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Category: biotech/medical – Page 981

A Brazilian study published in Scientific Reports shows that artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to create efficient models for genomic selection of sugarcane and forage grass varieties and predict their performance in the field on the basis of their DNA.

In terms of accuracy compared with traditional breeding techniques, the proposed methodology improved predictive power by more than 50%. This is the first time a highly efficient genomic selection method based on has been proposed for polyploid plants (in which cells have more than two complete sets of chromosomes), including the grasses studied.

Machine learning is a branch of AI and computer science involving statistics and optimization, with countless applications. Its main goal is to create algorithms that automatically extract patterns from datasets. It can be used to predict the performance of a plant, including whether it will be resistant to or tolerant of biotic stresses such as pests and diseases caused by insects, nematodes, fungi or bacteria, and or abiotic stresses such as cold, drought, salinity or insufficient soil nutrients.

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Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills and, eventually, the ability to carry out the simplest tasks. In most people with the disease — those with the late-onset type symptoms first appear in their mid-60s. In a study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, scientists found a new contributor to Alzheimer’s disease.

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With Executive Order 14028, a large regulatory push toward mandating the production of a software bill of materials (SBOM) began. As this new buzzword spreads, you’d think it was a miracle cure for securing the software supply chain. Conceptually, it makes sense — knowing what is in a product is a reasonable expectation. However, it is important to understand what exactly an SBOM is and whether or not it can objectively be useful as a security tool.

SBOMs are meant to be something like a nutrition label on the back of a grocery store item listing all of the ingredients that went into making the product. While there currently is no official SBOM standard, a few guideline formats have emerged as top candidates. By far, the most popular is the Software Data Package Exchange (SPDX), sponsored by the Linux Foundation.

SPDX, as with most other formats, attempts to provide a common way to represent basic information about the ingredients that go into the production of software: names, versions, hashes, ecosystems, ancillary data like known flaws and license information, and relevant external assets. However, software is not as simple as a box of cereal, and there is no equivalent to the Food and Drug Administration enforcing compliance to any recommended guidelines.

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The tremendous rise in the economic burden of type 2 diabetes (T2D) has prompted a search for alternative and less expensive medicines. Dandelion offers a compelling profile of bioactive components with potential anti-diabetic properties. The Taraxacum genus from the Asteraceae family is found in the temperate zone of the Northern hemisphere. It is available in several areas around the world. In many countries, it is used as food and in some countries as therapeutics for the control and treatment of T2D. The anti-diabetic properties of dandelion are attributed to bioactive chemical components; these include chicoric acid, taraxasterol (TS), chlorogenic acid, and sesquiterpene lactones. Studies have outlined the useful pharmacological profile of dandelion for the treatment of an array of diseases, although little attention has been paid to the effects of its bioactive components on T2D to date. This review recapitulates previous work on dandelion and its potential for the treatment and prevention of T2D, highlighting its anti-diabetic properties, the structures of its chemical components, and their potential mechanisms of action in T2D. Although initial research appears promising, data on the cellular impact of dandelion are limited, necessitating further work on clonal β-cell lines (INS-1E), α-cell lines, and human skeletal cell lines for better identification of the active components that could be of use in the control and treatment of T2D. In fact, extensive in-vitro, in-vivo, and clinical research is required to investigate further the pharmacological, physiological, and biochemical mechanisms underlying the effects of dandelion-derived compounds on T2D.

Keywords: type 2 diabetes, dandelion, chlorogenic acid, chicory acid, taraxasterol, sesquiterpene.

Abbreviations: ADP — adenosine diphosphate; AFLD — alcoholic fatty liver disease; AMPK — adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase; ATP — adenosine triphosphate; cAMP — cyclic adenosine monophosphate; CGA — chlorogenic acid; CoA — coenzyme A; CRA — chicory acid; DAG — diacylglycerol; DBD — DNA-binding domain; DNA — deoxyribonucleic acid; DPPH — 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl; Dw — dry weight; FOS — fructose oligosaccharide; G6P — glucose-6-phosphate; GDP — guanosine 5’-diphosphate; GLP-1 — glucagon-like peptide 1; GLUT2 — glucose transporter 2; GLUT4 — muscle glucose transporter protein 4; GPCR — G protein-coupled receptor; GTP — guanosine triphosphate; HNB — 2-hydroxy-5-nitrobenzenaledehyde; HPLC — high-pressure liquid chromatography; IC50 — half maximal inhibitory concentration; IDF — International Diabetes Federation; IDX-1 — islet duodenum homeobox 1; IL-1α — interleukin 1 alpha; INS-1E — rat insulinoma clonal beta-cell line; IR — insulin receptor; IRS-1 — insulin receptor substrate 1; Km — Michaelis constant; IP3 — inositol triphosphate; IRS-1 — insulin receptor substrate 1; LBD — ligand-binding domain; LC-DAD — liquid chromatography with (photo) diode array detection; LPS — lipopolysaccharide; MAPK — mitogen-activated protein kinase; NADH — nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide; NAFLD — non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; NF-κb — nuclear factor kappa B; NO — nitric oxide; PI3K — phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase; PKA — protein kinase A; PKC — protein kinase C; PPAR-γ — peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma; ROS — reactive oxygen species; RxR — retinoid X receptor; SEL — sesquiterpene lactones; SUR1 — sulphonylurea receptor 1; T2D — type 2 diabetes; TAG — triacylglycerol; TNF-α — tumor necrosis factor; TO — Taraxacum officinale; TS — taraxasterol; UPLC-MS/MS — ultra-performance liquid chromatography — tandem mass spectrometry; UV/VIS — ultraviolet visible; WHO — World Health Organization.

