Lifeboat Foundation

UNIGE researchers have discovered that a medication commonly used to treat herpes can combat an antibiotic-resistant bacterium by disrupting its defense mechanisms.

Antibiotic resistance, or the ability of bacteria to develop resistance to treatment with antibiotics, has become a major concern for global health. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers it one of the greatest threats to health. The overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can cause serious illness and death. One example of an antibiotic-resistant pathogen is Klebsiella pneumoniae, a bacterium commonly found in hospitals and known for its virulence. Without effective treatment options, we could see a resurgence of diseases such as pneumonia and salmonella, which were once easily treated with antibiotics.

Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have found that edoxudine, an anti-herpes molecule developed in the 1960s, can disrupt the protective surface of Klebsiella bacteria and make them more vulnerable to being eliminated by immune cells. The researchers’ findings were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.

January is National Glaucoma Awareness Month, which makes this a good time to learn more about treating this group of eye conditions.

About 3 million people in the U.S. have glaucoma, and it’s the second-leading cause of blindness worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve, often due to abnormally high pressure in your eye. Elevated eye pressure is due to a buildup of the fluid that flows throughout the inside of your eye. When this fluid is overproduced or the drainage system doesn’t work properly, the fluid can’t flow out at its normal rate and eye pressure increases.

U.S. health regulators gave early approval to a new Alzheimer’s drug from Eisai Co. and Biogen Inc., the most promising to date in a new class of medicines that may help slow cognitive decline caused by the disease.

The Food and Drug Administration granted conditional approval to the drug, called lecanemab, based on an early study finding it reduced levels of a sticky protein called amyloid from the brains of people with early-stage Alzheimer’s. The companies will sell it under the brand name Leqembi.

What it means to be conscious is more than just a philosophical question. Researchers continue to investigate how conscious experience arises from the electrochemical activity of the human brain. The answer has important implications for the way brain health is understood—from coma, wherein a person is alive but unable to move or respond to his or her environment, to surgical anesthesia, to the altered thought processes of schizophrenia.

Recent research suggests that there’s no one location in the brain that causes consciousness, pointing to a network phenomenon. However, tracing the various linkages between regions in the brain networks that give rise to awareness and wakefulness has been elusive.

A new approach using functional MRI, an imaging technique that allows you to see and measure brain activity through changes in blood flow over time, provides new insight into how we describe and study conscious states.

Exercise and physical activity reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). It has been observed that an active individual is at a 30% to 40% lower risk of CVD. However, previous cross-sectional studies have failed to determine whether exercise has a significant impact on expediting coronary atherosclerosis and plaque morphology. A recent Circulation journal paper has focused on investigating the relationship between exercise volume and intensity and the progression of coronary atherosclerosis in middle-aged and older male athletes.

Study: Exercise Volume Versus Intensity and the Progression of Coronary Atherosclerosis in Middle-Aged and Older Athletes: Findings From the MARC-2 Study. Image Credit: sciencepics / Shutterstock.

Is the Director General of the Pacific Community (SPC — https://www.spc.int/about-us/director-general) which is the largest intergovernmental organization in the Pacific and serves as a science and technology for development organization owned by the 26 Member countries and territories in the Pacific region.

SPC’s 650 member staff deliver services and scientific advice to the Pacific across the domains of Oceans, Islands and People, and has deep expertise in food security, water resources, fisheries, disasters, energy, maritime, health, statistics, education, human rights, social development and natural resources.

Continue reading “Dr. Stuart Minchin, Ph.D. — Sustainable Pacific Development Through Science, Knowledge & Innovation” »

We are living a data revolution in the biomedical field, and scientific research is advancing at an unprecedented speed to improve modern medicine. One of the key aspects of such medicine is the tailoring of treatments to each patient, by analising the specific changes that led to disease along with the unique characteristics with which the person was born. The use of supercomputers is essential to make sense of the vast amounts of data, and to simulate aspects of our bodies to calculate for instance which drug is more appropriate for each patient for a given disease.

This video showcases some of the research done at the Life Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, contributing to a better understanding of our bodies in health and disease, and to a future where a Human Digital Twin can help to live healthier and longer.

The United States is considering sampling wastewater taken from international aircraft to track any emerging new Covid-19 variants as infections surge in China, as UK-based health experts estimate about 9,000 people a days are now dying of the disease in China.

The proposed of testing wastewater by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would provide a better solution to tracking the virus and slowing its entry into the US than new travel restrictions announced this week, three infectious disease experts said.

BRUSSELS, Jan 3 (Reuters) — The European Union has offered free COVID-19 vaccines to China, the EU executive said on Tuesday, as infections there surged following Beijing’s relaxation of its “zero-COVID” policies.

China has not responded to the offer yet, a spokesperson for the European Commission told journalists at a regular briefing. He did not specify the amount of vaccines the EU was offering or their manufacturers.

“In view of the COVID situation in China, (Health) Commissioner Stella Kyriakides has reached out to her Chinese counterparts to offer EU solidarity and support,” he said.