Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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Universal flu vaccine protects against variants of both influenza A and B viruses
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08- ... uenza.html
by Georgia State University
A new universal flu vaccine protects against diverse variants of both influenza A and B viruses in mice, according to a new study by researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.

The researchers designed a single, universal influenza vaccine candidate with key cross-protective, less variable parts of the influenza A and B viruses: multi-neuraminidase protein subtypes known to be major antiviral drug targets and the universally conserved M2 ectodomain protein.

The findings, published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, report that mice vaccinated with an immune stimulating virus-like particle displaying multiple neuraminidase subtypes and conserved M2 portions of antigens (foreign proteins that induce immune responses) were protected against influenza A seasonal variants and pandemic potential viruses (H1N1, H5N1, H3N2, H9N2 and H7N9) and influenza B (Yamagata and Victoria lineage) viruses containing substantial antigenic variations.
weatheriscool
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Scientists zero in on antibodies capable of neutralizing HIV
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08- ... g-hiv.html
by Delthia Ricks , Medical Xpress
More than 40 years into the HIV pandemic, scientists are shedding new light on how defenses are mounted against the virus, discoveries that may eventually lead to a neutralizing antibody that stops the virus before it becomes an immune-crippling menace.

In a series of new experiments, researchers at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University in Boston, have deciphered how a subclass of broadly protective anti-HIV antibodies guards against infection. The discovery may one day inform efforts to treat or prevent HIV transmission with antibody-based therapies.

Writing in Science Translational Medicine, scientists at the institute, collaborating with teams at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, report that a subclass of IgG antibodies work aggressively to target conserved regions of the HIV envelope protein. This allows the antibodies to block viral entry and drive immune responses against infected cells.

"HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies are capable of both blocking viral entry and driving innate immune responses against HIV-infected cells," writes Dr. Jacqueline M. Brady and colleagues, who underscore that the subclass of antibodies trigger the explosive activities of the innate immune system.
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Miky617
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weatheriscool wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 3:34 am Scientists zero in on antibodies capable of neutralizing HIV
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08- ... g-hiv.html
by Delthia Ricks , Medical Xpress
More than 40 years into the HIV pandemic, scientists are shedding new light on how defenses are mounted against the virus, discoveries that may eventually lead to a neutralizing antibody that stops the virus before it becomes an immune-crippling menace.

In a series of new experiments, researchers at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University in Boston, have deciphered how a subclass of broadly protective anti-HIV antibodies guards against infection. The discovery may one day inform efforts to treat or prevent HIV transmission with antibody-based therapies.

Writing in Science Translational Medicine, scientists at the institute, collaborating with teams at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, report that a subclass of IgG antibodies work aggressively to target conserved regions of the HIV envelope protein. This allows the antibodies to block viral entry and drive immune responses against infected cells.

"HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies are capable of both blocking viral entry and driving innate immune responses against HIV-infected cells," writes Dr. Jacqueline M. Brady and colleagues, who underscore that the subclass of antibodies trigger the explosive activities of the innate immune system.
As someone who works in HIV research and HIV vaccine development, these kinds of antibodies are not new. There are several broadly neutralizing antibodies that are well-categorized and understood and we can produce them readily. The problem is designing vaccines that can reliably induce these broadly-neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), and there are several very difficult barriers to overcome in doing this.

We're making steady progress, but there's still a long way to go.
weatheriscool
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New diagnostic option for rare eye disease
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08- ... sease.html
by University of Bonn

An estimated 5 to 10% of blindness worldwide is caused by the rare inflammatory eye disease uveitis. Posterior uveitis in particular is often associated with severe disease progression and the need for immunosuppressive therapy. In posterior uveitis, inflammation occurs in the retina and in the underlying choroid that supplies it with nutrients. Researchers at the Ophthalmology Department at the University of Bonn have tested color-coded fundus autofluorescence as a supportive novel diagnostic method. Fluorescence of the retina can be used to infer the uveitis subtype. This is an essential prerequisite for accurate diagnosis and treatment of the disease. The results have now been published in Scientific Reports.

Blurred vision, floaters and unusual light perception—those affected by the rare disease posterior uveitis feel no pain. "But the consequences can be severe: About five to ten percent of blindness worldwide is caused by uveitis. Uveitis is a rare disease, but posterior uveitis in particular potentially has a poor prognosis and often requires immunosuppressive therapy," explains Dr. Maximilian Wintergerst of the Ophthalmology Department at the University of Bonn. There are different forms of the disease. In posterior uveitis, the retina or choroid in the eye becomes inflamed. While the retina converts the incident light into nerve impulses, the choroid supplies the outer layers of the retina with nutrients.
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Researchers produce nanodiamonds capable of delivering medicinal and cosmetic remedies through the skin
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-nanodiamo ... edies.html
by Bar-Ilan University
The skin is one of the largest and most accessible organs in the human body, but penetrating its deep layers for medicinal and cosmetic treatments still eludes science.

Although there are some remedies—such as nicotine patches to stop smoking—administered through the skin, this method of treatment is rare since the particles that penetrate must be no larger than 100 nanometers. Creating effective tools using such tiny particles is a great challenge. Because the particles are so small and difficult to see, it is equally challenging to determine their exact location inside the body—information necessary to ensure that they reach intended target tissue. Today such information is obtained through invasive, often painful, biopsies.

A novel approach, developed by researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, provides an innovative solution to overcoming both of these challenges. Combining techniques in nanotechnology and optics, they produced tiny (nanometric) diamond particles so small that they are capable of penetrating skin to deliver medicinal and cosmetic remedies. In addition, they created a safe, laser-based optical method that quantifies nanodiamond penetration into the various layers of the skin and determines their location and concentration within body tissue in a non-invasive manner—eliminating the need for a biopsy.

