Researchers are studying hibernating Arctic ground squirrels with the goal of harnessing the benefits of this odd natural state to protect astronauts’ health on long-duration space missions.
Hibernation is not just sleep. In fact, it’s quite different from sleep. While we sleep, our brains fire up and become highly active; in hibernation, on the contrary, brain activity completely slows down. The body temperature of hibernating animals also drops, in some cases close to the freezing point, cells stop dividing and heart rate decreases to two beats per minute.
H5N1 avian flu has existed for a quarter century. Only rarely have human cases occurred, with no sustained transmission reported. But “we cannot assume that will remain the case,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference. New, frequent reports that the disease has crossed into small mammals like minks, otters, foxes, and sea lions are cause for alarm, given the species’ similarities with humans, he noted.
While the risk to people remains low, public health officials must prepare “to face outbreaks in humans, and be ready also to control them as soon as possible,” Dr. Sylvie Briand, director of Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness and Emergency Preparedness at the WHO, told Fortune.
Ghebreyesus cautioned against touching or collecting sick or dead animals, and encouraged those who encounter such to report them to local authorities. Countries must strengthen their avian flu surveillance in areas where humans and wild animals interact, he insisted. And public health officials must work with manufacturers to ensure that vaccines and antivirals are available for global use, he said.
Is Director of the Division of Research, Innovation and Ventures (DRIVe — https://drive.hhs.gov/) at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (https://aspr.hhs.gov/AboutASPR/ProgramOffices/BARDA/Pages/default.aspx), a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) office responsible for the procurement and development of medical countermeasures, principally against bioterrorism, including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats, as well as pandemic influenza and emerging diseases.
Dr. Patel is committed to advancing high-impact science, building new products, and launching collaborative programs and initiatives with public and private organizations to advance human health and wellness. As the DRIVe Director, Dr. Patel leads a dynamic team built to tackle complex national health security threats by rapidly developing and deploying innovative technologies and approaches that draw from a broad range of disciplines.
Dr. Patel brings extensive experience in public-private partnerships to DRIVe. Prior to joining the DRIVe team, he served as the HHS Open Innovation Manager. In that role, he focused on advancing innovative policy and funding solutions to complex, long-standing problems in healthcare. During his tenure, he successfully built KidneyX, a public-private partnership to spur development of an artificial kidney, helped design and execute the Advancing American Kidney Health Initiative, designed to catalyze innovation, double the number of organs available for transplant, and shift the paradigm of kidney care to be patient-centric and preventative, and included a Presidential Executive Order signed in July 2019. He also created the largest public-facing open innovation program in the U.S. government with more than 190 competitions and $45 million in awards since 2011.
Prior to his tenure at HHS, Dr. Patel co-founded Omusono Labs, a 3D printing and prototyping services company based in Kampala, Uganda; served as a scientific analyst with Discovery Logic, (a Thomson Reuters company) a provider of systems, data, and analytics for real-time portfolio management; and was a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. He also served as a scientist at a nanotechnology startup, Kava Technology.
Dr. Patel holds a US patent issued in 2005 and has authored over a dozen peer-reviewed articles in areas such as nanotechnology, chemistry, innovation policy, and kidney health.
Dr. Patel earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis.
Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, Ph.D. is the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H — https://arpa-h.gov/), an agency that supports the development of high-impact research to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs to deliver transformative, sustainable, and equitable health solutions for everyone. ARPA-H’s mission focuses on leveraging research advances for real world impact.
Previously, Dr. Wegrzyn served as a vice president of business development at Ginkgo Bioworks and head of Innovation at Concentric by Ginkgo, where she focused on applying synthetic biology to outpace infectious diseases—including Covid-19—through biomanufacturing, vaccine innovation and biosurveillance of pathogens at scale.
Prior to Ginkgo, Dr. Wegrzyn was program manager in the Biological Technologies Office at DARPA, where she leveraged the tools of synthetic biology and gene editing to enhance biosecurity, promote public health and support the domestic bioeconomy. Her DARPA portfolio included the Living Foundries: 1,000 Molecules, Safe Genes, Preemptive Expression of Protective Alleles and Response Elements and the Detect it with Gene Editing Technologies programs.
