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In Alzheimer’s and related neurodegenerative diseases, the brain protein tau is closely linked to brain damage and cognitive decline. A new study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that T cells play a key role in tau-related neurodegeneration, a finding that suggests new treatment strategies for Alzheimer’s and related diseases.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a way to treat the area surrounding breast tumors that have spread to bone so that such tumors become vulnerable to attack by the body’s immune system. When the researchers boosted the activity of certain immune cells, called T cells and macrophages, these immune cells worked together to clear metastatic breast tumors that had spread to the bones of mice.

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A new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care system shows that people who have been infected with COVID-19 are at an increased risk of developing a range of gastrointestinal conditions within the first month to a year after illness.

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The Goldman Sachs Group is considering a sale of its consumer banking business, but regulations will mean it can’t simply return to being an investment bank, said an expert on financial and securities regulation at Washington University in St. Louis.“While exiting the consumer banking business may allow Goldman to ‘check out,’ it can never fully leave the regulatory world for bank holding companies and return to its investment banking roots,” said Andrew Tuch, a professor of law.

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Psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, led a multicenter study that found, in older adults with treatment-resistant depression, that augmenting an antidepressant drug with aripiprazole helped a significant number of patients.

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New research from Washington University in St. Louis finds evidence that parasitic infections in kids are likely widespread in low-resource communities throughout the southern United States, where environmental conditions combined with infrastructural neglect and inadequate access to health care create the perfect breeding ground for these infections.

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Research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified a possible treatment strategy for a rare bone marrow failure syndrome that is named poikiloderma with neutropenia. The work also may have implications for treating other bone marrow failure syndromes with similar underlying dysfunctions.

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Endangered great apes get malaria, just like humans. New evidence from wild bonobos shows us the infection harms them, too.

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Medicaid expansion may improve outcomes for children with cancer, finds a new analysis from the Brown School and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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Mars is infamous for its intense dust storms, some of which kick up enough dust to be seen by telescopes on Earth. When dust particles rub against each other, they can become electrified. New research shows that this electrical discharge could be the major driving force of Martian chlorine cycle.

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Cancer immunotherapy involves using activated T cells to destroy tumors, but it doesn’t work for all patients. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that a kind of dendritic cell is crucial for determining the effectiveness of immunotherapy. The discovery could lead to new ways to extend the benefits of immunotherapy to more patients.

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The cement industry emits more than 3 gigatons of carbon dioxide worldwide from the manufacturing of about 4.5 gigatons of cement every year because of its carbon-dioxide- and energy-intensive processing. This amount of cement is necessary to produce the concrete that shapes modern infrastructure.

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This month, the Republic of Congo agreed to protect a 36-square-mile area called Djéké Triangle by making it part of the adjacent Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park — the only habitat in the world home to habituated groups of both gorillas and chimpanzees.

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The relentless neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) eventually shuts down the entire body, but the devastation starts at a molecular level. The possibility of stopping the disease by repairing and preserving proteins in the brain has inspired experiments in the lab of Meredith Jackrel, an assistant professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Computer software developed at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis can predict what happens to complex gene networks when individual genes are missing or dialed up more than usual. Mapping the roles of single genes in these networks is key to understanding healthy development and finding ways to regrow damaged cells and tissues. Likewise, understanding genetic errors could provide insight into birth defects, miscarriage or even cancer.

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Thinking beyond COVID-19, a team led by Srikanth Singamaneni at the McKelvey School of Engineering developed a new point-of-care diagnostic test that is 1,000 times more sensitive than conventional rapid tests and can quantify concentrations of proteins.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered, in rodents, that fluid that circulates through the brain flows to areas critical for normal brain development and function, suggesting that disruptions to its circulation may play an underrecognized role in neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Rachel Penczykowski, an assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, won a Faculty Early Career Development Program award from the National Science Foundation for her project "Climate and Connectivity as Drivers of Pathogen Dynamics Within and Between Urban Plant Populations."

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The world generates about 300 million tons of plastic waste annually, and more than 90% of all plastic ever made has never been recycled. Part of what drives all that waste into landfills or into the environment is the difficulty of recycling plastic, which is designed to last for a very long time. Traditional plastic recycling suffers from a fundamental flaw, said Marcus Foston: there’s no financial incentive for companies to do it.

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New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that the day-long implicit bias-oriented training programs now common in most U.S. police departments are unlikely to reduce racial inequity in policing.

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Using focused-ultrasound-mediated liquid biopsy in a mouse model released more tau proteins and another biomarker into the blood than without the intervention. This noninvasive method could facilitate diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders, according to research from Washington University in St. Louis.

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Vinegar flies use pheromones to ensure that they court and mate with members of the same species. As new fly species split off from a common ancestor, but continue to share the same environment, they need a way to rapidly diversify their pheromones to suppress inter-species mating. New research identifies a link between the genetic instructions for the production and perception of sex pheromones.

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Proteins labeled with colored tags fill the main compartment — but not the nuclei (blue) — of human cervical cancer cells. Green cells contain the protein TRPV2, red cells contain STING, and yellow and orange cells contain a mixture of both. The proteins are part of a newly discovered DNA-protection pathway that potentially could be targeted to improve cancer therapies, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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Adjuvants are added to vaccines to improve protection, extend the duration of protection and reduce the dose or number of boosters required.

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Intimate partner violence is pervasive in humanitarian settings and its impacts are far-reaching, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.“We demonstrated that intimate partner violence was significantly associated with a range of adverse health and non-health impacts for individuals and family members,” said Lindsay Stark, a professor at the Brown School.

