Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

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Ultrafast, on-chip PCR could speed diagnosis during pandemics
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-ultrafast ... emics.html

Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been the gold standard for diagnosis during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the PCR portion of the test requires bulky, expensive machines and takes about an hour to complete, making it difficult to quickly diagnose someone at a testing site. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have developed a plasmofluidic chip that can perform PCR in only about eight minutes, which could speed diagnosis during current and future pandemics.

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New technique links lithium distribution in the brain to depression
By Rich Haridy
May 24, 2021

A new technique is allowing researchers to measure endogenous lithium concentrations in the human brain for the very first time. To test the technique researchers compared lithium levels in post-mortem brain tissue between a suicidal subject and a pair of healthy controls, revealing differences that affirmed the link between lithium levels and mental health.

Alongside being a vital component of batteries, lithium is perhaps best known as a treatment for bipolar disorder. Despite lithium’s proven mood-stabilizing benefits it can quickly become toxic if administered in high doses.

Epidemiological studies have previously found local communities with high natural levels of lithium in their water supply tend to report lower rates of suicide, dementia and violent crime. This had led some scientists to suggest adding trace amounts of lithium to water supplies could improve a community’s mental health.

https://newatlas.com/science/depression ... irst-time/

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New biochip technology for pharma research

In pharmaceutical research, small tissue spheres are used as mini-organ models for reproducible tests. TU Wien has found a way to develop a reliable standard for these tissue samples.

Before drugs are tested in clinical trials, they must be tested either by animal experiments or, more recently, artificially produced tissue samples. For this purpose, cells are cultivated, and tiny spheres with a diameter of less than one millimeter are made. However, the problem is that there have been no uniform standards for these tissue samples and no reliable method for producing them with uniform size and shape. Therefore, results from different laboratories are hardly comparable with each other, as the tissue size directly influences the behavior of cells and drugs.

An invention by TU Wien can now solve this problem: A biochip has been developed that can be used to produce tissue beads in precisely the desired sizes and supply them with nutrients or even drugs through a thin channel. A patent application has already been filed for the new biochip technology.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05- ... harma.html

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Time limit on lab-grown human embryos is relaxed by experts

Wed 26 May 2021 16.00 BST

The ban on growing human embryos in the lab beyond 14 days has been relaxed by an international body of experts, paving the way for research that could help to unpick issues ranging from why recurring miscarriages occur to improving IVF.

The decades-old rule is laid down in the law in a number of countries, including the UK and Australia, and was previously stipulated in guidelines from the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR). These guidelines set out standards that are used by scientists, journals and research bodies around the world, and can also influence policymakers.

But the ISSCR has relaxed its stance, saying embryos may be cultured beyond 14 days, provided a robust, specialised review of the proposed experiments is undertaken – with the research deemed scientifically justifiable with no suitable alternatives – and there is broad public support and local regulations permit it. Specialised review is already required for research involving embryos up to 14 days.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... by-experts

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Identifying new, non-opioid based target for treating chronic pain
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05- ... -pain.html
by Medical College of Wisconsin

A non-opioid based target has been found to alleviate chronic touch pain and spontaneous pain in mice. Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) discovered that blocking transient receptor potential canonical 5 (TRPC5) activity reversed touch pain in mouse models of sickle cell disease, migraine, chemotherapy-related pain, and surgical pain.

TRPC5 is a protein that is expressed in both mouse and human neurons that send pain signals to the spinal cord. The findings were published in Science Translational Medicine. The senior and co-first authors of the manuscript, respectively, are MCW researchers Cheryl L. Stucky, Ph.D., professor, and Katelyn Sadler, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow and former MCW postdoctoral fellow Francie Moehring, Ph.D., all of the Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy (CBNA) at MCW. John McCorvy, assistant professor of CBNA, as well as graduate students and staff from the Stucky and McCorvy labs were also involved. Learn more about the research and the researchers here.

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Obsessive compulsive disorder linked to increased ischemic stroke risk later in life

Thursday, May 27, 2021

Adults who have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) were more than three times as likely to have an ischemic stroke later in life compared to adults who do not have OCD, according to new research published today in Stroke, a journal of the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association.

“The results of our study should encourage people with OCD to maintain a healthy lifestyle, such as quitting or not smoking, getting regular physical activity and managing a healthy weight to avoid stroke-related risk factors,” said study senior author Ya-Mei Bai, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the department of psychiatry at Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University College of Medicine, both in Taiwan.

