Curated News: National Institutes of Health (NIH)

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Stem cell study findings show that LMNA gene mutations can disrupt the “identity” of heart muscle cells

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A Cornell-led collaboration has developed a noninvasive blood test that uses cell-free DNA to gauge the damage that COVID-19 inflicts on cells, tissues and organs, and could help aid in the development of new therapies.

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The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is pleased to announce its first cohort of scholars for the Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) K99/R00 program, an initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health.

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A new study by UC San Diego biologists has revealed insights on the intricate, adaptive mechanisms of a protective system employed by the cells of mammalian immune systems. These defenses have evolved to set a type of tripwire that produces an immune response against attack from viruses.

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Scientists at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have developed a promising gene therapy strategy for a rare disease that causes severe vision loss in childhood. A form of Leber congenital amaurosis, the disease is caused by autosomal-dominant mutations in the CRX gene, which are challenging to treat with gene therapy.

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A new University of California, Irvine-led study finds a new method for identifying biomarkers may aid in early cancer diagnosis. The study focused on lung cancer, however the Cell Heterogeneity-Adjusted cLonal Methylation (CHALM) method has been tested on aging and Alzheimer’s diseases as well and is expected to be effective for studying other diseases.

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Viral infections and space travel similarly trigger inflammation and the enzymes APOBEC3C and ADAR1; UC San Diego researchers are developing ways to inhibit them as a means to potentially lower cancer risk for both astronauts and people on Earth.

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Black children have significantly higher rates of shellfish and fish allergies than white children, confirming that race plays an important role in how children are affected by food allergies, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found.

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Scientists have proposed that using a cheap and simple product – hard candy – to screen for the loss of taste and smell in populations at risk for COVID-19 exposure may help detect probable positive cases in otherwise asymptomatic people.

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The National Institutes of Health is supporting a Wayne State University School of Medicine physician-researcher’s work at preventing and treating cerebral palsy in the form of two new five-year R01 grants worth a collective $5.59 million.

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The finding can offer a new way for creating therapies to prevent secondary bacterial infections.

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The University of Miami Health System is one of five sites nationally and the only one in the Southeast U.S. chosen to participate in a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) study looking at people who have had COVID-19 or have had a COVID-19 vaccine to examine the durability and robustness of participants’ antibody and T-cell responses to the virus.

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A longitudinal study from DePaul University and Northwestern University followed 4,501 college students to examine risk factors that may trigger longer illness.

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Several genetic mutations previously linked to breast cancer and included on commercial genetic tests, including direct-to-consumer tests, were found not to increase a woman’s risk of disease, according to a population study of more than 64,000 women published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine from several institutions, including Penn Medicine.

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Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB Health) have discovered a potential new antibody therapy for COVID-19. The study was published in Nature Communications.

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The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) today announced the recipient of the Mallinckrodt Uveitis Research Fellowship, generously funded by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. The award, funded through the ARVO Foundation, supports an early career investigator with a one-year grant of $45,000 to study an aspect of uveitis or other inflammatory conditions of the eye. The 2021 awardee is Shilpa Kodati, MD of the National Eye Institute (NEI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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Wistar researchers have discovered a new enzymatic function of the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) protein EBNA1, a critical factor in EBV’s ability to transform human cells and cause cancer. Published in Cell, this study provides new indications for inhibiting EBNA1 function, opening up fresh avenues for development of therapies to treat EBV-associated cancers.

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Patients with inactive cancer and not currently undergoing treatments also face a significantly higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, a new study from Penn Medicine published online today in JNCI Cancer Spectrum shows.

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UC San Diego study supports launch of Phase I clinical trial to test a designer DNA agent — an antisense oligonucleotide that targets a gene called IRF4 — in patients with multiple myeloma.

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DALLAS – Jan. 19, 2021 – Eliminating a single gene can turn exhausted cancer-fighting immune cells known as CD8+ T cells back into refreshed soldiers that can continue to battle malignant tumors, a new study led by UT Southwestern researchers suggests. The findings, published online this week in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, could offer a new way to harness the body’s immune system to attack cancers.

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Researchers captured and comparted hi-res images of ribosome structures from sensitive and resistant bacteria and report that a water molecule needed for antibiotic binding was not present in the ribosomes from the drug-resistant bugs.

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A collaborative study shows COVID-19 virus triggers antibodies from previous coronavirus infections, such as the common cold. It may also explain how previous exposure could partially account for differences in severity between old vs. young patients

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After years of paltry funding, research on the possible role of microbes in the causation of Alzheimer's disease will now get a major infusion of grants from the NIH's National Institute on Aging

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The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has issued a public response to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) regarding the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel’s “neither for nor against” recommendation for the use of ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.

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MD Anderson researchers have developed a new computational tool to accurately differentiate between cancer cells and normal cells when analyzing large single-cell RNA-sequencing data.

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The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (JHSON) is ranked No. 1 among schools of nursing for total funding received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for fiscal year 2020. Its grants range in topics from health equity, resilience, gender norms, aging, cardiovascular health, health of Indigenous people, HIV, trauma, violence, and more.