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Researchers have been looking to replace silicon in electronics with materials that provide a higher performance and lower power consumption while also having scalability. An international team is addressing that need by developing a promising process to develop high-quality 2D materials that could power next-generation electronics.

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A new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that the quality of care for lung cancer in the U.S. varies widely. The findings show that high-quality care is associated with improved overall survival rates among patients with lung cancer.

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Gut bacteria can influence brain health, according to a study of mice genetically predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s-like brain damage. The study, by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, indicates that gut bacteria produce compounds that influence the behavior of immune cells, including ones in the brain that can cause neurodegeneration. The findings suggest a new approach to treating Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

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The opportunistic bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii rarely sickens healthy people but causes serious infections in hospitalized patients. A study, in mice, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that Acinetobacter can hide undetected in bladder cells and then reactivate when stimulated by medical intervention. The findings suggest that patients may bring Acinetobacter into hospitals and that screening patients could supplement current infection-control efforts.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a defect in an enzyme called APT1 interferes with the ability to secrete insulin, contributing to the development of Type 2 diabetes in people who are overweight or obese.

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Major advances in battery technologies will bring us a big step closer this year to large-scale renewable energy goals, international energy independence and a big reduction in greenhouse gases, according to an expert from Washington University in St. Louis. “One of the major challenges to a fully renewable-energy future of wind and solar power is energy storage,” said Michael Wysession, a professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that vaccinating mice against a toxin produced by the bacterium E. coli can prevent intestinal damage, a finding that suggests new ways to prevent malnutrition and stunting in children.

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Models based on an average cell are useful, but they may not accurately describe how individual cells really work. New possibilities opened up with the advent of single-cell live imaging technologies. Now it is possible to peer into the lives of individual cells. In a new paper in PLOS Genetics, a team of biologists and physicists from Washington University in St. Louis and Purdue University used actual single-cell data to create an updated framework for understanding the relationship between cell growth, DNA replication and division in a bacterial system.

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A team of researchers led by Young-Shin Jun at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis found that nanoplastics facilitate formation of manganese oxide on polystyrene nanoparticles.

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New experiments that show that eukaryotic cells can robustly control average fluctuations in organelle size. By demonstrating that organelle sizes obey a universal scaling relationship that the scientists predict theoretically, their new framework suggests that organelles grow in random bursts from a limiting pool of building blocks.

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Studying mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that proteins made by stem cells to help regenerate the cornea may become new targets for treating and preventing injuries to the cornea related to dry eye disease. When eyes are dry, the cornea is more susceptible to injury.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified an important transition point in the shift from chronic to aggressive leukemia.

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Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis discovered that under Mars-like conditions, manganese oxides can be readily formed without atmospheric oxygen. The study from the laboratory of Jeffrey Catalano in Arts & Sciences was published Dec. 22 in Nature Geoscience.

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A team of scientists including physicist Johanna Nagy at Washington University in St. Louis successfully launched a balloon-borne experiment studying the early universe on Dec. 21. The instrument, called SPIDER, was carried aloft by a scientific balloon from its launch pad in Antarctica.

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Abhinav Jha, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, wants to use novel imaging to better understand how people absorb radiation therapy. His team won a four-year $2.2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for the study, which aims to guide treatment decisions.

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Research from the lab of Fangqiong Ling at Washington University in St. Louis showed earlier this year that the amount of SARS-CoV-2 in a wastewater system was correlated with the burden of disease — COVID-19 — in the region it served.

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For decades, doctors and scientists have known that exercise is important for older adults — it can lower risk for cardiac issues, strengthen bones, improve mood and have other benefits. Likewise, mindfulness training reduces stress, and stress can be bad for the brain, so many have thought that exercise and/or mindfulness training might improve brain function.

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It has been nearly three years since the COVID-19 pandemic upended businesses worldwide. From supply chain disruptions to shipping delays, worker shortages and, now, the looming threat of a recession, it has been anything but business as usual ever since.With so much uncertainty, how can businesses gain a competitive edge going into the new year and beyond? How can they better anticipate threats created by competitors, the economy, suppliers, politicians and more, and identify new opportunities?One way is through the process of “war gaming,” according to John Horn, professor of practice in economics at Washington University’s Olin Business School and author of the forthcoming book, “Inside the competitor’s mindset: How to predict their next move and position yourself for success.

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Last week, China announced that it would roll back its long-standing “zero-COVID-19 policies,” which included constant tests, quarantines and lockdowns. The decision was a dramatic concession following weeks of protests nationwide.The lingering question is what happens next. Will the decision be enough to appease protestors and put an end to President Xi Jinping’s woes? Or, have these protests sparked a new thirst for activism and political change?  Below, Zhao Ma, an associate professor of modern Chinese history and culture in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St.

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During photosynthesis, a chemical reaction jumpstarted by sunlight breaks down chemicals into the food plants need to repair themselves and to grow. But as researchers attempt to better understand photosynthesis, they have hit a roadblock when it comes to being able to see the fundamental structures and processes in a plant.

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Autoimmune diseases are thought to be the result of mistaken identity. Immune cells on patrol, armed and ready to defend the body against invading pathogens, mistake normal human cells for infected cells and turn their weapons on their own healthy tissues.

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In the next few weeks, a team led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will fly an instrument called SPIDER. They are looking for a pattern, or polarization, in the earliest light we can measure.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that the cancer therapy known as CAR-T can be applied to multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease of the nervous system. The findings extend the powerful tool of immunotherapy to autoimmune diseases, a class of diseases that are often debilitating and difficult to treat.