Dr. Wegrzyn received the Superior Public Service Medal for her work and contributions at DARPA. Prior to joining DARPA, she led technical teams in private industry in the areas of biosecurity, gene therapies, emerging infectious disease, neuromodulation, synthetic biology, as well as research and development teams commercializing multiplex immunoassays and peptide-based disease diagnostics.
Dr. Wegrzyn holds doctorate and bachelor’s degrees in applied biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She was a fellow in the Center for Health Security Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative and completed postdoctoral training as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow in Heidelberg, Germany.
Increasingly it seems there is nothing that ChatGPT cannot do, even consulting judges in cases and boosting research. Now, the AI chatbot has been found to score at or around the approximately 60 percent passing threshold for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), “with responses that make coherent, internal sense and contain frequent insights.”
This is according to a study published on Thursday in the open-access journal PLOS Digital Health.
AndreyPopov/iStock.
Now, the AI chatbot has been found to score at or around the approximately 60 percent passing threshold for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), “with responses that make coherent, internal sense and contain frequent insights.”
The findings were recently published in the journal Cell Systems. The research was led by Kshitiz, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with scientists Chi V. Dang from Johns Hopkins and Andre Levchenko from Yale.
Nearly a decade ago, the researchers observed a strange phenomenon while looking at cancer cells under hypoxia—or a lack of oxygen.
An excellent overview of the story of how the U.S. responded to the COVID-19 pandemic along with suggestions for ways to continue making strides in combatting SARS-CoV-2 as well as how we may prepare for future emerging pathogens. The article provides an interesting case study on mechanisms of large-scale human organization, examines ways that we have succeeded in managing so many moving pieces, and explores ways that we could do better in the future. #nih #health #medicine #government #biotechnology
Investment, collaboration, and coordination have been key.
A Quebec hospital adopts a novel use of VR to help patients with anxiety, phobias and pain.
In a newswire release today, the Fondation de l’Hôtel-Dieu d’Alma (the Alma Hospital Foundation) announced the launch of a virtual reality (VR) project aimed at improving the mental health of those experiencing increasing anxiety. The Alma Hospital is a regional health centre for the area of Lac St. Jean and the Saguenay River valley to the north of Quebec City.
Jean Lamoureux, the hospital’s Executive Director states, “The number of requests for mental-health consultations is estimated to have increased by 30 to 40 percent during the pandemic. These needs are urgent…and, thanks to the innovation of Paperplane Therapeutics and TELUS, we will transform the way health services are delivered, while having a significant positive impact on patient well-being through technology.”
Arizona State University has officially begun a new chapter in X-ray science with a newly commissioned, first-of-its-kind instrument that will help scientists see deeper into matter and living things. The device, called the compact X-ray light source (CXLS), marked a major milestone in its operations as ASU scientists generated its first X-rays on the night of Feb. 2.
“This marks the beginning of a new era of science with compact accelerator-based X‑ray sources,” said Robert Kaindl, who directs ASU’s Compact X-ray Free Electron Laser (CXFEL) Labs at the Biodesign Institute and is a professor in the Department of Physics. “The CXLS provides hard X-ray pulses with high flux, stability and ultrashort durations, in a very compact footprint. This way, matter can be resolved at its fundamental scales in space and time, enabling new discoveries across many fields — from next-generation materials for computing and information science, to renewable energy, biomolecular dynamics, drug discovery and human health.”
Building the compact X-ray light source is the first phase of a larger CXFEL project, which aims to build two instruments including a coherent X-ray laser. As the first-stage instrument, the ASU CXLS generates a high-flux beam of hard X‑rays, with wavelengths short enough to resolve the atomic structure of complex molecules. Moreover, its output is pulsed at extremely short durations of a few hundred femtoseconds — well below a millionth of one millionth of a second — and thus short enough to directly track the motions of atoms.
Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023
(NewMediaWire) — February 2, 2023 — DALLAS Among people who received more intensive treatment for high blood pressure, evaluations of MRI scans indicated a positive change in brain structures involved in its ability to clear toxins and other byproducts, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2023. The meeting, held in person in Dallas and virtually, Feb. 8–10, 2023, is a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health.
The study is the first to examine whether intensive blood pressure treatment may slow, or reverse structural changes related to the volume of the brain’s perivascular spaces, areas of the brain around the blood vessels that are involved in the clearance of toxins and other byproducts. These areas tend to enlarge as people get older or have more cardiovascular risk factors.
