A Nature study shows that the leprosy drug clofazimine, which is FDA approved and on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, exhibits potent antiviral activities against SARS-CoV-2 and prevents the exaggerated inflammatory response associated with severe COVID-19. Based on these findings, a Phase 2 study evaluating clofazimine as an at-home treatment for COVID-19 could begin immediately.
Researchers at UAB have identified a potential new pathway to treating radiation-resistant glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. The findings indicate that an adhesive cell surface protein known as N-cad may be key in overcoming glioblastoma’s resistance to radiation therapy.
For the first time, researchers have reached a consensus on the criteria for the clinical disorder associated with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) brain pathology and its clinical manifestation during life – an important step in allowing scientists to fill knowledge gaps about the degenerative disease associated with a history of head impacts, such as contact sports and military service. This new consensus criteria was developed with the support of experts from the Uniformed Services University (USU) and was published March 15 in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Researchers developed a prototype for a new cancer immunotherapy that uses engineered T cells to target a genetic alteration common among all cancers. The approach, which stimulates an immune response against cells that are missing one gene copy, called loss of heterozygosity (LOH), was developed by researchers at the Ludwig Center, Lustgarten Laboratory and the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered that heparanase, HPSE, a poorly understood protein, is a key regulator of cells’ innate defense mechanisms.
Researchers have determined what happens at a cellular level as the lung alveolus forms and allows newborns to breathe air. Understanding this process gives researchers a better sense of how to develop therapies and potentially regenerate this critical tissue in the event of injury.
A machine learning algorithm that predicts suicide attempt recently underwent a prospective trial at the institution where it was developed, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
A Cleveland Clinic-led team of researchers has discovered an infection that prevents healing in Crohn’s disease. According to study results published in Science, a type of yeast commonly found in cheese and processed meat is elevated in areas of unhealed wounds in Crohn’s disease patients, a discovery that may point to much-needed new treatment or prevention approaches for the common inflammatory bowel disease. The work was led by Thaddeus Stappenbeck, M.D., PhD., chair of Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute’s Department of Inflammation and Immunity.
Eating a healthy, plant-based diet that includes foods like vegetables, whole grains and beans, and decreasing intakes of less healthy foods like refined grains or added sugars may reduce your risk of having a stroke by up to 10%, according to a study published in the March 10, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study found a diet high in quality plant-based foods may reduce your risk of having an ischemic stroke.
A collaborative study by Stony Brook University scientists, published in Nature Communications, takes an initial step toward better understanding how KRAS drives immune evasion and demonstrates a lowering of the KRAS activity resulting in a more favorable immune environment to fight cancer.
A gene therapy for chronic pain could offer a safer, non-addictive alternative to opioids. Researchers at the University of California San Diego developed the new therapy, which works by temporarily repressing a gene involved in sensing pain. It increased pain tolerance in mice, lowered their sensitivity to pain and provided months of pain relief without causing numbness.
Dr. Matthew Mimiaga, director of the UCLA Center for LGBTQ Advocacy, Research & Health (C-LARAH), leads $8.8 million project HIV prevention project funded by the National Institutes of Health
Expectant women are more likely to give birth early if they have high blood levels of a chemical used in flame retardants compared with those who have limited exposure, a new study finds.
In a new study published in JAMA, researchers led by neurosurgeons at LHMC conducted a randomized clinical trial to compare a ventral surgical approach, in which surgeons access the cervical spine via the front of the neck, to a dorsal surgical approach, in which surgeons access the cervical spine through an incision in the back of the neck, for the treatment of CSM
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have implicated a type of immune cell in the development of chronic lung disease that sometimes is triggered following a respiratory viral infection. The evidence suggests that activation of this immune cell serves as an early switch that, when activated, drives progressive lung diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center demonstrated that a new tumor-penetrating therapy could enhance the effects of chemotherapy, reduce the spread of pancreatic cancer and increase survival in animal models.
An analysis of adult human brain tissue reveals over 900 proteins tied to epilepsy. The brain disorder, estimated to afflict more than 3 million Americans, is mostly known for symptoms of hallucinations, dreamlike states, and uncontrolled, often disabling bodily seizures.
A new study from the University of California, Irvine shows that compounds in both green and black tea relax blood vessels by activating ion channel proteins in the blood vessel wall. The discovery helps explain the antihypertensive properties of tea and could lead to the design of new blood pressure-lowering medications.
New research published in two papers by UC San Diego scientists describes novel achievements designed to make the implementation of gene drives safer and more controllable. The new split drive and home-and-rescue systems address concerns about the release of gene drives in wild populations.
Researchers will be dedicated to battling hearing loss resulting from numerous causes. They will tackle hearing loss in children whose hearing is compromised by antibiotics or other medical treatments, to persons suffering hearing loss in the wake of cancer therapies, those who suffer deafness due to such infections as meningitis, through to natural hearing loss caused by aging.
Using genetic engineering, researchers at UT Southwestern and Indiana University have reprogrammed scar-forming cells in mouse spinal cords to create new nerve cells, spurring recovery after spinal cord injury. The findings, published online today in Cell Stem Cell, could offer hope for the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who suffer a spinal cord injury each year.
Harvard researchers reconstructed the evolutionary history of a mutation that gave rise to cancer decades later in two patients. In a 63-year-old patient, it occurred at around age 19; in a 34-year-old patient, at around age 9.
UC San Diego scientists have created new brain maps featuring unprecedented detail. The insights provided by the new maps are helping answer questions about blood supply and how more active parts of the brain are kept nourished versus less demanding areas.
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the National Cancer Institute finds a possible link between slow walking pace and an increased risk of death among cancer survivors. The researchers say more work is needed to see if physical activity programs or other interventions could help cancer survivors improve their ability to walk and perhaps increase survival after a cancer diagnosis.
