Lifeboat Foundation

Anuva Kakkar, the 23-year-old entrepreneur behind Tiggle, an Agra-based D2C organic hot chocolate brand, has come a long way in a very short period despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. From selling cups of hot chocolate to commuters outside the DLF Phase-3 metro station in Gurugram to starting her brand of hot chocolate powder and selling over 2 lakh cups through 2021, it has been a mercurial rise.

Made of premium cocoa sourced from a 40-acre family-owned certified organic farm near Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, Tiggle today sells three ‘premium’ varieties of hot chocolate powder — Light Hot Chocolate Mix, Dark Hot Chocolate Mix and Jaggery Hot Chocolate Mix. So, how did this entrepreneur from Agra set up her venture in such a challenging time for commerce?

Many cancer cells carry too many or too few chromosomes, a condition known as aneuploidy. Scientists have known this for a very long time, but the impact of aneuploidy has been unclear. Researchers recently developed a computational tool that analyzed cells from thousands of cancer patients. This effort identified critical regions of chromosomes that can be harmful or beneficial to tumor cells when they are deleted or duplicated. The findings have been reported in Nature.

In this study, the investigators developed a method called BISCUT (Breakpoint Identification of Significant Cancer Undiscovered Targets), which located where major changes start and end in chromosomes. Regions that were often found were more likely to help cancer cells survive while less commonly found regions were associated with a lack of cancer cell growth or their death. For example, one-third of all cancer cells in The Cancer Cell Genome Atlas lack one arm of chromosome 8.

Dr. Ralph W. Moss and son Ben discuss the science behind the health benefits of chocolate and how this delightful indulgence, often considered a guilty pleasure, can play a vital role in our overall well being.

Program Notes:
For more information on cancer-fighting foods and supplements, please visit our website: https://www.themossreport.com.

Continue reading “Chocolate & Cancer — Can This ‘Food of the Gods’ Reduce Mortality? Unwrapping the Bittersweet Truth” »

Restoring And Extending The Capabilities Of The Human Brain — Dr. Behnaam Aazhang, Ph.D. — Director, Rice Neuroengineering Initiative, Rice University

Dr. Behnaam Aazhang, Ph.D. (https://aaz.rice.edu/) is the J.S. Abercrombie Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Director, Rice Neuroengineering Initiative (NEI — https://neuroengineering.rice.edu/), Rice University, where he has broad research interests including signal and data processing, information theory, dynamical systems, and their applications to neuro-engineering, with focus areas in (i) understanding neuronal circuits connectivity and the impact of learning on connectivity, (ii) developing minimally invasive and non-invasive real-time closed-loop stimulation of neuronal systems to mitigate disorders such as epilepsy, Parkinson, depression, obesity, and mild traumatic brain injury, (iii) developing a patient-specific multisite wireless monitoring and pacing system with temporal and spatial precision to restore the healthy function of a diseased heart, and (iv) developing algorithms to detect, predict, and prevent security breaches in cloud computing and storage systems.

Continue reading “Dr. Behnaam Aazhang, Ph.D. — Director, Rice Neuroengineering Initiative (NEI), Rice University” »

New X-ray capability could find wide application in environmental and medical research, as well as the development of batteries and microelectronic devices.

Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory and various universities have successfully used X-ray beams to analyze a single atom.

An atom is the smallest component of an element. It is made up of protons and neutrons within the nucleus, and electrons circling the nucleus.

In a groundbreaking study published in Cell Genomics, a team of scientists led by Chris Walsh from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital has unveiled intriguing findings about the genetic factors contributing to schizophrenia and introduces a novel avenue for investigating the causes of psychiatric disorders.

Health care professionals are overcoming these obstacles with a new treatment called hepatic artery infusion pump chemotherapy that shrinks liver tumors, giving more people a chance for surgery. This treatment also can shrink tumors in the bile ducts inside the liver, called intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.

“Our goal is to expand the number of patients who could be offered curative treatment,” says Dr. Thiels. “We are also aiming to reduce the risk of cancer recurring in people with high-risk liver tumors.”

Continue reading “Colorectal cancer in the liver: New treatment gives more people hope for a cure” »

A study conducted by researchers from the Department of Neurology at MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna has demonstrated for the first time that the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) can be significantly improved by additionally measuring the thickness of retinal layers in the eye.

Use of the procedure, which is already available at the Departments of MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna, helps to detect the condition at an earlier stage and predict its progression more accurately. This can lead to a decisive increase in the chance of improved patient outcomes. The findings have been published in the journal Neurology.

As part of their investigation, the research team headed by Gabriel Bsteh and Thomas Berger of the Department of Neurology at MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna collaborated with colleagues from MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna’s Department of Ophthalmology and Optometrics to examine 267 MS patients over a period of five years.

In a recent article published in Nature communications*, researchers described a technique of capturing two-dimensional (2D) light patterns into deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and using high-throughput next-generation sequencing to retrieve recorded images.

Study: A biological camera that captures and stores images directly into DNA. Image Credit: BillionPhotos/Shutterstock.com.