Lifeboat Foundation

We conducted a multicenter, nested case–control study of Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers in cognitively normal participants who were enrolled in the China Cognition and Aging Study from January 2000 through December 2020. A subgroup of these participants underwent testing of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), cognitive assessments, and brain imaging at 2-year–to–3-year intervals. A total of 648 participants in whom Alzheimer’s disease developed were matched with 648 participants who had normal cognition, and the temporal trajectories of CSF biochemical marker concentrations, cognitive testing, and imaging were analyzed in the two groups.

The median follow-up was 19.9 years (interquartile range, 19.5 to 20.2). CSF and imaging biomarkers in the Alzheimer’s disease group diverged from those in the cognitively normal group at the following estimated number of years before diagnosis: amyloid-beta (Aβ)₄₂, 18 years; the ratio of Aβ₄₂ to Aβ₄₀, 14 years; phosphorylated tau 181, 11 years; total tau, 10 years; neurofilament light chain, 9 years; hippocampal volume, 8 years; and cognitive decline, 6 years. As cognitive impairment progressed, the changes in CSF biomarker levels in the Alzheimer’s disease group initially accelerated and then slowed.

In this study involving Chinese participants during the 20 years preceding clinical diagnosis of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, we observed the time courses of CSF biomarkers, the times before diagnosis at which they diverged from the biomarkers from a matched group of participants who remained cognitively normal, and the temporal order in which the biomarkers became abnormal. (Funded by the Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03653156. opens in new tab.)

Vanderbilt researchers have developed a new nanoparticle that can more get drugs inside cells to boost the immune system and fight diseases such as cancer.

The research is led by John Wilson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and biomedical engineering, as well as a corresponding author on the paper about the research that was recently published in the journal Nanoscale.

Wilson, who is Principal Investigator of the Immunoengineering Lab at Vanderbilt and a Chancellor Faculty Fellow, and his team created a polymeric nanoparticle that can penetrate cell membranes and get drugs into the cytosol—or liquid—inside cells.

Dr. John Swierk: “This is also the first study to explicitly look at inks sold in the United States and is probably the most comprehensive because it looks at the pigments, which nominally stay in the skin, and the carrier package, which is what the pigment is suspended in.”

Do the ingredients in tattoo inks match the labels on their respective bottles? This is what a recent study published in Analytical Chemistry hopes to address as a team of researchers from Binghamton University investigated the accuracy of ink ingredients and what’s labeled on their containers. This study holds the potential to help scientists, artists, and their customers better understand the health risks, to include allergic reactions and other risks, of using the wrong ink ingredients for tattoos.

For the study, the researchers examined ingredients from 54 inks emanating from nine common brands within the United States with the goal of ascertaining their exact chemical compositions compared to what was labeled on their respective bottles. In the end, the researchers identified that 45 of the 54 inks possessed a myriad of pigments and/or additives that were not properly labeled on the bottles that could pose health risks to customers receiving ink tattoos, including allergic skin reactions and other long-term health risks, including non-skin-related risks, such as cancer. Despite the alarming findings, the researchers could not ascertain which unlisted ingredients were intentionally or accidentally added to the inks.

Continue reading “Ink Alert: Discrepancies Found in Tattoo Ink Composition” »

The speed of innovation in bioelectronics and critical sensors gets a new boost with the unveiling of a simple, time-saving technique for the fast prototyping of devices.

A research team at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University reported a simple way to fabricate electrochemical transistors using a standard Nanoscribe 3D micro printer. Without cleanroom environments, solvents, or chemicals, the researchers demonstrated that 3D micro printers could be hacked to laser print and micropattern semiconducting, conducting, and insulating polymers.

Anna Herland, professor in Micro-and Nanosystems at KTH, says the printing of these polymers is a key step in prototyping new kinds of electrochemical transistors for medical implants, wearable electronics and biosensors.