At the beginning of an immune response, a molecule known to mobilize immune cells into the bloodstream, where they home in on infection sites, rapidly shifts position, a new study shows. Researchers say this indirectly amplifies the attack on foreign microbes or the body’s own tissues.
The drug buprenorphine is an effective treatment for opioid use disorder, but many who misuse opioids also take benzodiazepines — drugs that treat anxiety and similar conditions. Many treatment centers hesitate to treat patients addicted to opioids who also take benzodiazepines. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis studied overdose risk in people taking buprenorphine and found that the drug lowered risk, even in people taking benzodiazepines.
According to the World Health Organization, one in six worldwide deaths are attributed to cancer, but not due to initial malignant tumors. They were caused by the spread of cancer cells to surrounding tissues, which consist largely of collagen. That was the focus of a recent study by Stanford University and Purdue University researchers.
Houston Methodist has sequenced more than 20,000 of Houston’s coronavirus genomes since the start of the pandemic and leads the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing efforts in the U.S. In the most recent batches of genomes, the U.K., South Africa, Brazil, California and New York variants were detected.
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis provides evidence that COVID-19 patients’ heart damage is caused by the virus invading and replicating inside heart muscle cells, leading to cell death and interfering with heart muscle contraction. The researchers used stem cells to engineer heart tissue that models the human infection and could help in studying the disease and developing possible therapies.
In a new article published in Cancer Immunology Research, the Moffitt team shows that sequential administration of immunotherapy followed by targeted therapy prolongs anti-tumor responses in preclinical models and may be a potential treatment option for patients with advanced melanoma.
According to a new study led by Yale Cancer Center and Department of Neurology researchers, a simple blood draw may be the first step in helping to discover tumor reactive immune or T cells to treat advanced melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. The findings were published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
Researchers have demonstrated how one combination of therapies may be beneficial for patients with mitochondrial respiratory chain disorders. This preclinical research paves the way to develop more tailored treatment options for patients with inherited mitochondrial disease and acquired energy disorders.
Duke researchers describe a new vaccination strategy that they think could re-program the body to fight off the bacteria that cause urinary tract infections.
Blocking cell receptors for glucagon, the counter-hormone to insulin, cured mouse models of diabetes by converting glucagon-producing cells into insulin producers instead, a team led by UT Southwestern reports in a new study. The findings, published online in PNAS, could offer a new way to treat both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in people.
Researchers have developed new 4D hydrogels — 3D materials that have the ability to change shape over time in response to stimuli — that can morph multiple times in a preprogrammed or on-demand manner in response to external trigger signals.
Low blood levels of immune cells called lymphocytes, in combination with higher levels of inflammation on PET/CT scans, are indicators of active sarcoidosis — an inflammatory disease that attacks multiple organs, particularly the lungs and lymph nodes — which disproportionately affects African Americans. The discovery by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago could help guide disease treatment.
Discovery of a metabolic pathways that inhibit memory T cell production has potential for enhancing the immune system’s ability to fight infections and cancers.
UC San Diego was awarded five COVID-19 Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) projects by the National Institutes of Health totaling nearly $33 million, which will fund efforts that range from managing a large data center to expanding testing in disadvantaged communities.
Medical researchers have long understood that a pregnant mother’s diet has a profound impact on her developing fetus’s immune system and that babies — especially those born prematurely — who are fed breast milk have a more robust ability to fight disease, suggesting that even after childbirth, a mother’s diet matters. However, the biological mechanisms underlying these connections have remained unclear.
Long thought a vestigial part of human cells, new genetic analysis of the primary cilium shows that it may be tied to common conditions like diabetes and kidney failure
Puberty looks different, in terms of both reproductive hormones and breast maturation, in girls with excess total body fat, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
New hydrogel-based materials that can change shape in response to psychological stimuli, such as water, could be the next generation of materials used to bioengineer tissues and organs, according to a team of researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago.
If Affordable Care Act protections for pre-existing condition coverage are no longer available, the coronavirus pandemic would leave many Americans - a disproportionate number of whom are people of color - without health insurance, a new Oregon Health & Science University study indicates.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has discovered a mechanism that tumors use to switch on protective regulatory T cells, raising the potential for drug treatments that render tumors more vulnerable to cancer immunotherapy.
Scientists at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) have identified the specialized environment, known as a niche, in the bone marrow where new bone and immune cells are produced. The study, published in Nature, also shows that movement-induced stimulation is required for the maintenance of this niche, as well as the bone and immune-forming cells that it contains. Together, these findings identify a new way that exercise strengthens bones and immune function.
The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine was awarded a new five-year, $2 million grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) for “Application of Mild Therapeutic Hypothermia for Hearing Conservation During Cochlear Implant Surgeries.” It follows a pilot grant from the CTSI, a small business innovation grant from the National Institutes of Health, and industry funding to Dr. Suhrud Rajguru, Ph.D., associate professor at the Miller School of Medicine in biomedical engineering and otolaryngology, and his laboratory.
In the largest genome-wide association study of glaucoma to date, an international team of researchers compared the genes of 34,179 people with the disease to 349,321 control subjects. They identified 127 genes linked to glaucoma, including 44 new gene loci and confirmed 83 previously reported loci.
Research from Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego suggests that light-intensity physical activity, including shopping or a casual walk, may protect against mobility disability in older women.
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has uncovered a previously unknown role for exosomes in inflammatory respiratory diseases. The study has implications for finding new therapies. Exosomes are tiny compartments released from cells that carry different types of cargo, including inflammatory chemicals called cytokines that can drive lung disease.
Researchers have discovered a new gene-editing technique that allows for the programming of sequential cuts — or edits — over time.
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