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Category: biotech/medical – Page 67
Deadly bacteria have developed the ability to produce antimicrobials and wipe out competitors, scientists discover
Posted in biotech/medical, computing, genetics, health, information science | Leave a Comment on Deadly bacteria have developed the ability to produce antimicrobials and wipe out competitors, scientists discover
A drug-resistant type of bacteria that has adapted to health care settings evolved in the past several years to weaponize an antimicrobial genetic tool, eliminating its cousins and replacing them as the dominant strain. University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists made the discovery when combing through local hospital data—and then confirmed that it was a global phenomenon.
The finding, published in Nature Microbiology, may be the impetus for new approaches in developing therapeutics against some of the world’s deadliest bacteria. It also validates a new use for a system developed at Pitt and UPMC that couples genomic sequencing with computer algorithms to rapidly detect infectious disease outbreaks.
“Our lab has a front row seat to the parade of pathogens that move through the hospital setting,” said senior author Daria Van Tyne, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine in Pitt’s Division of Infectious Diseases. “And when we took a step back and zoomed out, it quickly became apparent that big changes were afoot with one of the world’s more difficult-to-treat bacteria.”
Artificial intelligence in various forms has been used in medicine for decades — but not like this. Experts predict that the adoption of large language models will reshape medicine. Some compare the potential impact with the decoding of the human genome, even the rise of the internet. The impact is expected to show up in doctor-patient interactions, physicians’ paperwork load, hospital and physician practice administration, medical research, and medical education.
Most of these effects are likely to be positive, increasing efficiency, reducing mistakes, easing the nationwide crunch in primary care, bringing data to bear more fully on decision-making, reducing administrative burdens, and creating space for longer, deeper person-to-person interactions.
Paralyzed patients in China regained mobility within 24 hours of groundbreaking brain-spinal implant surgery.
Extracellular vesicles can be designed to serve as delivery platforms for gene therapy. This Review discusses the application and engineering of extracellular vesicles for different gene-therapy modalities, outlining crucial steps to advance this technology into the clinic.
Sleep is known to contribute to the healthy functioning of the brain and the consolidation of memories. Past psychology research specifically highlighted its role in retaining episodic memories, which are memories of specific events or experiences.
Researchers at Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, University of Toronto and other institutes recently carried out a study to better understand the extent to which sleep transforms how we remember real-world experiences over time and what processes could underpin this transformation. Their findings, published in Nature Human Behaviour, suggest that sleep actively and selectively improves the accuracy with which we remember one-time real-world experiences.
“My lab studies real-life memory such as the memory of events that occur as part of daily experiences,” Brian Levine, senior author of the paper, told Medical Xpress. “We are interested in how these memories are transformed over time and why some elements are remembered while others are forgotten. This is hard to do with naturalistic events in peoples’ lives where we have no control over what happened. So we set up the Baycrest Tour as a controlled but naturalistic event that we could use to test memory.”
Researchers will soon be able to study biological changes at scales and speeds not previously possible to significantly expand knowledge in areas such as disease progression and drug delivery.
Physicists at The University of Queensland have used “tweezers made from light” to measure activity within microscopic systems over timeframes as short as milliseconds. Professor Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop from UQ’s School of Mathematics and Physics said the method could help biologists understand what was happening within single living cells.
“For example, they will be able to look at how a cell is dividing, how it responds to outside stimuli, or even how chemical reactions affect cell properties,” Professor Rubinsztein-Dunlop said.
A new imaging technique is helping ultra-powerful MRI scanners detect tiny differences in the brains of patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy. In a groundbreaking study, doctors at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge used this approach to identify hidden brain lesions, allowing them to offer patients surgery that could cure their condition.
7T MRI scanners, named for their use of a 7 Tesla magnetic field, which is more than twice as strong as the 3T scanners commonly used, have previously struggled with signal blackspots in key areas of the brain. However, researchers from Cambridge and Paris have developed a technique that overcomes this issue, as detailed in a study published today (March 21) in Epilepsia.
The challenge of treating focal epilepsy.
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Astrocyte-to-neuron H2O2 signalling supports long-term memory formation in Drosophila and is impaired in an Alzheimer’s disease model
Posted in biotech/medical, neuroscience | Leave a Comment on Astrocyte-to-neuron H2O2 signalling supports long-term memory formation in Drosophila and is impaired in an Alzheimer’s disease model
Rabah et al. discover an astrocyte-to-neuron hydrogen peroxide signalling cascade, which is crucial for long-term memory formation in Drosophila. This signalling is found to be inhibited by amyloid-β peptide, suggesting a link to Alzheimer’s disease.