A new study from a team of McGill University and Vanderbilt University researchers is shedding light on our understanding of the molecular origins of some forms of autism and intellectual disability.

For the first time, researchers were able to successfully capture atomic resolution images of the fast-moving ionotropic glutamate receptor (iGluR) as it transports calcium. iGluRs and their ability to transport calcium are vitally important for many brain functions such as vision or other information coming from sensory organs. Calcium also brings about changes in the signaling capacity of iGluRs and nerve connections, which are key cellular events that lead to our ability to learn new skills and form memories.

IGluRs are also key players in brain development and their dysfunction through genetic mutations has been shown to give rise to some forms of autism and intellectual disability. However, basic questions about how iGluRs trigger biochemical changes in the brain’s physiology by transporting calcium have remained poorly understood.

Explaining isolated steps on the road from simple chemicals to complex living organisms is not enough. Looking at the big picture could help to bridge rifts in this fractured research field.

Studying a rock is like reading a book. The rock has a story to tell, says Frieder Klein, an associate scientist in the Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

The rocks that Klein and his colleagues analyzed from the submerged flanks of the St. Peter and St. Paul Archipelago in the St. Paul’s oceanic transform fault, about 500 km off the coast of Brazil, tell a fascinating and previously unknown story about parts of the geological carbon cycle.

Transform faults, where tectonic plates move past each other, are one of three main plate boundaries on Earth and about 48,000 km in length globally, with the others being the global mid-ocean ridge system (about 65,000 km) and subduction zones (about 55,000 km).

Longstanding challenges in biomedical research such as monitoring brain chemistry and tracking the spread of drugs through the body require much smaller and more precise sensors. A new nanoscale sensor that can monitor areas 1,000 times smaller than current technology and can track subtle changes in the chemical content of biological tissue with sub-second resolution, greatly outperforming standard technologies.

The device, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is silicon-based and takes advantage of techniques developed for microelectronics manufacturing. The small device size enables it to collect chemical content with close to 100% efficiency from highly localized regions of tissue in a fraction of a second. The capabilities of this new nanodialysis device are reported in the journal ACS Nano.

“With our nanodialysis device, we take an established technique and push it into a new extreme, making biomedical research problems that were impossible before quite feasible now,” said Yurii Vlasov, a U. of I. electrical & computer engineering professor and a co-lead of the study. “Moreover, since our devices are made on silicon using microelectronics fabrication techniques, they can be manufactured and deployed on large scales.”

The search for habitable exoplanets involves looking for planets with similar conditions to the Earth, such as liquid water, a suitable temperature range and atmospheric conditions. One crucial factor is the planet’s position in the habitable zone, the region around a star where liquid water could potentially exist on the planet’s surface. NASA’s Kepler telescope, launched in 2009, revealed that 20–50% of visible stars may host such habitable Earth-sized rocky planets. However, the presence of liquid water alone does not guarantee a planet’s habitability. On Earth, carbon compounds such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH4), and carbon monoxide (CO) played a crucial role in shaping the climate and biogeochemistry and could have contributed to the emergence of life.

Taking this into consideration, a recent study by Associate Professor Kazumi Ozaki from Tokyo Institute of Technology, along with Associate Researcher Yasuto Watanabe from The University of Tokyo, aims to expand the search for habitable planets. Published in the Astrophysical Journal(External site) on 10 January 2024, the researchers used atmospheric modeling to identify conditions that could result in a CO-rich atmosphere on Earth-like planets that orbit sun-like (F-, G-, and K-type) stars. This phenomenon, known as CO runaway, is suggested by atmospheric models to have possibly occurred in early planetary atmospheres, potentially favoring the emergence of life.

“The possibility of CO runaway is critical in resolving the fundamental problem regarding the origin of life on Earth because various organic compounds suitable for the prebiotic chemistry are more likely to form in a CO-rich atmosphere than in a CO2-rich atmosphere,” explains Dr. Ozaki.