Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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An international team of researchers has provided a genetic diagnosis for 30 individuals whose condition was undiagnosed for years despite extensive clinical or genetic testing. The study, conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, National University of Singapore and collaborating institutions worldwide, was published in Genetics in Medicine.

“The story of our findings began with one patient I saw in the clinic presenting an uncommon combination of problems,” said first and co-corresponding author Dr. Daniel Calame, instructor of pediatric neurology and developmental neurosciences at Baylor.

“The patient had severe developmental conditions, epilepsy and complete insensitivity to pain, which was very atypical. The condition had remained undiagnosed despite numerous tests conducted by geneticists and neurologists.”

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It’s common knowledge that our brains—and, specifically, our brain cells—store memories. But a team of scientists has discovered that cells from other parts of the body also perform a memory function, opening new pathways for understanding how memory works and creating the potential to enhance learning and to treat memory-related afflictions.

“Learning and are generally associated with brains and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can learn and form memories, too,” explains New York University’s Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The research sought to better understand if non-brain cells help with memory by borrowing from a long-established neurological property—the massed-spaced effect—which shows that we tend to retain information better when studied in spaced intervals rather than in a single, intensive session—better known as cramming for a test.

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Stem cells grown in microgravity aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have unique qualities that could one day help accelerate new biotherapies and heal complex disease, two Mayo Clinic researchers say. The research analysis by Fay Abdul Ghani and Abba Zubair, M.D., Ph.D., published in NPJ Microgravity, finds microgravity can strengthen the regenerative potential of cells. Dr. Zubair is a laboratory medicine expert and medical director for the Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics at Mayo Clinic in Florida. Abdul Ghani is a Mayo Clinic research technologist. Microgravity is weightlessness or near-zero gravity.

Studying stem cells in space has uncovered cell mechanisms that would otherwise be undetected or unknown within the presence of normal gravity. That discovery indicates a broader scientific value to this research, including potential clinical applications.

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Three individuals with profoundly impaired vision who got stem-cell transplants have seen significant improvements in their eyesight that have lasted for more than a year, marking a significant advancement in the restoration of blind vision.

A fourth person with very compromised vision saw improvement, although it did not last.

These four are the first to receive transplants of reprogrammed stem cells to heal injured corneas, the eye’s clear outer surface.

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Individuals born before 37 weeks of gestation, considered to be , have, on average, lower employment income, university enrollment and through age 28, according to a study publishing November 6, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Petros Pechlivanoglou of The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada.

Preterm birth affects about 10% of all births worldwide and accounts for one in five deaths in . Economic and lifestyle factors can affect a family’s access to therapies and supports, financial stability and quality of life.

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