Multicyclic molecular wheels with polymer potential
Hokkaido UniversityMolecules that act as connected wheels can hold long molecular chains together to modify the properties of soft polymers.
Molecules that act as connected wheels can hold long molecular chains together to modify the properties of soft polymers.
Artificial intelligence has entered the mainstream in a way the world has never experienced before. Millions of people are using tools such as ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion for AI-generated help answering questions, creating images and accomplishing a host of other tasks. The Office of Naval Research has awarded Parisa Kordjamshidi, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University and her colleagues a $1.8 million grant to make our interactions with AI more reasonable and reliable. This would bolster the confidence people have in using AI tools that are increasingly acting as digital assistants. But the team also has larger goals.
A Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) team will seek to develop treatments for three rare, incurable genetic diseases with the help of a $26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
A spinal cord injury is a life-altering event, and the effects, such as muscle weakness and paralysis, can dramatically disrupt a person’s life. While there is no cure for paralysis, there has been some progress in developing potential treatment options to improve symptoms. Still, much of it remains out of reach to many patients.
A team including University of Pittsburgh researchers uses computer modeling and new ways of employing enzymes to create never-before-seen amino acids.
Photonic crystal structures have excellent light control properties and are hot topics in the field of photonics. For the preparation of photonic crystal structures with nanoscale three-dimensional spatial resolution inside the crystal, new femtosecond laser processing technologies are urgently needed. Scientists in China proposed a photonic crystal structure fabrication method based on nanoscale femtosecond laser multi-beam lithography. The technique will open possible ways to fabricate nanostructures for applications in optical communication and light manipulation.
Psychosocial stress profoundly affects people’s lives globally, not least because it can be a critical risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Thanks to an $11.5 million award renewal from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health, distinguished researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and elsewhere aim to gain a deeper understanding of how stress influences cardiovascular health.
“We’re situated in a unique position to address the growing cancer burden among the Hispanic community,” said Dr. Lakshmanaswamy, a biomedical science professor who directs the university’s Center of Emphasis in Cancer. “Our goal is to improve access to health care for our Hispanic community members by developing novel biomarkers and therapeutics, grounded in an improved understanding of the biological, cultural and behavioral determinants of cancer."
The American Neuromuscular Foundation, is excited to announce Jerry R. Mendell, MD, as the recipient of the 2023 Best Abstract Award, for his abstract titled, “Long-Term Safety and Efficacy in Patients With Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy 4 Years Post-Treatment With Delandistrogene Moxeparvovec in a Phase 1/2a Study.”
A metabolic by-product that is more prevalent during fasting may supercharge immune cells as they fight infection and disease, reports an early stage study by Van Andel Institute scientists and collaborators.
According to the National Kidney Foundation, more than 100,000 Americans are waiting for a kidney transplant, and the demand for donated kidneys far exceeds the supply. In fact, only 25,498 kidney transplants were performed in 2022, and kidney disease impacts 37 million people in the U.S. But a new preclinical study, led by scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, shows that a new technology called mitochondrial transplantation holds promise as a potential therapy that could change the kidney transplant landscape.
The award will support Kayser's research on engineering devices for assistive soft robotics and tactile displays.
Two decades ago, the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index was published to measure the nursing practice environment. Although the instrument's use has resulted in advances in science and quality improvement efforts, its potential may be limited by the availability and quality of translations into different languages.
Investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have designed an innovative RNA-based strategy to activate dendritic cells—which play a key role in immune response—that eradicated tumors and prevented their recurrence in mouse models of melanoma.
Researchers have developed methods to study and manipulate areas of the brain, though many of those methods are restricted by the limited depth that light can reach within the brain. A multidisciplinary team at Washington University in St. Louis plans to overcome that limitation by integrating ultrasound with genetics to precisely modify neurons in the brain.
Mac Gilliland, assistant professor of chemistry and Mary Elizabeth Anderson, professor of chemistry, will work with engineers and scientists at 908 Devices, a mass spec manufacturer in Boston. At least a dozen Furman undergraduate students will also work on the project, giving them experience in chemistry, device manufacturing and commercialization that few students at undergraduate institutions have.
In a new study, scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) compared the immune response of individuals who received older versus newer versions of the whooping cough vaccine. The unexpected findings may help explain the recent rise in whooping cough cases and point to potential targets for the next generation of vaccines.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $33 million to support 14 clean-energy research projects as part of a program to ensure the Department’s research funding is reaching pockets of the country that traditionally have received disproportionally low amounts of Federal scientific funding. The projects will cover a range of topics—including grid integration, renewable solar and wind energy, and advanced manufacturing. Today’s funding will help ensure all regions of the country share in the ownership of priority research that advances science and addresses energy and environmental issues as the country moves ahead to reach the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious climate goals.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that researchers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) have been awarded two projects designed to investigate the characteristics and evolution of convective clouds through advanced modeling. The projects are aimed at improving the capabilities of Earth system models to predict weather and climate changes.
Immune system researchers have designed a computational tool to boost pandemic preparedness. Scientists can use this new algorithm to compare data from vastly different experiments and better predict how individuals may respond to disease.
You might not think of diabetes when you think of muscle function. But a common diabetes drug that regulates blood sugar can also prevent muscle atrophy and muscular fibrosis—which can help the elderly bounce back faster from injury or illness.
More than 1.4 million times a year, people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia end up in emergency care, making up nearly 7% of all emergency visits for any reason by people over age 65, a new study shows. Compared with their peers who don’t have dementia, these patients have twice the rate of seeking emergency care after an accident or a behavioral or mental health crisis.
In a new study, University of Utah Health researchers have shown that a particular version of a gene may contribute to the higher severity of stroke seen among Black Americans. The findings could help scientists develop more effective stroke medications for people who carry the gene.
