Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

User avatar
Ken_J
Posts: 241
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 5:25 pm

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by Ken_J »

weatheriscool wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 4:40 am Reversed With a Single Drug – “Incurable” Liver Disease May Be Curable

https://scitechdaily.com/reversed-with- ... e-curable/
By Sanford Burnham Prebys February 23, 2023
Human Body Liver.Pain Disease
Alagille syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects the liver, heart, and other parts of the body. It is characterized by a reduction in the number of bile ducts within the liver, leading to bile accumulation and liver damage. The disease can also cause heart problems, including heart defects, and facial abnormalities.

A new study from Sanford Burnham Prebys has discovered a drug that can spur liver regeneration in patients with Alagille syndrome.

For the first time, research conducted by Associate Professor Duc Dong, Ph.D. has revealed that the detrimental effects of Alagille syndrome, a genetic disorder that has no cure, can be reversed using a single drug. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have the potential to revolutionize the treatment approach for this rare condition, and could also shed light on more widespread diseases.

“Alagille syndrome is widely considered an incurable disease, but we believe we’re on the way to changing that,” says Dong, who is also the associate dean of admissions for Sanford Burnham Prebys’ graduate school. “We aim to advance this drug into clinical trials, and our results demonstrate its effectiveness for the first time.”
boosting Notch signaling seems to also be something that can happen in small degrees in decreasing dietary cholesterol intake https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 071830683X
though it looks like too little and too much are both problematic and decreasing cholesterol had a much weaker effect than increasing it did. IF I understood the material correctly.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12961
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Drug from cancer chemotherapy helps fight deadly fungal infections
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-drug-canc ... ungal.html
by Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
There are up to 10,000 fungal spores in every cubic meter of air that can enter our bodies when we breathe them in. Some of these belong to the species Aspergillus fumigatus, a widespread fungus found everywhere in the environment.

In immunocompromised people—for example, after transplantation or severe respiratory illnesses such as influenza or COVID-19—the fungus can enter the lungs and cause aspergillosis. The infection is particularly difficult to treat—especially because the fungus surrounds itself with a biofilm. This acts like a kind of glue and enables Aspergillus to take hold in the tissue. In addition, the fungus seals itself off in this way and protects itself against attacks by the immune system and especially against antimycotics, i.e. anti-fungal drugs.

A research team led by Professor Dr. Françoise Routier from the Institute of Clinical Biochemistry at the Hannover Medical School (MHH) has found a way to prevent the formation of such an Aspergillus biofilm with the help of a drug from cancer chemotherapy. The study has been published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
Sugar molecule is important for biofilm formation

Aspergillus fumigatus is an opportunistic fungus that takes advantage of a weakened immune system and can cause diseases of varying severity, from allergies to fatal mycoses. The infection starts in the lungs but can spread through the bloodstream to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys, affecting more than 300,000 people each year. In the respiratory tract, Aspergillus is embedded in a biofilm that forms a barrier against immune system defense cells and antimicrobials.
User avatar
raklian
Posts: 1747
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:46 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by raklian »

To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by wjfox »

Walking just 11 minutes a day could stop 10% of early deaths, researchers find

Tue 28 Feb 2023 23.30 GMT

An 11-minute brisk walk every day could prevent one in 10 premature deaths worldwide, according to the largest ever study of its kind.

This equates to 75 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week, half the weekly 150 minutes recommended by the NHS.

Brisk walking, dancing, riding a bike, playing tennis or hiking can all substantially cut the risks of early death, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers, including those of the head and neck and myeloid leukaemia, Cambridge University experts have found.

Globally, one in 10 early deaths could be avoided if everyone met just half the recommended weekly target of 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity, the largest ever pooled data analysis suggests. The results were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Moderate-intensity physical activity is defined as activity that raises the heart rate and makes people breathe faster, but not so fast they cannot speak.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... rly-deaths
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by wjfox »

Scientists have revived a ‘zombie’ virus that spent 48,500 years frozen in permafrost

Updated 9:11 PM EST, Wed March 8, 2023

Warmer temperatures in the Arctic are thawing the region’s permafrost — a frozen layer of soil beneath the ground — and potentially stirring viruses that, after lying dormant for tens of thousands of years, could endanger animal and human health.

While a pandemic unleashed by a disease from the distant past sounds like the plot of a sci-fi movie, scientists warn that the risks, though low, are underappreciated. Chemical and radioactive waste that dates back to the Cold War, which has the potential to harm wildlife and disrupt ecosystems, may also be released during thaws.

“There’s a lot going on with the permafrost that is of concern, and (it) really shows why it’s super important that we keep as much of the permafrost frozen as possible,” said Kimberley Miner, a climate scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

Permafrost covers a fifth of the Northern Hemisphere, having underpinned the Arctic tundra and boreal forests of Alaska, Canada and Russia for millennia. It serves as a kind of time capsule, preserving — in addition to ancient viruses — the mummified remains of a number of extinct animals that scientist have been able to unearth and study in recent years, including two cave lion cubs and a woolly rhino.

