Curated News: National Institutes of Health (NIH)

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In a study publishing May 10 in JAMA Cardiology, senior author and UCSF cardiologist Geoff Tison, MD, MPH, and first author Robert Avram, MD, of the Montreal Heart Institute, set out to determine whether deep neural networks (DNNs), a category of AI algorithm, could be used to predict cardiac pump (contractile) function from standard angiogram videos. They developed and tested a DNN called CathEF, to estimate LVEF from coronary angiograms of the left side of the heart.

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Eimear Kenny, PhD, had just completed undergrad and was working in her first computational genomics job more than 20 years ago when scientists announced the first (nearly) complete sequencing of the human genome—what was considered at the time to be the fundamental blueprint for all humans. The Human Genome Project aimed to map the entire genome in an effort to accelerate the diagnosis and eventual treatment of common and rare diseases.

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Rutgers Institute for Health researcher, Dr. Ashley Grosso, receives grant from NIH to conduct study on barriers to HIV research in Africa.

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In a University of California, Irvine-led study, researchers have discovered small-molecule drugs with potential clinical utility in the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), and retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

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Researchers have developed a zebrafish model that provides new insight into how the brain acquires essential omega-3 fatty acids, including docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and linolenic acid (ALA), creating the potential to improve understanding of lipid transport across the blood-brain barrier.

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A sharp increase in the price of the gout drug colchicine, the result of an unusual FDA policy, led to lower use and poorer disease control. The findings have implications for other drugs, whose price could be similarly affected by government policies and manufacturer decisions.

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Findings reveal a previously unknown way in which the brain and immune system talk to each other and may identify a new therapeutic target for MS and other brain disorders.

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Sian Piret, PhD, in the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, has received a $1.4 million grant from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to investigate a certain metabolic process called BCAA catabolism that is known to occur with acute kidney injury, but its exact role remains unknown.

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The instructions for gene regulation are written in a complicated code, and scientists have turned to artificial intelligence to crack it. To learn the rules of DNA regulation, they’re using deep neural networks (DNNs), which excel at finding patterns in large datasets. DNNs are at the core of popular AI tools like ChatGPT.

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Patients with mpox who were treated with the antiviral drug tecovirimat had similar outcomes regardless of HIV status, find researchers at Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medicine.

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People who perceived that they had cognitive difficulties such as memory problems during COVID were more likely to have lingering physical manifestations of the disease than people who did not report cognitive issues.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center stem cell and developmental biologists and colleagues have developed a method to produce bovine blastoids, a crucial step in replicating embryo formation in the lab that could lead to the development of new reproductive technologies for cattle breeding.

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An upgraded computational tool from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital can find potentially druggable hidden drivers of cancer and other biological processes using multi-omics data.

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Wistar Institute researchers have uncovered a key mechanism as to how p53 suppresses tumors.

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Genome editing is used to modify the genes of living organisms to elicit certain traits, such as climate-resilient crops or treating human disease at the genetic level. It has become increasingly popular in agriculture, medicine and basic science research over the past decade, and will continue to be relevant and utilized well into the future.

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One of the biggest goals of immunotherapy is to reverse T cell exhaustion to boost the immune system’s ability to destroy cancerous cells. Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys studying melanoma have found a new way to make this happen.

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Strategies to treat pain without triggering dangerous side effects such as euphoria and addiction have proven elusive. Now scientists at Washington University School of Medicine have identified a potential pathway to pain relief that neither triggers addiction nor causes hallucinations.

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A new technique designed to allow surgeons to identify and remove residual tumor tissue during breast-conserving surgery showed promising results in a multi-center trial led by investigators from the Mass General Cancer Center, a member of Mass General Brigham.

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Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System have announced a collaboration with Lehman College of the City University of New York (CUNY) to launch the Einstein Discover Research Program. This unique research experience provides hands-on laboratory and scientific training for students from groups historically underrepresented in science and medicine, resulting in Master of Science (M.S.) degrees from CUNY.

