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Category: biotech/medical – Page 931

Man Develops Never-Before-Seen Bacterial Infection After Feral Cat Bite

As much as we may love them, cats are major reservoirs of zoonotic infections, and their bites and scratches can pose a serious threat to our health. It’s a sad truth that one UK-based man found out the hard way after he was bitten by a stray cat and contracted an extensive soft tissue infection caused by a species of bacteria that had never been described before.

A case report describing the incident details how, back in 2020, the 48-year-old man turned up at the emergency department presenting with a painful, swollen hand. Eight hours earlier, he had been bitten several times by a feral cat. Doctors initially cleaned and dressed the man’s wounds, before giving him a tetanus shot and sending him on his way with a course of antibiotics.

However, within 24 hours he was back, with an intensifying infection in his left little and right middle fingers, as well as both forearms. Again, the area was cleaned, and this time, the damaged tissue was surgically removed and intravenous antibiotics were administered. After five days of oral antibiotics, he made a full recovery.

Dr. Scott O’Neill (PhD, FAA, FAAAS) — Founder, World Mosquito Program; Professor, Monash University

Dr. Scott O’Neill (PhD, FAA, FAAAS) is Founder of the World Mosquito Program (https://www.worldmosquitoprogram.org/en/work/about-us/team/scott-oneill) and Professor at Monash University (https://lens.monash.edu/@scott-oneill), where he leads a large international research collaboration (formerly known as Eliminate Dengue), which is focused on developing the Wolbachia bacteria as a novel method to block the transmission of dengue fever and other mosquito-transmitted viral diseases, such as Zika and chikungunya. This global, not-for-profit program is currently conducting field trials of the Wolbachia method in multiple countries, in areas where these diseases are endemic, working closely with communities, local health organizations and governments to implement its self-sustaining method through controlled releases.

Dr. O’Neill has spent his academic career at the University of Illinois, Yale University, the University of Queensland and Monash, where he was previously the dean of the Faculty of Science.

Dr. O’Neill is internationally recognized for his contributions to the field of insect symbiosis and the way the intimate bacterial associations of invertebrates are ubiquitous and can generate major effects on the reproductive physiology, developmental biology and ecology of the insects they infect. His work has made major contributions to understanding how insect symbionts exert their effects and the consequences for infected hosts.

Stability analysis of a model gene network links aging, stress resistance and negligible senescence

The naked mole rat lives much longer than iI’s than other members of its species. Can it’s ability to repair DNA and fold proteins be employed in Humans to extend our lifespan?

Several animal species are considered to exhibit what is called negligible senescence, i.e. they do not show signs of functional decline or any increase of mortality with age. Recent studies in naked mole rat and long-lived sea urchins showed that these species do not alter their gene-expression profiles with age as much as other organisms do. This is consistent with exceptional endurance of naked mole rat tissues to various genotoxic stresses. We conjectured, therefore, that the lifelong transcriptional stability of an organism may be a key determinant of longevity. We analyzed the stability of a simple genetic-network model and found that under most common circumstances, such a gene network is inherently unstable. Over a time it undergoes an exponential accumulation of gene-regulation deviations leading to death.

Scientists Connected Old Mice to Young Mice, And It Rejuvenated Them

In a bizarre experiment researchers from US and Russia connected the circulatory systems of young and old mice for a whole 12 weeks, slowing the older animals’ cellular aging and increasing their lifespan by as much as 10 percent.

The study expands on previous research showing there are components in young mammalian blood worth investigating for anti-aging health benefits.

As impressive as the results seem, they fall well short of supporting whole-blood transfusion treatments in humans. Putting aside the huge biological leap between mice and humans, there are numerous known and severe risks associated with such treatments for the receiver, not to mention questionable ethics of donation.

How muscle cells deteriorate with age, hampering recovery from injury

A team at Nottingham Trent University analyzed the full set of more than 11,000 gene transcripts inside muscle cells, finding that the ‘development pathways’—the different ways in which genes work together to regenerate muscle—become weakened in aged cells.

The study may help to shed some light on why take longer to recover from as we age. The study is published in the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.

The researchers developed a new approach to examine in vitro in the laboratory to enable them to observe the different molecular mechanisms that drive aging.

Human BioMolecular Atlas Program

Inaugurated in 2018, the Human BioMolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP) endeavours to construct comprehensive spatial maps that feature a range of biomolecules such as RNA, proteins, and metabolites in human organs at single-cell resolution. This collection features the research, datasets, methods and tools generated by this project, accompanied by a Perspective, a News and Views, and links to other resources.

Role of M2 macrophage-derived exosomes in controlling neutrophil-mediated tissue injury in sepsis

In a recent study published in the Journal of Biomedical Science, researchers investigate whether M2 macrophage-derived exosomes (M2-Exos) could prevent inflammation-associated damage during sepsis-associated acute lung injury (ALI) by modulating abnormal polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN) behaviors.

Study: Exosomal PGE2 from M2 macrophages inhibits neutrophil recruitment and NET formation through lipid mediator class switching in sepsis. Image Credit: Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock.com.