A study done by Duke Health saw the procedure resulting in functioning valves and arteries that grow along with the young patient.
Category: health – Page 96
A recent study reveals that the monkeypox, or mpox, virus is evolving into multiple strains due to mutations caused by ongoing interactions with the human immune system, suggesting that the virus has been circulating in humans since 2016.
“These observations of sustained MPXV transmission present a fundamental shift to the perceived paradigm of MPXV epidemiology as a zoonosis and highlight the need for revising public health messaging around MPXV as well as outbreak management and control,” write the authors.
Ultra-intense ultrashort lasers have a wide-ranging scope of applications, encompassing basic physics, national security, industrial service, and health care. In basic physics, such lasers have become a powerful tool for researching strong-field laser physics, especially for laser-driven radiation sources, laser particle acceleration, vacuum quantum electrodynamics, and more.
A dramatic increase in peak laser power, from the 1996 1-petawatt “Nova” to the 2017 10-petawatt “Shanghai Super-intense Ultrafast Laser Facility” (SULF) and the 2019 10-petawatt “Extreme Light Infrastructure—Nuclear Physics” (ELI-NP), is due to a shift in gain medium for large-aperture lasers (from neodymium-doped glass to titanium:sapphire crystal). That shift reduced the pulse duration of high-energy lasers from around 500 femtoseconds (fs) to around 25 fs.
However, the upper limit for titanium: sapphire ultra-intense ultrashort lasers appears to be 10-petawatt. Presently, for 10-petawatt to 100-petawatt development planning, researchers generally abandon the titanium: sapphire chirped pulse amplification technology, and turn to optical parametric chirped pulse amplification technology, based on deuterated potassium dihydrogen phosphate nonlinear crystals. That technology, due to its low pump-to-signal conversion efficiency and poor spatiotemporal-spectral-energy stability, will pose a great challenge for the realization and application of the future 10–100 petawatt lasers.
How can artificial intelligence help to improve the accuracy of lung cancer screening among people at high risk of developing the disease? Read to find out.
Lung cancers, the vast majority of which are caused by cigarette smoking, are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Lung cancer kills more people than cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon combined. By the time lung cancer is diagnosed, the disease has often already spread outside the lung. Therefore, researchers have sought to develop methods to screen for lung cancer in high-risk populations before symptoms appear. They are evaluating whether the integration of artificial intelligence – the use of computer programs or algorithms that use data to make decisions or predictions – could improve the accuracy and speed of diagnosis, aid clinical decision-making, and lead to better health outcomes.
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and accounts for 12.5% of all new cancer cases globally. And while the overall incidence has been decreasing and five-year survival rates in the U.S. exceed 90%, the burden of this disease cannot be underestimated.
On December 20, a new study titled “ENPP1 is an innate immune checkpoint of the anticancer cGAMP–STING pathway in breast cancer” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a team of Stanford researchers led by Lingyin Li, one of the top experts in the STING pathway in cancer.
Ectonucleotide Pyrophosphatase/Phosphodiesterase 1 (ENPP1) is a multifaceted enzyme that plays a significant role in various biological processes. At its core, ENPP1 is known for its ability to break down ATP, a primary energy molecule in the body, into AMP and inorganic pyrophosphate. This activity is crucial in regulating bone mineralization and preventing abnormal calcium deposits in the body. In addition to its role in bone health, ENPP1 is also involved in regulating insulin signaling, which links it to metabolic disorders like diabetes.
Osteoarthritis affects as many as 30 million Americans, but treatment has traditionally been limited to managing symptoms with pain relievers and lifestyle changes. In a new Nature study, YSM researchers identify a new therapeutic target that could help slow and reverse joint damage from osteoarthritis.
Yale researchers have identified a drug target that may alleviate joint degeneration associated with osteoarthritis, a debilitating condition that afflicts as many as 30 million people in the United States alone, they report Jan. 3 in the journal Nature.
Pain relievers and lifestyle changes, such as exercise and reduced excess weight, have long been the therapies most commonly used to treat the joint stiffness and pain caused by the degenerative disease, but there is a pressing need for therapies that can prevent joint breakdown that occurs in osteoarthritis.
It is known that specialized proteins known as sodium channels found in cell membranes produce electrical impulses in “excitable” cells within muscles, the nervous system, and the heart. And in previous research, Yale’s Stephen G. Waxman identified the key role of one particular sodium channel, called Nav1.7, in the transmission of pain signals.
Scientists have developed a new class of polymers that may kill bacteria without causing antibiotic resistance.
Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms are one of the most serious risks to global public health.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause as many as 2.8 million infections in the United States each year.
Recent studies by Zampaloni et al. and Pahil et al. published in the journal Nature describe a novel method of inhibiting the growth of Gram-negative bacteria such as Acinetobacter using antibiotics consisting of macrocyclic peptides that target the bacterial protein bridge machinery that transports lipopolysaccharides from the cytoplasm to the outer membrane.
The amphipathic lipopolysaccharides in the outer leaflet of the asymmetric outer membrane bilayer of Gram-negative bacteria block antibiotic entry, making the treatment of bacterial infections involving Gram-negative bacteria difficult. Furthermore, the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, especially Gram-negative bacteria such as Acinetobacter baumannii, is a rapidly increasing global health concern since antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are becoming increasingly common among hospitalized and critically ill patients.
The lipopolysaccharide is synthesized inside the bacterial cell in the inner membrane, transported across the cell membrane, and assembled in the outer leaflet. The transportation of lipopolysaccharides occurs with the help of LptB2FGC, a subcomplex in the inner membrane that enlists adenosine triphosphate (ATP) hydrolysis and a protein bridge to extract lipopolysaccharides from the inner membrane and transport it to the outer membrane. Targeting this transportation complex could effectively inhibit the lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis, making the Gram-negative bacteria susceptible to antibacterial activity.
The world’s first partial heart transplant has achieved what researchers have spent more than a year hoping for—functioning valves and arteries that grow along with the young patient, as hypothesized by the pioneering team behind the procedure at Duke Health.
The procedure was performed in the spring of 2022, in an infant who needed heart valve replacement. The previous standard of care—using valves that were non-living—would not grow along with the child, requiring frequent replacement, entailing surgical procedures that carry a 50% mortality rate.
A study led by Duke Health physicians, appearing online Jan. 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that the new manner of valve procurement used during the partial heart transplant led to two well-functioning valves and arteries that are growing in concert with the child as if they were native vessels.
Sunlight provides so much more than just Vitamin D: learn from Dr. Seheult of https://bit.ly/44MTKR2 about the myriad of benefits from optimizing our exposure to light.
Roger Seheult, MD is the co-founder and lead professor at https://bit.ly/44MTKR2
He is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, critical care, and sleep medicine and an associate professor at the university of california, riverside school of medicine.