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In a mouse study, researchers used nanotechnology and previous knowledge of a protein pathway to significantly reduce knee cartilage degeneration and pain

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In a large study of pediatric cancer patients, researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have analyzed the frequency, fusion partners, and clinical outcome of neurotrophic tyrosine receptor kinase (NTRK) fusions, which are clinical biomarkers that identify patients suitable for treatment with FDA-approved TRK inhibitors. The researchers found that NTRK fusions are more common in pediatric tumors and also involve a wider range of tumors than adult cancers, information that could help prioritize screening for NTRK fusions in pediatric cancer patients who might benefit from treatment with TRK inhibitors.

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A new computational technique that uses heat map data to reverse engineer highly detailed models of chromosomes. Through this work, researchers have uncovered new information about the close spatial relationships that chromatin folding creates between genes that can be highly distant from one another along DNA strands.

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In an article published in Cell Metabolism, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers report on a newly discovered biochemical pathway that protects cells from a type of cell death called ferroptosis.

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Wistar scientists discovered that EGR1 inhibits expression of pro-inflammatory genes in macrophages. The discovery expands the understanding of how macrophages are set off and deactivated in the inflammatory process, which is critical in many normal and pathological conditions.

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Researchers with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine are collaborating with faculty at the University of Pennsylvania to develop a risk score that more comprehensively prioritizes liver cancer patients for transplantation.

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DALLAS – Jan. 12, 2021 – A team of UT Southwestern researchers has identified a gene involved in the growth of breast cancer, a finding that could lead to potential new targets for treatment.

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Most doctors would agree that advanced care planning (ACP) for patients, especially older adults, is important in providing the best and most appropriate health care over the course of a patient’s life.

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A test of the Sum-Share statistical method using only summary-level data found 1,734 genetic variations associated with cardiovascular-related conditions when just one had previously been likely

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Critical Step Toward Developing Precision Medicine Treatments

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An FDA-approved drug that is currently used in treating cancers has the potential to protect against or treat hearing loss in humans.

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Biologists have unraveled the mystery of how chromosomes are inherited correctly every time a cell divides. They discovered how a “matchmaker” molecule stops cell division until components are ready to be split. Alterations in the process can result in birth defects and certain cancers.

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Physicians have long known that necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a potentially lethal inflammatory condition that destroys a premature infant’s intestinal lining, is often connected to the development of severe brain injury in those infants who survive. However, the means by which the diseased intestine “communicates” its devastation to the newborn brain has remained largely unknown.

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DALLAS – Jan. 6, 2020 – UT Southwestern scientists have developed a new method to study the molecular characteristics of T cells, critical immune cells that recognize and attack invaders in the body such as viruses, bacteria, and cancer.

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Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that a protein called NF-kappa B-inducing kinase (NIK) is essential for the shift in metabolic activity that occurs with T cell activation, making it a critical factor in regulating the anti-tumor immune response.

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Use of the delivery system in mouse models results in unprecedented siRNA penetration across the intact blood brain barrier

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A Monell Chemical Senses Center and Temple University team recently became part of a new, multi-institute National Institute of Health (NIH)-funded initiative called the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostic Radical program (RADx). The NIH invested $107 million at 43 institutions across the country to support non-traditional and repurposed technologies to combat the pandemic and address future viral disease outbreaks.

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Ueli Rutishauser, PhD, professor of Neurosurgery, Neurology and Biomedical Sciences at Cedars-Sinai, has dedicated his career to understanding how new memories are formed and stored in the brain. His latest work, involving the recording of patients' single neurons, landed him and a multidisciplinary team of scientists a five-year, $8 million total research grant.

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Scientists from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a simple, high-throughput method for transferring isolated mitochondria and their associated mitochondrial DNA into mammalian cells. This approach enables researchers to tailor a key genetic component of cells, to study and potentially treat debilitating diseases such as cancer, diabetes and metabolic disorders.

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Researchers from the Uniformed Services University (USU) recently identified pint-sized antibodies, or “nanobodies,” that could protect against COVID-19. At least one of these nanobodies – produced by a llama named Cormac – also appears to work well in either liquid or aerosol form, suggesting it could also help protect a person’s lungs from infections.

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DALLAS – Dec. 21, 2020 – A UT Southwestern research team has catalogued gene activity in the skeletal muscle of mice, comparing healthy animals to those carrying a genetic mutation that causes Duchene muscular dystrophy (DMD) in humans. The findings, published online recently in PNAS, could lead to new treatments for this devastating degenerative disease and insights into factors that affect muscle development.

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Every year, nearly 2.5 million U.S. high school athletes participate in contact sports. Each of these athletes sustains an average of 650 subconcussive head impacts in a single season, hits that can negatively affect brain health.

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The first detailed images of coronavirus spikes in their natural state, while still attached to the virus and without using chemical fixatives that might distort their shape, provide quicker, more realistic snapshots of the infection apparatus.