A research team led by medical ethicists and physician-researchers has been approved for a $6.2 million award to study strategies to bridge gaps in the healthcare system and help bereaved parents connect with existing community resources after the unexpected or traumatic death of their child.
Peter Vikesland believes high-tech tools could help increase the flow of quality water in an equitable manner. Atop a new wave of support from the Fralin Life Sciences Institute, Vikesland, the Nick Prillaman Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is leading a research team in creating wireless sensor networks to survey microbial threats to water quality and to enable operational control and provide real-world feedback for public transparency.
An exquisitely preserved fossil forest from Japan provides missing links and helps reconstruct a whole Eurasia plant from the late Miocene epoch.
Superconductors - found in MRI machines, nuclear fusion reactors and magnetic-levitation trains - work by conducting electricity with no resistance at temperatures near absolute zero, or -459.67F. The search for a conventional superconductor that can function at room temperature has been ongoing for roughly a century, but research has sped up dramatically in the last decade because of new advances in machine learning (ML) using supercomputers such as Expanse at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego.
An interdisciplinary research team received a five-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a new generation of biosynthetic lubricants that have the potential to treat arthritis and reduce the painful friction of artificial joints.
A team of researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine has been approved for a $4.4 million funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to assess the benefits of expanding telehealth by primary care physicians to children with complex chronic conditions and their caregivers. The project is a collaboration with Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Brenner Children's in Winston-Salem and Atrium Health Levine Children's in Charlotte.
It's fragile X awareness month, and the NIH has renewed funding for a key study of the neurodegenerative condition fragile X-associated tremor ataxia syndrome (FXTAS).
A Wayne State University School of Medicine professor has received a $3 million award from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health to develop an intervention aimed at improving health outcomes in Black youth with type 1 diabetes.
The Cancer Research Institute awarded $28.7 million in research grants and fellowships in the 2023 fiscal year ending June 30, 2023. In total, CRI distributed 73 awards that will advance cancer immunology research at 41 institutions in 10 countries. CRI grants were awarded to support projects involving a variety of immune-based approaches as well as the development of novel technologies that may help pave the way for the next generation of immunotherapies.
Women diagnosed and treated for breast cancer have increased biological aging compared to women who remain free of breast cancer, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and their collaborators. Among women diagnosed with breast cancer, the association with faster biological aging was most pronounced for those who received radiation therapy, while surgery showed no association with biological aging. This finding suggests that developing cancer is not what increases the aging effect.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a $7 million, five-year funding award from PCORI (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute) to compare two sedatives used to place breathing tubes in the emergency department (ED) or intensive care unit (ICU). To provide support with a breathing machine, doctors must place a breathing tube into a patient’s mouth and throat, and they are given a medication to make them sleep during this procedure.
Researchers from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and Dana Farber Cancer Institute have been awarded $7 million in total funding to study how diet and exercise impact mental and physical functioning in older cancer survivors and their caregivers.
A Penn Medicine research team has been approved for a $27.5 million funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) for a large study on effectively and equitably scaling and delivering inpatient palliative care.
Gestational diabetes is on the rise among pregnant people, and now Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center has received a $12 million funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to define the best treatment. The study will compare oral metformin versus injectable insulin.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced a $16.25 million gift from Howard and Susan Elias to accelerate brain tumor and cancer neuroscience research, an emerging field focused on integrating the role of the nervous system in cancer.
The fight against dengue fever has a new weapon: a mosquito infected with the bacteria Wolbachia, which prevents the spread of the virus. These mosquitoes have now been deployed in several trials demonstrating their potential in preventing disease transmission.
Data scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and colleagues have created an artificial intelligence model that may more accurately predict which existing medicines, not currently classified as harmful, may in fact lead to congenital disabilities. The model, or “knowledge graph,” described in the July 17 issue of the Nature journal Communications Medicine, also has the potential to predict the involvement of pre-clinical compounds that may harm the developing fetus. The study is the first known of its kind to use knowledge graphs to integrate various data types to investigate the causes of congenital disabilities.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science (SC) and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced $5.25 million for 11 research projects in High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (HEDLP).
An estimated 1,200 Americans, on average, are diagnosed with Lyme disease each day. Some of those patients continue to experience negative effects, even after treatment. Lyme disease researcher Brandon Jutras, associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and affiliated faculty of the Fralin Life Sciences Institute, recently received a $2.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Catherine Royer, Constellation Chair Professor of Bioinformatics and Biocomputation at the Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D. Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS) and professor of biological sciences, has received a grant of over $400,000 from the National Science Foundation to investigate enzymes from organisms living in deep sea environments.
Study represents a major milestone toward health equity for underrepresented populations in Alzheimer’s disease research
New research published in Science Advances, led by Yuan Yang, associate professor of materials science at Columbia Engineering, and collaborators at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, demonstrates a novel technique for isolating isotopes.
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer mortality in women and the primary cause of cancer death among Hispanic women, according to the National Cancer Institute. The Center of Emphasis in Cancer focuses on forms of the disease prevalent in our majority-Hispanic Borderplex, seeking new strategies for the prevention and treatment of the deadly disease.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Lund University in Sweden have discovered an Alzheimer's biomarker in the cerebrospinal fluid known as MTBR-tau243 can be used to track the progression of disease and could speed drug development.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and collaborators at Merck & Co. developed a rapid and efficient method of making large quantities of metabolites directly from a drug or drug precursors via carbon-hydrogen oxidation catalysis.
A simple but revolutionary test to improve early detection for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease could soon be helping patients and their families, thanks to a significant £1.5 million funding boost awarded to the universities of Bath and Bristol.