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Maj. Gen. Dr. Paul Friedrichs, MD is the Inaugural Director of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, at the White House (OPPR — https://www.whitehouse.gov/oppr/), a permanent executive office aimed at leading, coordinating, and implementing actions to prepare for and respond to pathogens that could lead to a pandemic or significant public health-related disruptions in the U.S., and principal advisor on pandemic preparedness and response, appointed by President Biden.

Dr. Friedrichs was previously the Joint Staff Surgeon at the Pentagon where he provided medical advice to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff and the Combatant Commanders, coordinating all issues related to health services, including operational medicine, force health protection and readiness among the combatant commands, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the services. He also led the development and publication of the initial Joint Medical Estimate and served as medical advisor to the Department of Defense COVID-19 Task Force.

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The UK’s National Health Service is fast-tracking patients for its new cancer vaccine trials that customize each jab to each patient.

In this new standard set by Precision Neuroscience, the rising brain chip industry is seeing significant growth, especially with Neuralink, also known for its first successful implant in the past.

Precision’s Brain Chip Sets Record With 4.096 Electrodes on Brain

Precision Neuroscience shared its latest milestone on its brain-computer interface (BCI), which it recently placed on a human brain in collaboration with the Mount Sinai Health System, successfully placing 4,096 electrodes on cerebral matter.

With advances in genomics research, personalized medicine, and sequencing-based technologies, there is a necessity for purification of high-quality genomic DNA from large volumes of blood. The rapidly growing landscape of biorepositories that store large amounts of DNA from an enormous number of biospecimens further fuels this need to find optimized solutions for reliable purification of DNA. The information derived from the purified DNA is crucial to health science research and facilitates drug discovery, biomarker discovery, clinical implementation projects, etc. For the success of these analyses and to derive relevant information, DNA extraction is the most critical step and must meet the criteria of extraction speed, yield and quality, as well as reproducibility. Many nucleic acid purification kits and automation workflows for processing blood samples in the volume range of 100–250 μL exist, but not many convenient, automated options exist for volumes as high as 2 mL without sample splitting. To fill this opening, Omega Bio-tek has developed a semi-automated solution on the MagBinder^® Fit²⁴ to extract DNA from large volumes of fresh or frozen blood. Here, we provide background information on biobanks, as well as present the solution Omega Bio-tek has developed for DNA extraction from large volumes of whole blood.

A biobank is a specialized repository that systematically collects, processes, stores, and manages biological samples for use in medical research and treatments. The primary purpose of a biobank is to provide a centralized and organized resource of high-quality biological materials, such as blood or tissue, along with relevant clinical and demographic data¹. These invaluable assets are at the center of advancements in cancer treatments, biomarker discovery, and understanding genetic factors for disease. At a high level, biobanks can be classified by two categories¹:

People battling advanced colon cancers might have a new treatment option that could extend their survival, a new trial finds.

A combination of two experimental immunotherapy drugs plus standard chemotherapy led to a median 19.7 month survival for patients, compared to the median 9.5 months observed among folks who only got a targeted therapy called regorafenib.

“These results pave the way for further exploration of this promising treatment approach,” said study first author Dr. Zev Wainberg. He co-directs the UCLA Health GI Oncology Program, and is a researcher at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

They found emissions of SO₂ and NOx – both linked to increased asthma risk and a variety of other health issues – decreased by a total of 1m metric tons over that three-year period.

To determine the impact of that reduction on public health, the authors “used air quality models to track the population exposed to pollution from power plants”, Millstein said. They also employed epidemiological research to examine the effects of those emissions, and quantified the benefits by using an Environmental Protection Agency dollar value establishing the value of reducing the risk of early death across the population, he said.

All told, the emission reductions from SO₂ and NOx provided $249bn of climate and health benefits to the US, the authors found – a figure Millstein said he found was “noteworthy”

Nine of 10 American adults are in the early, middle or late stages of a syndrome that leads to heart disease, a new report finds, and almost 10% have the disease already.

“Poor cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic health is widespread among the U.S. population,” concludes a team led by Dr. Muthiah Vaduganathan of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Researchers looked specifically at rates of what the American Heart Association has dubbed cardiovascular, kidney and metabolic (CKM) syndrome—interrelated factors that progress with time and, if left unchecked lead to heart disease.

Enhanced neuron growth in the hippocampus, achieved through exercise or genetic methods, aids mice in forgetting strong, maladaptive memories, offering potential for new treatments for PTSD or drug addiction.

Researchers at the University of Toronto, Canada, and Kyushu University, Japan, discovered that enhancing neuron production and subsequently altering neural connections in the hippocampus—through exercise or genetic intervention—enables mice to forget memories associated with trauma or drugs. The findings, reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, could offer a new approach to treating mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or drug addiction.

PTSD is a mental health condition that can be triggered by experiencing or seeing a traumatic event, such as a natural disaster, serious accident, or attack. Worldwide, around 3.9% of the general population has PTSD, with symptoms including vivid flashbacks and avoidance behaviors, such as staying away from places or pushing away people that remind them of the traumatic event.

Cardiovascular health may be further endangered by microplastic particles that find their way into human blood, a new study suggests.