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UC San Diego researchers describe how exposure to ambient air pollution, such as car exhaust and power plant emissions — is associated with a measurably greater risk of developing dementia over time.

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The ASBMB urges the NIH to require institutions to provide basic benefits, training plans and professional development for them

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The National Institutes of Health recognizes World Asthma Day and the innovative research that is helping to shed light on the disease, pave the way for effective treatments, and improve the lives of people who have asthma.

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Applying machine learning models, a type of AI, to data collected passively from wearable devices can identify a patient’s degree of resilience and well-being, according to investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. The findings, reported in the May 2nd issue of JAMIA Open, support wearable devices, such as the Apple Watch®, as a way to monitor and assess psychological states remotely without requiring the completion of mental health questionnaires.

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Gene-editing therapy aimed at two targets – HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS, and CCR5, the co-receptor that helps the virus get into cells – can effectively eliminate HIV infection. The study is the first to combine a dual gene-editing strategy with antiretroviral drugs to cure animals of HIV-1.

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Researchers have used Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source to characterize a set of broadly neutralizing antibodies effective against a wide range of coronaviruses.

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A new study on herpes infections of the eye helps shed light on the question of viral reinfections by identifying a key protein involved in viral reinfections that could be targeted by antiviral drugs.

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A new approach to the genetic engineering of cells promises significant improvements in speed, efficiency, and reduction in cellular toxicity compared to current methods. The approach could also power the development of advanced cell therapies for cancers and other diseases, according to a study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

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The lingering effects of COVID-19 on some patients’ health has gotten a lot of attention. But a new study suggests many face long-term major financial impacts after their illness. Whether or not they got hospitalized during their bout with COVID-19, patients had a higher risk of serious money problems after their infection, compared with a comparison group of individuals whose financial outcomes were measured prior to getting COVID-19.

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A new study by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and others, shows how bringing together coalitions of individuals from government, public health, healthcare, public education, and other arenas to address a public health issue--in this case early childhood obesity--can result in better policies, systems, and environments for change.

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A team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine, have revealed the first crystal structures of the receptor-binding domain of botulinum neurotoxin E (BoNT/E) in complex with its human neuronal receptors, synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A (SV2A). This structure and other findings in the new study could be harnessed to engineer new BoNT/E variants with modified specificities toward different SV2 isoforms for new clinical developments.

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How is “junk food” defined for food policies like taxes? A combination of food category, processing, and nutrients can determine which foods should be subject to health-related policies, according to a new analysis examining three decades of U.S. food policies.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine say they have evidence from a new study in rats that spinal cord stimulation (SCS) may be useful in reducing chronic pain in people undergoing active treatment with a common anti-cancer drug.

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Among families with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, Johns Hopkins University researchers say they have found a link between chemical “marks” on DNA in the sperm of fathers and autistic traits in their 3-year-old children.

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An estimated 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, making them 16 times more likely to die suddenly compared to the general population. SMU biology researcher Edward Glasscock has received a 5-year, $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for a study that he hopes will lead to the identification of biomarkers to help identify people at risk for sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, known as SUDEP.

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Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center identified a novel cell signaling pathway that potentially could be targeted in therapy for patients with aggressive pancreatic cancers.

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Researchers from Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UH) have secured $6.2 million from two grants awarded in the same month from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to predict cardiovascular disease through new artificial intelligence (AI) approaches.

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Saint Louis University’s Department of Family and Community Medicine ranks in the top 20 in the nation in National Institute for Health funding, per data compiled by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.

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UC San Diego researchers describe a key player in the defense mechanism that safeguards against excessive insulin in the body, which can be as harmful as too little.

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NIH-funded researchers developed an online tool that can analyze self-collected, at-home videos with a smartphone. When deployed in a nationwide study, the tool could predict physical health and osteoarthritis of the knee or hip.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered how a bacterium that infects people after they eat raw or undercooked shellfish creates syringe-like structures to inject its toxins into intestinal cells. The findings, published in Nature Communications, could lead to new ways to treat food poisoning caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus.