Researchers at KI and SLU have discovered that spider silk proteins can be fused to biologically active proteins and be converted into a gel at body temperature. One of the goals is to develop an injectable protein solution that forms a gel inside the body, which could be used in tissue engineering and for drug release, but also make gels that can streamline chemical processes where enzymes are used. The study is published in Nature Communications.
"We have developed a completely new method for creating a three-dimensional gel from spider silk that can be designed to deliver different functional proteins," says Anna Rising, research group leader at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet (KI) and professor at the Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). "The proteins in the gel are very close together and the method is so mild that it can be used even for sensitive proteins."
Reduced calorie intake has been shown to improve health and lifespan in laboratory animals, and recent research shows these benefits may extend to humans as well.
In a new study, Yale researchers show that moderate calorie restriction in people reduces the production of a protein called SPARC, which then reins in harmful inflammation and improves health in the aged. It could be a target for extending human health span, they report Aug. 12 in the journal Immunity.
The study, led by Vishwa Deep Dixit, the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Pathology, professor of immunobiology and comparative medicine, and director of the Yale Center for Research on Aging, follows a study published earlier this year that identified key health benefits of moderate calorie reduction in humans.
In the new study, Dixit and his co-authors further analyzed data from a clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health. In the trial, known as Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy (CALERIE), some participants reduced their calorie intake by 14% for two years, while others ate as usual; researchers then tracked the long-term health effects.
F.D.A. Clears Path for Hearing Aids to be Sold Over the Counter
Source: New York Times
The Food and Drug Administration moved on Tuesday to make hearing aids available over the counter and without a prescription to adults, a long-sought wish of consumers frustrated by expensive exams and devices. As soon as mid-October, people with mild to moderate hearing loss should be able to buy hearing aids online and in retail stores, without being required to see a doctor for an exam to get a prescription.
The F.D.A. cited studies estimating that about 30 million Americans experience hearing loss, but only about one-fifth of them get help. The changes could upend the market, which is dominated by a relatively small number of manufacturers, and make it a broader field with less costly, and perhaps, more innovative designs. Current costs for hearing aids, which tend to include visits with an audiologist, range from about $1,400 at Costco to roughly $4,700 elsewhere.
“This could fundamentally change technology,” said Nicholas Reed, an audiologist at the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We don’t know what these companies might come up with. We may literally see new ways hearing aids work, how they look.” The F.D.A.’s final rule takes effect in 60 days. Industry representatives say device makers are largely ready to launch new products, though some may need time to update labeling and packaging or to comply with technical details in the rule.
Dr. Robert Califf, the F.D.A. commissioner, tweeted Tuesday that the rule tackles a “critical public health issue” that affects millions. Establishing this new regulatory category will allow people with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss to have convenient access to an array of safe, effective and affordable hearing aids from their neighborhood store or online,” he said. Hearing loss is associated with cognitive decline, depression, isolation and other health problems in older adults. Yet the barriers to getting hearing help have included costs that are not covered by Medicare. There is also stigma — such as appearing “old” — that comes with use.
Although many people with dietary allergies experience mild symptoms when exposed to triggering foods, some face potentially fatal consequences. A bacterial compound called butyrate that's made by healthy microbiomes has shown promise against allergic reactions in lab tests, but it's nasty to take orally. Today, scientists describe a more palatable way to deliver this compound and report that their "polymeric micelles" are effective against peanut allergies in mice. The treatment could someday counteract many types of food allergies and inflammatory diseases.
The researchers will present their results at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Some of the bacteria in the gut microbiome produce metabolites, such as butyrate, that foster the growth of beneficial bacteria and maintain the lining of the gut. If a person's microbiome is unhealthy and lacks these butyrate-producing bacteria, fragments of partially digested food can leak out of the gut and produce an immune reaction that results in an allergic response.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease that attacks organs and can be fatal. There's no cure, so current treatments aim to limit damage and ameliorate symptoms. Some of these therapies have to be injected, some have serious side effects, and many aren't very effective. But today, scientists report they have begun phase 2 clinical trials with a pill containing a compound that, in mice, not only prevents lupus-like symptoms, but also reverses signs of organ damage caused by the disease and prevents death.
The researchers will present their results at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
When fat accumulates in the liver, the immune system may assault the organ. A new study from Weill Cornell Medicine researchers identifies the molecule that trips these defenses, a discovery that helps to explain the dynamics underlying liver damage that can accompany type 2 diabetes and obesity.
In a study published Aug. 19 in Science Immunology, researchers mimicked these human metabolic diseases by genetically altering mice or feeding them a high-fat, high-sugar diet. They then examined changes within the arm of the rodent's immune system that mounts defenses tailored to specific threats. When misdirected back on the body, this immune response, which involves B and T cells, damages the organs and tissues it is meant to protect.
"For the longest time, people have been wondering how T and B cells learn to attack liver cells, which are under increased metabolic stress due to a high fat high sugar diet," said lead investigator Dr. Laura Santambrogio, who is a professor of radiation oncology and of physiology and biophysics, and associate director for precision immunology at the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. "We have identified one protein—probably the first of many—that is produced by stressed liver cells and then recognized by both B and T cells as a target."
A University of Toronto Engineering research team has created a new platform that delivers multiple therapeutic proteins to the body, each at its own independently controlled rate. The innovation could help treat degenerative diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss for people over 50.
Unlike traditional drugs made of small molecules, therapeutic proteins are synthetic versions of larger biomolecules naturally present in the body. One example is the synthetic insulin used to treat diabetes. There are other proteins that can modulate the body's own repair processes in ways that small-molecule drugs cannot.
"Proteins have great therapeutic potential, but they are notoriously difficult to deliver," says Professor Molly Shoichet (ChemE, BME, Donnelly), who led the team. "For more than a decade, our group has been coming up with different ways to solve that fundamental problem."
One challenge is that proteins are less chemically stable than small molecules, making them vulnerable to damage from physical forces or interactions with solvents and other chemicals. Another challenge is getting them to the location where they are needed.
World-first immunizations providing protection against deadly respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) could be just months away thanks to global research efforts spanning multiple decades.
The latest research published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases has revealed a long-lasting monoclonal antibody treatment for babies is likely to be accessible on the market within 12 months, followed closely by the approval of a maternal vaccine given in pregnancy to provide newborns with protection against the virus.
Responsible for more than 100,000 deaths and 3.6 million hospitalizations in children each year, RSV infects the airways and lungs and is a key contributor to the global mortality burden due to life-threatening complications such as bronchiolitis and pneumonia.
Professor Peter Richmond, Head of the Vaccine Trials Group at the Wesfarmers Center of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, based at the Telethon Kids Institute, Head of Pediatrics at The University of Western Australia and Perth Children's Hospital Pediatrician, said researchers are now completing the final stages of development for numerous preventative antibody treatments and RSV vaccines.
A new class of motorized molecules that kill specific bacteria shows promise to curb the threat of antibiotic resistance to human health.
Rice University scientists led a team developing light-activated hemithioindigo (HTI) molecules that destroy Gram-positive bacteria and the biofilms they form. The molecules do so by enhancing the local generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that chemically attack and destroy drug-resistant cells.
The new molecules differ from, and are complementary to, others created at Rice that are also activated by light but drill into cell membranes to kill them.
Like the drills based on Nobel Prize-winning work by Bernard Feringa, the HTI-based molecules are activated by visible light rather than harmful ultraviolet radiation.
Both are products of Rice chemist James Tour and his colleagues. Rice alumni Ana Santos, a postdoctoral global fellow at the Health Research Institute of the Balearic Islands in Palma, Spain, and Alexis van Venrooy, now a senior scientist at Genesis Therapeutics, San Diego, are co-lead authors of the new study in Advanced Science.
A new universal flu vaccine protects against diverse variants of both influenza A and B viruses in mice, according to a new study by researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.
The researchers designed a single, universal influenza vaccine candidate with key cross-protective, less variable parts of the influenza A and B viruses: multi-neuraminidase protein subtypes known to be major antiviral drug targets and the universally conserved M2 ectodomain protein.
The findings, published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, report that mice vaccinated with an immune stimulating virus-like particle displaying multiple neuraminidase subtypes and conserved M2 portions of antigens (foreign proteins that induce immune responses) were protected against influenza A seasonal variants and pandemic potential viruses (H1N1, H5N1, H3N2, H9N2 and H7N9) and influenza B (Yamagata and Victoria lineage) viruses containing substantial antigenic variations.
More than 40 years into the HIV pandemic, scientists are shedding new light on how defenses are mounted against the virus, discoveries that may eventually lead to a neutralizing antibody that stops the virus before it becomes an immune-crippling menace.
In a series of new experiments, researchers at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University in Boston, have deciphered how a subclass of broadly protective anti-HIV antibodies guards against infection. The discovery may one day inform efforts to treat or prevent HIV transmission with antibody-based therapies.
Writing in Science Translational Medicine, scientists at the institute, collaborating with teams at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, report that a subclass of IgG antibodies work aggressively to target conserved regions of the HIV envelope protein. This allows the antibodies to block viral entry and drive immune responses against infected cells.
"HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies are capable of both blocking viral entry and driving innate immune responses against HIV-infected cells," writes Dr. Jacqueline M. Brady and colleagues, who underscore that the subclass of antibodies trigger the explosive activities of the innate immune system.
More than 40 years into the HIV pandemic, scientists are shedding new light on how defenses are mounted against the virus, discoveries that may eventually lead to a neutralizing antibody that stops the virus before it becomes an immune-crippling menace.
In a series of new experiments, researchers at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University in Boston, have deciphered how a subclass of broadly protective anti-HIV antibodies guards against infection. The discovery may one day inform efforts to treat or prevent HIV transmission with antibody-based therapies.
Writing in Science Translational Medicine, scientists at the institute, collaborating with teams at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, report that a subclass of IgG antibodies work aggressively to target conserved regions of the HIV envelope protein. This allows the antibodies to block viral entry and drive immune responses against infected cells.
"HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies are capable of both blocking viral entry and driving innate immune responses against HIV-infected cells," writes Dr. Jacqueline M. Brady and colleagues, who underscore that the subclass of antibodies trigger the explosive activities of the innate immune system.
As someone who works in HIV research and HIV vaccine development, these kinds of antibodies are not new. There are several broadly neutralizing antibodies that are well-categorized and understood and we can produce them readily. The problem is designing vaccines that can reliably induce these broadly-neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), and there are several very difficult barriers to overcome in doing this.
We're making steady progress, but there's still a long way to go.
An estimated 5 to 10% of blindness worldwide is caused by the rare inflammatory eye disease uveitis. Posterior uveitis in particular is often associated with severe disease progression and the need for immunosuppressive therapy. In posterior uveitis, inflammation occurs in the retina and in the underlying choroid that supplies it with nutrients. Researchers at the Ophthalmology Department at the University of Bonn have tested color-coded fundus autofluorescence as a supportive novel diagnostic method. Fluorescence of the retina can be used to infer the uveitis subtype. This is an essential prerequisite for accurate diagnosis and treatment of the disease. The results have now been published in Scientific Reports.
Blurred vision, floaters and unusual light perception—those affected by the rare disease posterior uveitis feel no pain. "But the consequences can be severe: About five to ten percent of blindness worldwide is caused by uveitis. Uveitis is a rare disease, but posterior uveitis in particular potentially has a poor prognosis and often requires immunosuppressive therapy," explains Dr. Maximilian Wintergerst of the Ophthalmology Department at the University of Bonn. There are different forms of the disease. In posterior uveitis, the retina or choroid in the eye becomes inflamed. While the retina converts the incident light into nerve impulses, the choroid supplies the outer layers of the retina with nutrients.
The skin is one of the largest and most accessible organs in the human body, but penetrating its deep layers for medicinal and cosmetic treatments still eludes science.
Although there are some remedies—such as nicotine patches to stop smoking—administered through the skin, this method of treatment is rare since the particles that penetrate must be no larger than 100 nanometers. Creating effective tools using such tiny particles is a great challenge. Because the particles are so small and difficult to see, it is equally challenging to determine their exact location inside the body—information necessary to ensure that they reach intended target tissue. Today such information is obtained through invasive, often painful, biopsies.
A novel approach, developed by researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, provides an innovative solution to overcoming both of these challenges. Combining techniques in nanotechnology and optics, they produced tiny (nanometric) diamond particles so small that they are capable of penetrating skin to deliver medicinal and cosmetic remedies. In addition, they created a safe, laser-based optical method that quantifies nanodiamond penetration into the various layers of the skin and determines their location and concentration within body tissue in a non-invasive manner—eliminating the need for a biopsy.
This innovation was just published by researchers from the University's Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, in cooperation with the Kofkin Faculty of Engineering and Department of Chemistry, in the scientific journal ACS Nano.
Southwest Research Institute has developed an efficient, fully synthetic method to produce scopolamine, a plant-derived compound used to prevent nausea and vomiting from motion sickness and anesthesia. The accomplishment marks the first time SwRI has fully synthesized a drug compound that is naturally derived from plants.
The anti-nausea medication scopolamine is made from plants in the nightshade family and from the corkwood tree native to Australia. Although these plants are toxic, extracts have been used for centuries in herbal medicine. Today, scopolamine is delivered using transdermal patches placed on the skin and intravenously during surgery to prevent nausea. These compounds currently are derived from natural resources and depend on the success of medicinal crops.
"Half of all drugs are derived from natural compounds," said Dr. Shawn Blumberg, a senior research scientist in SwRI's Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division. "Wildfires, inclement weather, pests, plant diseases and even climate change can significantly decrease crop yields, affecting the availability and price of plant-based medicines. Developing a fully synthetic version of scopolamine decreases our reliance on medicinal crops and will increase availability, allowing us to investigate other uses."
Seven years ago, the 1000 Genomes Project (1kGP) published an open-access resource based primarily on low-coverage whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data of 2,504 individuals from 26 populations representing five continental regions of the world, making it the first large-scale WGS effort to deliver a catalog of human genetic variation.
Now, researchers at the New York Genome Center (NYGC), in collaboration with groups at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Yale University, and Human Genome Structural Variation Consortium (HGSVC), have expanded the 1kGP resource to include nearly all parent-child trios in the collection, alongside the original samples, and sequenced them at high coverage using Illumina NovaSeq instruments. The study, published in Cell, presents comprehensive analyses of the high-coverage WGS data on the expanded 1kGP cohort which now consists of 3,202 samples, including 602 trios.
"The 1000 Genomes Project cohort is such a valuable resource, we felt it would be useful to the community to bring the sequencing up to date with the latest version of short-read technology while adding in the richness of the previously omitted family samples," explained Michael Zody, Ph.D., Scientific Director of Computational Biology at the NYGC, and the study's senior author.
A new biosensor capable of accurately monitoring the condition of a chronic wound has been developed by a team at Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Wounds represent a burgeoning health care issue affecting thousands of patients in all health and social care settings, leading to a spiraling expenditure on an already overloaded health system.
One of the most urgent needs in wound management is the development of systems that allow clinicians to identify the early progression or deterioration of wounds.
The team of engineers and clinical academics at NTU and NUH says the aim is for the technology to be embedded into dressings so that they do not need to be continually removed and replaced to assess how a wound is healing.
They say that in time the technology—a textile-based printed protein sensor—could help to reduce the risk of patients becoming seriously ill, prevent amputation, and save time and money.
What if emergency medical personnel could treat a desperately ill patient in need of oxygen with a simple injection instead of having to rely on mechanical ventilation or rush to get them onto a heart-lung bypass machine?
A new approach to transporting gases using a class of materials called porous liquids represents a big step toward artificial oxygen carriers and demonstrates the immense biomedical potential of these unusual fluids.
In a study published last month in Nature, a team of scientists in Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology detail a new approach to transporting gases in aqueous environments using porous liquids. The authors identified and tailored multiple porous frameworks that can store much higher concentrations of gases, including oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2), than normal aqueous solutions. This breakthrough may hold the key to creating injectable sources of oxygen as a bridge therapy for cardiac arrest, creating artificial blood substitutes, and overcoming longstanding challenges in preserving organs for transplants.
Due to their high efficacy, opioids are used widely for the management of neuropathic pain, despite the increasing rates of opioid addiction and deaths due to overdose. To avoid these side effects, there is an urgent need for pain management approaches that can substitute opioid use.
It is well known that cold temperatures numb the sensation in our nerves. Evidence suggests that cooling peripheral nerves can in fact reduce the velocity and amplitude of neural signals that cause pain, leading to pain relief. What's great about this approach is that if made possible, it will be completely reversible and non-addictive.
To this end, a team of researchers led by Professor Min-Ho Seo from Pusan National University developed a soft, bioresorbable, implantable device with the potential to cool peripheral nerves in a minimally invasive, focused manner. "Scientists already knew that low temperatures could numb the nerves in the body. But demonstrating this phenomenon with a small device at a clinical level was not an easy task," said Prof. Seo while discussing the study, which was published in Science on June 30, 2022.
To develop the device, the team designed a microfluidics system formed with a bioresorbable material—poly(octanediol citrate)—with interconnects carrying a liquid coolant to a serpentine chamber. To top it off, a Magnesium temperature sensor for real-time temperature monitoring was incorporated at its distal end. The intensity and localization of the cooling effect was regulated by perfluoro pentane (PFP) and dry nitrogen gas (N2)—the two components of the liquid coolant, as well as the geometry of the serpentine chamber.