The reason permafrost is a good storage medium isn’t just because it’s cold; it’s an oxygen-free environment that light doesn’t penetrate. But current day Arctic temperatures are warming up to four times faster than the rest of the planet, weakening the top layer of permafrost in the region.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/08/worl ... index.html


Image
Credit: Jean-Michel Claverie/IGS/CNRS-AM
User avatar
ººº
Posts: 359
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2022 3:54 am

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by ººº »

wjfox wrote: Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:18 am Scientists have revived a ‘zombie’ virus that spent 48,500 years frozen in permafrost
Image
weatheriscool
Posts: 12961
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Scientists identify substance that may have sparked life on Earth
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-scientist ... earth.html
by Rutgers University
A team of Rutgers scientists dedicated to pinpointing the primordial origins of metabolism—a set of core chemical reactions that first powered life on Earth—has identified part of a protein that could provide scientists clues to detecting planets on the verge of producing life.

The research, published in Science Advances, has important implications in the search for extraterrestrial life because it gives researchers a new clue to look for, said Vikas Nanda, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM) at Rutgers.

Based on laboratory studies, Rutgers scientists say one of the most likely chemical candidates that kickstarted life was a simple peptide with two nickel atoms they are calling "Nickelback" not because it has anything to do with the Canadian rock band, but because its backbone nitrogen atoms bond two critical nickel atoms. A peptide is a constituent of a protein made up of a few elemental building blocks known as amino acids.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12961
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

New research to bring Brillouin microscopy closer to widespread use in diagnostic medicine
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-brillouin ... ostic.html
by Wayne State University
Diagnostic imaging offers physicians and scientists critical visual representations of internal body structures, greatly enhancing clinical analysis and medical intervention. Researchers continue to break new ground on how various imaging technologies can provide a better understanding of human health.

Jitao Zhang, assistant professor of biomedical engineering (BME) at Wayne State University and a scientific member of the Karmanos Cancer Institute's Molecular Imaging Program, is an award-winning researcher who holds three patents on a novel imaging technique called Brillouin microscopy that can map cell and tissue stiffness often associated with early signs of such diseases as cancer and Alzheimer's.

Different from conventional imaging methods such as confocal fluorescence microscopy, Brillouin microscopy can acquire the mechanical information (e.g., stiffness and viscosity) of biological samples in a non-contact and label-free manner.

His lab's work to improve this method, which can answer many important questions in biophysics and mechanobiology, was featured in The Guardian after being named by peers in the scientific community as one of the 10 biggest science stories of 2022.

Zhang and his collaborators from the University of Maryland—where Zhang spent six years in the Department of Bioengineering before joining Wayne State in 2021—and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently published a research article in Nature Methods examining the use of dual line-scanning Brillouin microscopy (dLSBM) to improve acquisition speed and reduce irradiation doses, two main limiting factors to the widespread use of this technique in biomedicine.

"Existing confocal Brillouin microscopy is fairly slow; it takes a few minutes to acquire one mechanical image of a single cell," said Zhang. "If we are imaging larger samples such as tumor cell clusters or early-stage embryo, we need to wait an hour or longer to obtain one image."

Using dLSBM, Zhang's team reported speeds of 50 to 100 times faster than its counterpart, while reducing the light irradiation level by 80 times for 2D and 3D mechanical mapping.

"With this innovation, we can acquire one mechanical image of cell clusters in a few minutes," he said. "This improved acquisition speed is important because it allows us to investigate details of cell behaviors in almost real time."
weatheriscool
Posts: 12961
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Researchers develop new technology to easily detect active TB
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03- ... ly-tb.html
by Wayne State University
A team of faculty from Wayne State University has discovered new technology that will quickly and easily detect active Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) infection antibodies. Their work, "Discovery of Novel Transketolase Epitopes and the Development of IgG-Based Tuberculosis Serodiagnostics," was published in a recent edition of Microbiology Spectrum.

The team is led by Lobelia Samavati, M.D., professor in the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics in the School of Medicine. Samavati was joined by Jaya Talreja, Ph.D, and Changya Peng, research scientists in Wayne State's Department of Internal Medicine.

TB remains a global health threat, with 10 million new cases and 1.7 million deaths annually. According to the latest World Health Organization report, TB is the 13th leading cause of death and the second leading infectious killer after COVID-19. Latent tuberculous infection (LTBI) is considered a reservoir for TB bacteria and subjects can progress to active TB. One-third of the world's population is infected with TB, and on average, 5 to 10% of those infected with LTBI will develop active TB disease over the course of their lives, usually within the first five years after initial infection.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12961
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Biology & Medicine News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Novo Nordisk to lower list price of some of its insulin by up to 75% in the U.S.
Source: NBC News
Novo Nordisk will lower the U.S. list price of some of its insulin products by up to 75%, the Danish drugmaker said Tuesday.

The change — which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2024 — follows a similar move by Eli Lilly, which said this month that it will lower the list price for several of its products, including Humalog, by 70% later this year.

But Eli Lilly also went a step further, immediately capping the out-of-pocket cost of all of its insulin products at $35 a month. President Joe Biden praised Eli Lilly at the time, calling on other insulin makers to follow suit.

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, along with the French drugmaker Sanofi, make up more than 90% of the insulin market in the United States. Following Eli Lilly’s announcement, experts had predicted that other insulin makers would also make changes.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... -rcna74836
Post Reply