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This could enable for microgrids for sewage disposal and more lucrative businesses in waste reclaiming through making essentially computers with waste.

A synthesis procedure developed by NITech scientists can convert fish scales obtained from fish waste into a useful carbon-based nanomaterial. Their approach uses microwaves to break the scales down thermally via pyrolysis in less than 10 seconds, yielding carbon nano-onions with unprecedented quality compared with those obtained from conventional methods. Credit: Takashi Shirai from NITech, Japan.

Carbon-based nanomaterials are increasingly being used in electronics, energy conversion and storage, catalysis, and biomedicine due to their low toxicity, chemical stability, and extraordinary electrical and optical properties. CNOs, or carbon nano-onions, are by no means an exception. CNOs, which were first described in 1980, are nanostructures made up of concentric shells of fullerenes that resemble cages inside cages. They have several desired qualities, including a large surface area and high electrical and thermal conductivities.

Continue reading “New Method Converts Fish Waste Into Valuable Nanomaterial in Seconds” | >

Right now everyone is talking about mRNA vaccines, such as the Biontech-Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine — but what about DNA-vaccines? Will this be a vaccine type of the future?

Vaccines have saved millions of lives in the past century and for now, they’re the best way out of this crisis. There are exciting new prospects, waiting in the wings. The practice of vaccinating dates back thousands of years through rabbit spines, powdered cowpox and fearless scientists. Today, viral vectors and mRNA technology have been instrumental in fighting COVID-19. With DNA vaccines another technique is already been tested.

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Continue reading “DNA vaccines explained: The future of vaccination? | COVID-19 Special” | >

A team of scientists from Korea and Egypt have discovered a better way to grow insect-hunting fungi in a lab, according to research published Wednesday in Frontiers in Microbiology.

The fungi can be grown using grains like brown rice but they do not produce much cordycepin, prompting the researchers to suggest insects—which are a richer protein source and the fungi target in nature—as a better alternative. fungi, which infect and zombify insects, are difficult to cultivate but contain chemicals that could help fight cancer and viruses and possibly help treat Covid-19.

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Have you ever suffered from jet lag or struggled after turning the clock forward or back an hour for daylight saving time? These are examples of you feeling the effects of what researchers call your biological clock, or circadian rhythm – the “master pacemaker” that synchronizes how your body responds to the passing of one day to the next.

This “clock” is made up of about 20,000 neurons in the hypothalamus. This area near the center of the brain coordinates your body’s unconscious functions, such as breathing and blood pressure. Humans aren’t the only lifeforms that have an internal clock system: All vertebrates – or mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish – have biological clocks, as do plants, fungi, and bacteria. Biological clocks are why cats are most active at dawn and dusk, and why flowers bloom at certain times of the day.

Chronobiology is the study of circadian rhythms, the physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. These natural processes respond principally to light and dark and affect most living things, including animals, plants, and microbes.

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Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have developed a new, machine learning-based technique to accurately classify the state of macrophages, which are key immune cells. Classifying macrophages is important because they can modify their behaviour and act as pro-or anti-inflammatory agents in the immune response. As a result, the work has a suite of implications for research and has the potential to one day make major societal impact.

For example, this new approach could be of use to drug designers looking to create therapies targeting diseases and auto-immune conditions such as diabetes, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis – all of which are impacted by cellular metabolism and macrophage function.

Because classifying macrophages allows scientists to directly distinguish between macrophage states – based only on their metabolic response under certain conditions – this new information could be used as a diagnosis tool, or to highlight the role of a particular cell type in a disease environment.

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