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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,301

New Therapy Found to Prevent Aggressive Brain Cancer Recurrence in Mice

A new gel-based treatment for glioblastoma—a highly aggressive form of brain cancer—has shown to be 100% effective at preventing recurrence in mice. Researchers hope the therapy will translate well into human physiology, where it could help resolve tens of thousands of cancer diagnoses every year.

Glioblastoma manifests as a tumor growing on the brain or spinal cord. While many glioblastoma patients have the tumor surgically removed, the mass often returns, even in cases involving post-surgical radiation or chemotherapy. The disease is so persistent that the average patient lives only 12 to 16 months after diagnosis, making glioblastoma one of the most lethal forms of cancer currently understood.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are working to improve patients’ life expectancies using an injectable gel that blocks cancer’s path. According to a paper published Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the gel is made up of nano-sized filaments derived from the drug paclitaxel, which is used alongside chemotherapy to treat other forms of cancer. The gel serves as a vehicle for aCD47, an antibody that prompts macrophages to ingest tumor cells.

High rate of concurrent retinal non perfusion encountered in Pediatric patients with optic nerve hypoplasia

A new study published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology suggests that there seems to be a significant rate of concomitant retinal nonperfusion in pediatric optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH) patients.

This study was carried out by Natasha da Cruz and colleagues to report the correlation between peripheral retinal nonperfusion, secondary problems, and optic nerve hypoplasia in pediatric patients.

The Bascom Palmer Eye Institute conducted the Retrospective case series investigation between January 2015 and January 2022. Age under 18 years old, a clinical diagnosis of optic disc hypoplasia, and an acceptable-quality FA were the inclusion criteria.

Study suggests that maintaining normal vitamin D levels may benefit patients with advanced skin cancer

New research indicates that for patients with advanced skin cancer, it may be important to maintain normal vitamin D levels when receiving immunotherapy medications called immune checkpoint inhibitors. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

Vitamin D has many effects on the body, including regulation of the immune system. To see whether levels of vitamin D might impact the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors, investigators analyzed the blood of 200 patients with advanced melanoma both before and every 12 weeks during immunotherapy treatment.

A favorable response rate to immune checkpoint inhibitors was observed in 56.0% of patients in the group with normal baseline vitamin D levels or normal levels obtained with vitamin D supplementation, compared with 36.2% in the group with low vitamin D levels without supplementation. Progression‐free survival—the time from treatment initiation until —in these groups was 11.25 and 5.75 months, respectively.

Researchers discover a novel genetic disorder associated with neurodevelopmental differences

Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Princeton University have discovered a novel genetic disorder associated with neurodevelopmental differences. The discovery identified the disorder in 21 families from all over the world. The study “Abrogation of MAP4K4 protein function causes congenital anomalies in humans and zebrafish” is published in Science Advances today, April 26.

The as-yet unnamed disorder is the result of a series of rare variants in the MAP4K4 gene, which is involved in many signaling pathways, including the RAS pathway that normal cell growth, and is being investigated as druggable target for multiple disorders.

The researchers had documented several patients with craniofacial and neurodevelopmental issues that indicated a then-unknown genetic cause. They put out an international call for patients who seemed to fit these specific criteria. Ultimately, they were able to identify patients from 36 countries to determine whether there was a genetic linking them to their clinical issues.

First Babies Born After Being Conceived By Robot

A Spanish startup has built a sperm-injecting robot that can be controlled using a PlayStation controller. The team successfully used it to fertilize human eggs, eventually resulting in the birth of two healthy babies.

As MIT Technology Review reports, one of the engineers working on the world’s first insemination robot didn’t have all that much experience in the field of fertility medicine — which was where the PlayStation 5 controller came into, well, play.

Using the controller, a student engineer from startup Overture Life [name after descriptor] steered a tiny, mechanized in-vitro fertilization (IVF) needle to deposit single sperm cells into human eggs more than a dozen times.

Polybot: AI and robotics unite to revolutionize polymer electronics research

A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory has developed a new scientific tool called Polybot that combines artificial intelligence with robotics. This tool is set to revolutionize polymer electronics research by speeding up the discovery process of materials with multiple applications, from wearable biomedical devices to better batteries, according to a release.

Polymer electronics are the future of flexible electronics. They are efficient and sustainable, used to monitor health and treat certain diseases, among other things. However, the current methods used to prepare these polymers for electronics can take years of intense labor. To achieve targeted performance, there are an overwhelming number of potential tweaks, from spiking the fabrication recipe with different formulations to varying the processing conditions.

Alzheimer’s Proteins Reduced by Sleep Drug

Suvorexant (Belsomra), a dual orexin receptor antagonist approved for insomnia, reduced levels of tau phosphorylation and amyloid beta, a small clinical trialopens in a new tab or window showed.

The ratio of phosphorylated tau-threonine-181 (p-tau-181) to unphosphorylated tau-threonine-181 decreased 10% to 15% in cognitively normal adults treated with suvorexant 20 mg compared with placebo, reported Brendan Lucey, MD, MSCI, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and co-authors.

Amyloid-beta levels fell 10% to 20% compared with placebo starting 5 hours after suvorexant administration, the researchers wrote in Annals of Neurologyopens in a new tab or window.

— Both amyloid and tau levels fell in early trial.

Warning: Common Synthetic Chemicals Disrupt Key Biological Processes — Linked to a Diverse Array of Diseases

Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have discovered that being exposed to a mixture of synthetic chemicals commonly present in the environment affects multiple crucial biological processes in both children and young adults. These processes include the metabolism of fats and amino acids.

<div class=””> <div class=””><br />Amino acids are a set of organic compounds used to build proteins. There are about 500 naturally occurring known amino acids, though only 20 appear in the genetic code. Proteins consist of one or more chains of amino acids called polypeptides. The sequence of the amino acid chain causes the polypeptide to fold into a shape that is biologically active. The amino acid sequences of proteins are encoded in the genes. Nine proteinogenic amino acids are called “essential” for humans because they cannot be produced from other compounds by the human body and so must be taken in as food.<br /></div> </div>

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