fatty acid contained the most cordycepin, a potential therapeutic agent with antiviral and anticancer properties.

The wearable robot helps patients who are afraid of needles.

A recent study in Japan has revealed that a hand-held soft robot can improve the experience of patients while undergoing medical treatments, such as injections and other unpleasant therapies or immunizations.

Inspired by vaccinations during Covid

Continue reading “A new robot can help with the fear of injections during medical treatments” »

Engineers at Duke University have developed a novel delivery system for cancer treatment and demonstrated its potential against one of the disease’s most troublesome forms. In newly published research in mice with pancreatic cancer, the scientists showed how a radioactive implant could completely eliminate tumors in the majority of the rodents, demonstrating what they say is the most effective treatment ever studied in these pre-clinical models.

Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to diagnose and treat, with tumor cells of this type highly evasive and loaded with mutations that make them resistant to many drugs. It accounts for just 3.2 percent of all cancers, yet is the third leading cause of cancer-related death. One way of tackling it is by deploying chemotherapy to hold the tumor cells in a state that makes them vulnerable to radiation, and then hitting the tumor with a targeted radiation beam.

But doing so in a way that attacks the tumor but doesn’t expose the patient to heavy doses of radiation is a fine line to tread, and raises the risk of severe side effects. Another method scientists are exploring is the use of implants that can be placed directly inside the tumor to attack it with radioactive materials from within. They have made some inroads using titanium shells to encase the radioactive samples, but these can cause damage to the surrounding tissue.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a debilitating progressive illness that begins with mild memory loss and slowly destroys cognitive function and memory. It currently has no cure and is predicted to affect over 100 million people worldwide by 2050. In the United States, AD is the leading cause of dementia in older adults and the 7th most common cause of death, according to the National Institute on Aging.

Ongoing Alzheimer’s research is focused on two key neurotoxic proteins: amyloid beta (Aβ) and tau. Although these proteins have been shown to be associated with AD, the levels of Aβ and tau do not consistently explain or correlate with the severity of cognitive decline for some people with the disease.

Investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, set out to identify other proteins that may be directly involved with fundamental aspects of AD, like synaptic loss and neurodegeneration. They exposed laboratory neurons to human brain extracts from about 40 people who either had AD, were protected from AD despite having high Aβ and tau levels, or were protected from AD with little or no Aβ and tau in their brains.

A study found hazardous air pollutants emitted from gas stoves in California, including benzene — a chemical known to cause to cancer in some people.

Over the last several decades, obesity has rapidly grown to affect more than 2 billion people, making it one of the biggest contributors to poor health globally. Many individuals still have trouble losing weight despite decades of study on diet and exercise regimens. Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and affiliated institutions now believe they understand why, and they argue that the emphasis should be shifted from treating obesity to preventing it.

The research team reports in the journal Science Advances that early-life molecular processes of brain development are likely a major determinant of obesity risk. Previous large human studies have shown that the genes most strongly associated with obesity are expressed in the developing brain. This most recent study in mice focused on epigenetic development. Epigenetics is a molecular bookmarking system that regulates whether genes are utilized or not in certain cell types.

“Decades of research in humans and animal models have shown that environmental influences during critical periods of development have a major long-term impact on health and disease,” said corresponding author Dr. Robert Waterland, professor of pediatrics-nutrition and a member of the USDA Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor. “Body weight regulation is very sensitive to such ‘developmental programming,’ but exactly how this works remains unknown.”

If you or someone you know has multiple myeloma, I HIGHLY recommend world renowned medical oncologist and multiple myeloma expert Dr. Landgren.

Strange libraries of supplementary genes nicknamed “Borg” DNA appear to supercharge the microbes that possess them, giving them an uncanny ability to metabolize materials in their environment faster than their competitors.

By learning more about the way organisms use these unusual extrachromosomal packets of information, researchers are hoping to find new ways of engineering life to take a big bite out of methane emissions.

In the wake of a study publicized last year (and now published in Nature), researchers have continued to analyze the diversity of sequences methane-munching microbes store in these unusual genetic depositaries in an effort to learn more about the evolution of life.

A drug has been identified by researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) that replicates the benefits of exercise on mice’s bones and muscles.

You can look and feel better by keeping up a regular exercise schedule, but did you know that exercise also supports bone and muscle health? Locomotor fragility, which affects people who are unable to exercise, causes the muscles and bones to deteriorate. Recently, Japanese researchers discovered a new drug that, by producing effects comparable to those of exercise, may help treat locomotor frailty.

Physical inactivity can result in a weakening of the muscles (known as sarcopenia) and bones (known as osteoporosis). Exercise dispels this frailty by boosting muscular strength and suppressing bone resorption while simultaneously promoting bone formation. Exercise therapy, however, cannot be used in every clinical situation. When patients have dementia, cerebrovascular disease, or are already bedridden, drug therapy may be very helpful for treating sarcopenia and osteoporosis. However, there is no one drug that targets both tissues at the same time.