This innovation was just published by researchers from the University's Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, in cooperation with the Kofkin Faculty of Engineering and Department of Chemistry, in the scientific journal ACS Nano.
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Researchers report fully synthetic route to scopolamine, anti-nausea drug
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-fully-syn ... ausea.html
by Southwest Research Institute
Southwest Research Institute has developed an efficient, fully synthetic method to produce scopolamine, a plant-derived compound used to prevent nausea and vomiting from motion sickness and anesthesia. The accomplishment marks the first time SwRI has fully synthesized a drug compound that is naturally derived from plants.

The anti-nausea medication scopolamine is made from plants in the nightshade family and from the corkwood tree native to Australia. Although these plants are toxic, extracts have been used for centuries in herbal medicine. Today, scopolamine is delivered using transdermal patches placed on the skin and intravenously during surgery to prevent nausea. These compounds currently are derived from natural resources and depend on the success of medicinal crops.

"Half of all drugs are derived from natural compounds," said Dr. Shawn Blumberg, a senior research scientist in SwRI's Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division. "Wildfires, inclement weather, pests, plant diseases and even climate change can significantly decrease crop yields, affecting the availability and price of plant-based medicines. Developing a fully synthetic version of scopolamine decreases our reliance on medicinal crops and will increase availability, allowing us to investigate other uses."
weatheriscool
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Researchers expand and upgrade the 1000 Genomes Project resource using whole-genome sequencing
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09- ... ncing.html
by New York Genome Center
Seven years ago, the 1000 Genomes Project (1kGP) published an open-access resource based primarily on low-coverage whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data of 2,504 individuals from 26 populations representing five continental regions of the world, making it the first large-scale WGS effort to deliver a catalog of human genetic variation.

Now, researchers at the New York Genome Center (NYGC), in collaboration with groups at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Yale University, and Human Genome Structural Variation Consortium (HGSVC), have expanded the 1kGP resource to include nearly all parent-child trios in the collection, alongside the original samples, and sequenced them at high coverage using Illumina NovaSeq instruments. The study, published in Cell, presents comprehensive analyses of the high-coverage WGS data on the expanded 1kGP cohort which now consists of 3,202 samples, including 602 trios.

"The 1000 Genomes Project cohort is such a valuable resource, we felt it would be useful to the community to bring the sequencing up to date with the latest version of short-read technology while adding in the richness of the previously omitted family samples," explained Michael Zody, Ph.D., Scientific Director of Computational Biology at the NYGC, and the study's senior author.
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Miniature biosensor can monitor condition of serious wounds
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09- ... ounds.html
by Nottingham Trent University

A new biosensor capable of accurately monitoring the condition of a chronic wound has been developed by a team at Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Wounds represent a burgeoning health care issue affecting thousands of patients in all health and social care settings, leading to a spiraling expenditure on an already overloaded health system.

One of the most urgent needs in wound management is the development of systems that allow clinicians to identify the early progression or deterioration of wounds.

The team of engineers and clinical academics at NTU and NUH says the aim is for the technology to be embedded into dressings so that they do not need to be continually removed and replaced to assess how a wound is healing.

They say that in time the technology—a textile-based printed protein sensor—could help to reduce the risk of patients becoming seriously ill, prevent amputation, and save time and money.
weatheriscool
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Designing a way to make oxygen injectable
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-oxygen.html
by Yahya Chaudhry, Harvard University
What if emergency medical personnel could treat a desperately ill patient in need of oxygen with a simple injection instead of having to rely on mechanical ventilation or rush to get them onto a heart-lung bypass machine?

A new approach to transporting gases using a class of materials called porous liquids represents a big step toward artificial oxygen carriers and demonstrates the immense biomedical potential of these unusual fluids.

In a study published last month in Nature, a team of scientists in Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology detail a new approach to transporting gases in aqueous environments using porous liquids. The authors identified and tailored multiple porous frameworks that can store much higher concentrations of gases, including oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2), than normal aqueous solutions. This breakthrough may hold the key to creating injectable sources of oxygen as a bridge therapy for cardiac arrest, creating artificial blood substitutes, and overcoming longstanding challenges in preserving organs for transplants.
weatheriscool
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Researchers develop bioresorbable, implantable device to block pain signals from peripheral nerves
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09- ... -pain.html
by Pusan National University

Due to their high efficacy, opioids are used widely for the management of neuropathic pain, despite the increasing rates of opioid addiction and deaths due to overdose. To avoid these side effects, there is an urgent need for pain management approaches that can substitute opioid use.

It is well known that cold temperatures numb the sensation in our nerves. Evidence suggests that cooling peripheral nerves can in fact reduce the velocity and amplitude of neural signals that cause pain, leading to pain relief. What's great about this approach is that if made possible, it will be completely reversible and non-addictive.

To this end, a team of researchers led by Professor Min-Ho Seo from Pusan National University developed a soft, bioresorbable, implantable device with the potential to cool peripheral nerves in a minimally invasive, focused manner. "Scientists already knew that low temperatures could numb the nerves in the body. But demonstrating this phenomenon with a small device at a clinical level was not an easy task," said Prof. Seo while discussing the study, which was published in Science on June 30, 2022.

To develop the device, the team designed a microfluidics system formed with a bioresorbable material—poly(octanediol citrate)—with interconnects carrying a liquid coolant to a serpentine chamber. To top it off, a Magnesium temperature sensor for real-time temperature monitoring was incorporated at its distal end. The intensity and localization of the cooling effect was regulated by perfluoro pentane (PFP) and dry nitrogen gas (N2)—the two components of the liquid coolant, as well as the geometry of the serpentine chamber.
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