Worldwide, stroke is the second-leading cause of death after heart disease. Stroke is a medical emergency that occurs when blood and oxygen flow to the brain are interrupted, usually by a blood clot (ischemic stroke). Less common is stroke from a burst blood vessel that causes bleeding in the brain (hemorrhagic stroke). In both types of stroke, immediate treatment is critical to prevent brain damage, disability or death. The abbreviation F.A.S.T. can help people remember the warning signs and what to do: F-face drooping, A-arm weakness, S-speech difficulty, T-time to call 9-1-1.

OCD is a common, sometimes debilitating, mental health condition characterized by intrusive, unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations (obsessions) that make a person feel driven to do something repetitively (compulsions). The repetitive behaviors characteristic of OCD, such as hand washing, checking on things or continuously cleaning, can significantly interfere with a person’s daily activities and social interactions. Previous research found that OCD often occurs after stroke or other brain injury. What remained unclear was whether the reverse is true: can OCD increase stroke risk?

https://newsroom.heart.org/news/obsessi ... er-in-life

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153 years after discovery of the immune system's dendritic cells, scientists uncover a new subset
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05- ... cells.html
by Delthia Ricks , Medical Xpress

Artistic rendering of the surface of a human dendritic cell illustrating sheet-like processes that fold back onto the membrane surface. Credit: National Institutes of Health (NIH)

When pathogens invade or tumor cells emerge, the immune system is alerted by danger signals that summon a key battalion of first responders, the unsung heroes of the immune system—a population of starfish-shaped sentinels called dendritic cells.

Without them, coordination of the immune response would be slower and less-well organized. Yet even in the face of such an indispensable role, it has taken until now to discover how a sub-population of these cells doesn't perish after completing their primary job in the immune system.

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Experimental treatment offers new hope against lupus
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05- ... lupus.html
by Amy Norton Healthday Reporter

An experimental antibody therapy may help ease skin symptoms from the autoimmune disease lupus, a small preliminary trial suggests.

Researchers found that a higher-dose version of the drug spurred a "clinically meaningful" symptom improvement for 87% of patients after one month.

But they also stressed that the findings are based on a small "phase 1" trial—a type of study designed primarily to gauge a treatment's safety.

The safety findings were "encouraging," and there were "some hints of clinical benefit," said lead researcher Jodi Karnell, a senior director of research at Horizon Therapeutics, the company developing the drug.

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Biologists construct a 'periodic table' for cell nuclei
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-biologist ... uclei.html
by Baylor College of Medicine

In a paper published in Science, biologists at Baylor College of Medicine, the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Rice University studying the tree of life unveil a new classification system for cell nuclei and the discovery of a method for transmuting one type of cell nucleus into another. This illustration shows the menagerie of chromosome contact patterns in the nuclei of various animals and plants. Credit: Adam Fotos, Olga Dudchenko, Benjamin Rowland and Erez Lieberman Aiden/Baylor College of Medicine

One hundred fifty years ago, Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic table, a system for classifying atoms based on the properties of their nuclei. This week, a team of biologists studying the tree of life has unveiled a new classification system for cell nuclei and discovered a method for transmuting one type of cell nucleus into another.

The study, which appears this week in the journal Science, emerged from several once-separate efforts. One of these centered on the DNA Zoo, an international consortium spanning dozens of institutions including Baylor College of Medicine, the National Science Foundation-supported Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) at Rice University, the University of Western Australia and SeaWorld.

Scientists on the DNA Zoo team had been working together to classify how chromosomes, which can be several meters long, fold up to fit inside the nuclei of different species from across the tree of life.

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Switching off heart protein could protect against heart failure
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05- ... ilure.html
by University of Cambridge

Switching off a heart muscle protein could provide a new way for drugs to combat heart failure in people who've had a heart attack, according to research led by the University of Cambridge and published in the journal Nature.

There is an unmet need to find drugs that can successfully improve the heart's ability to pump blood efficiently after it's been damaged following a heart attack. However, many drugs that make failing heart muscle contract more strongly have been deemed unsafe, leaving a huge gap in heart attack and heart failure treatment. Scientists now believe that they might have identified a new drug target—a protein called MARK4.

In research funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Cambridge scientists found levels of MARK4 were elevated in mouse hearts after a heart attack. When they compared mice with and without MARK4 in the heart, they found hearts without the protein were 57 percent better at pumping blood. This protective effect was seen 24 hours after a heart attack and lasted for the entire follow-up period of four weeks.