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Category: biotech/medical – Page 38

Rare side effects of antipsychotic medications provide new evidence for safer global prescribing

Patients with severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, often require long-term use of antipsychotic medications. Some of these drugs, however, can pose potential risks, such as elevated prolactin levels and compromised immune function. Previous studies have relied mostly on small or single-center data, making it difficult to accurately assess the true incidence of rare adverse effects.

Researchers from the LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), through multidisciplinary collaboration and rigorous epidemiological methods, leveraged territory-wide data from the Hospital Authority to conduct two internationally impactful studies. The findings were published in the journals World Psychiatry and The Lancet Psychiatry. These discoveries provide solid evidence for drug regulation and and establish Hong Kong as a global leader in big data research on psychiatric safety.

Protein-based gel restores dental enamel and could advance tooth repair

Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, in collaboration with an international team of researchers, have developed a bio-inspired material that has the potential to regenerate demineralized or eroded enamel, strengthen healthy enamel, and prevent future decay. The findings have been published in Nature Communications.

The gel can be rapidly applied to teeth in the same way dentists currently apply standard fluoride treatments. However, this new protein-based gel is fluoride free and works by mimicking key features of the natural proteins that guide the growth of dental enamel in infancy.

When applied, the gel creates a thin and robust layer that impregnates teeth, filling holes and cracks in them. It then functions as a scaffold that takes calcium and phosphate ions from saliva and promotes the controlled growth of new mineral in a process called epitaxial mineralization. This enables the new mineral to be organized and integrated into the underlying natural tissue while recovering both the structure and properties of natural healthy enamel.

‘Young’ Immune Cells Partly Reverse Alzheimer’s Symptoms in Mice

Specially engineered ‘young’ immune cells could help to reverse the effects of aging and the damage to brain cells caused by diseases such as Alzheimer’s, according to a new study in mice.

In their natural state, these immune cells are known as mononuclear phagocytes, and they flow around the body, cleaning up waste.

As we get older, however, these immune-cell cleaners get a bit sloppy, clearing away less cellular debris and triggering more inflammation than before. Inflammation and protein aggregation are features of many age-related diseases, including Alzheimer’s.

Women better protected against early neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease

A large international study involving nearly 700 participants reveals that women with a precursor condition to Parkinson’s disease show significantly less brain atrophy—decreased cortical thickness in the brain—than men, despite similar clinical severity. This discovery, published in the journal Nature Communications, could lead scientists to explore the role that hormones might play in treating the disease.

Isolated REM sleep behavior disorder is characterized by violent movements during sleep, where people literally “act out” their dreams. Far from being harmless, this disorder is the most reliable early warning sign of neurodegenerative diseases caused by the accumulation of a toxic protein in the brain: more than 70% of affected individuals will eventually develop Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia, or, more rarely, multiple system atrophy (a disease affecting multiple body systems).

“This sleep disorder offers a unique window of opportunity to study the mechanisms of neurodegeneration before major motor or cognitive symptoms appear,” explains the leader of this study.

The Future of Aging: How Science Could Prevent You From Growing Old

Most people accept aging as inevitable. Aubrey de Grey refuses to.

In this episode, the world’s most recognized longevity scientist breaks down why aging is a solvable engineering problem — not a mystery of biology.

Aubrey shares the moments that shaped his mission to defeat death, the science behind “longevity escape velocity”, and how AI breakthroughs like AlphaFold are accelerating humanity’s fight against aging.

He also reveals what he actually does to stay biologically younger at 62 — from cutting-edge diagnostics to his take on rapamycin, plasma exchange, GLP-1s, and Brian Johnson’s Blueprint.

If you’re a founder, technologist, or anyone fascinated by the future of the human body — this conversation will completely reframe how you think about aging, biology, and time itself.

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AI-guided enzyme discovery enables 98.6% breakdown of polyurethane foam in hours

As the use of AI spreads through every industry and becomes more of a part of our lives every day, researchers are also looking into ways it can be used to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. One of these problems is the world’s reliance on plastics for making everything from clothing to medical supplies to food wrappers, which is creating a massive amount of non-biodegradable waste—with more and more piling on every day. Much of this ends up wreaking havoc on various ecosystems and creating an overabundance of microplastics that end up in our food and water supplies.

Clearly, there is a need for recycling these materials. However, plastics remain one of the most difficult materials to recycle efficiently. But now, a team of researchers might have found a way to facilitate the process with the help of AI. Their study, published in Science, details how a helped them find enzymes that can break down plastics faster and more efficiently than any they’ve found on their own.

Automated chloroplast screening platform speeds up crop trait development

Chloroplasts—the “light power plants” of plant cells—are increasingly the focus of synthetic biology. These organelles house the photosynthetic apparatus and host several metabolic pathways that are of great interest for engineering new traits. Gene insertion into chloroplasts is precise and carries a lower risk of transgene escape.

Despite this potential, chloroplast biotechnology remains in its infancy because standardized, scalable methods for rapid testing of diverse genetic parts have been missing. A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg has now presented a micro‑algal platform that allows automated, fast, and large‑scale testing of chloroplast genetic modifications.

The study is published in the journal Nature Plants.

CERN’s electrostatic trap ‘recycles’ anions to illuminate the heaviest elements

From the burning of wood to the action of medicines, the properties and behavior of matter are governed by the way chemical elements bond with one another. For many of the 118 known elements, the intricate electronic structures of the atoms that are responsible for chemical bonding are well understood. But for the superheavy elements lying at the far edge of the periodic table, measuring even a single property of these exotic species is a major challenge.

In a new paper published in Nature Communications, a team of researchers working at the ISOLDE facility at CERN report a novel technique that could help unlock the chemistry of (super)heavy elements and has potential applications in fundamental physics research and medical treatments.

Superheavy elements are highly unstable and can only be produced in accelerator laboratories in minute amounts. This is why researchers tend to first perfect their techniques on elements that are stable and lighter.

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