Curated News: National Institutes of Health (NIH)

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Researchers and clinicians have been trying to find a way to diagnose nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) without taking a liver tissue biopsy, but according to new research, formulas that aim to predict NASH based on risk factors do not agree with each other and their accuracy varies. The study was accepted for presentation at ENDO 2020, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, and publication in a special supplemental section of the Journal of the Endocrine Society.

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A team of scientists, including Case Western Reserve University chemistry Professor Blanton Tolbert and his research lab, are conducting the underlying research to develop an antiviral to slow the spread of novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

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During the fundamental process of mitosis, a type of cell division, dividing cells sometimes make errors while divvying up chromosomes. Understanding how this happens may help researchers develop targeted therapies for a variety of diseases, including cancer.

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Researchers in the cancer nanomedicine community debate whether use of tiny structures, called nanoparticles, can best deliver drug therapy to tumors passively — allowing the nanoparticles to diffuse into tumors and become held in place, or actively — adding a targeted anti-cancer molecule to bind to specific cancer cell receptors and, in theory, keep the nanoparticle in the tumor longer. Now, new research on human and mouse tumors in mice by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center suggests the question is even more complicated.

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With an estimated 1.7 million new cases and 600,000 deaths during 2017 in the U.S. alone, cancer remains a critical healthcare challenge. Researchers used the Comet supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to evaluate their new molecular docking tool which aims to improve immunotherapy outcomes by identifying more effective personalized treatments.

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Researchers at four University of California Health medical centers have begun recruiting participants for a Phase II clinical trial to investigate the safety and efficacy of treating adult patients with COVID-19 with remdesivir, a drug that has shown promising activity against multiple viruses.

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Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIH, flew to Birmingham on Thursday, March 5, to start a long-anticipated visit to UAB. Collins soon learned he had a problem back home. Maryland public health officials were reporting the first two cases of COVID-19 in the county where the NIH sits.

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People who tend to recognize similarities between people they know and people depicted in the media are more likely to believe common myths about sexual assault, according to a new study co-led by a Cornell researcher.

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Expressive language sampling yielded five language-related outcome measures that may be useful for treatment studies in intellectual disabilities, especially fragile X syndrome. The measures were generally valid and reliable across the range of ages, IQs and autism symptom severity of participants. According to the study, led by UC Davis researchers and funded by NIH, the measures are also functional in supporting treatments that can improve language, providing far reaching benefits for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

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Initial studies with COVID-19 coronavirus aim to replicate prior successful preclinical experiments of LEAPS against H1N1pandemic flu in mice conducted with National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

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A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that the age of certain immune cells used in immunotherapy plays a role in how effective it is. These cells — natural killer (NK) cells — appear to be more effective the earlier they are in development, opening the door to the possibility of an immunotherapy that would not utilize cells from the patient or a matched donor. Instead, they could be developed from existing supplies of what are called human pluripotent stem cells.

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While a huge focus is on health and mortality during the coronavirus outbreak, not to be forgotten are those who are grappling with death from natural causes, diseases, accidents and crime. Funerals and visitations are the customary means of support friends and loved ones — but restricted travel and social distancing poses challenges.

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Lipid droplets, membrane-bound packages of lipids, have been one of our cells’ least studied components. But recently, more scientists have begun probing the mysteries that surround them and finding fascinating results. James Olzmann, Ph.D., discusses how a protein on the surface of lipid droplets could be targeted to help treat cancer.

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In the 1960s, public health officials led the U.S. and worldwide efforts that resulted in smallpox becoming the first human disease ever eradicated from the face of the earth. FAU researchers and collaborators discuss the urgent need for public health leadership in the wake of the emerging coronavirus pandemic.

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In the review published in the journal European Urology Oncology, researchers compiled the results of 22 different studies that analyzed the urine of people who used e-cigarettes or other tobacco products, including cigarettes, to check for evidence of cancer-linked compounds or biomarkers of those compounds. They found six biomarkers or compounds with a strong link to bladder cancer.

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Research from investigators at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey shows that a cellular process known as autophagy promotes survival in mouse models by suppressing oxidative stress and a tumor suppressor known as p53.

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New study finds gene therapy improved cardiac, muscle and liver function in Danon disease mouse models.

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New Cornell research explains some of these functions through a computer algorithm inspired by the mammalian olfactory system. The algorithm both sheds light on how the brain works and, applied to a computer chip, rapidly and reliably learns patterns better than existing machine learning models.

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How does the brain form "fear memory" that links a traumatic event to a particular situation? A pair of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, may have found an answer

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UC San Diego researchers discover the enzyme SPRK1’s role in reorganizing the paternal genome during the first moments of fertilization — a finding that might help explain infertility cases of unknown cause.

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A protein that normally deposits mineralized calcium in tooth enamel may also be responsible for calcium deposits in the back of the eye in people with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a study from researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI).

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Mayo Clinic researchers have uncovered stem cell-activated mechanisms of healing after a heart attack. Stem cells restored cardiac muscle back to its condition before the heart attack, in turn providing a blueprint of how stem cells may work.

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University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers have identified a new way that common Aspergillus molds can induce asthma, by first attacking the protective tissue barrier deep in the lungs.

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Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have discovered differences in brain circuitry that contribute to starvation and weight loss in people with anorexia nervosa.

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The researchers have already confirmed their discovery in human tissue samples and used it to reverse high blood pressure in lab mice.

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Publishing in the March 16, 2020, online issue of Host, Cell and Microbe, a team of researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, in collaboration with researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute, provides the first analysis of potential targets for effective immune responses against the novel coronavirus. The researchers used existing data from known coronaviruses to predict which parts of SARS-CoV-2 are capable of activating the human immune system.

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Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new imaging agent that could let doctors identify not only multiple types of tumors but the surrounding normal cells that the cancer takes over and uses as a shield to protect itself from attempts to destroy it.

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Chemists and biochemists at UC San Diego took the first look at the onset of DNA-editing activity in an RNA-editing enzyme called “TadA” that served as the precursor to a class of base editors known as ABEs.

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By March 1, more than 9000 people in the U.S. may have already been infected by COVID-19 (coronavirus), far more than the number that had been publicly reported, according to a new Cedars-Sinai study.

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Drug resistance is a leading cause of cancer death in children and adults with leukemia. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have developed a novel strategy to find the genes responsible.

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A protein produced by the human immune system can potently inhibit several coronaviruses, including the one behind the current COVID-19 outbreak.

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Propagating Motor Cortical Dynamics Facilitate Movement Initiation

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Florida State University researchers working in an international collaboration have identified new genetic variants that cause heart disease in infants, and their research has led to novel insights into the role of a protein that affects how the heart pumps blood.

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Gut bacteria can penetrate tumor cells and boost the effectiveness of an experimental immunotherapy that targets the CD47 protein.

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University of Texas System researchers have pinpointed a molecule that the tuberculosis bacterium manufactures to induce the coughing that spreads the disease by triggering a pain-receptor response. Their findings illustrate that the disease's spread might be prevented by halting production of sulfolipid-1.

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New discovery in breast cancer could lead to better strategies for preventing the spread of cancer cells to other organs in the body, effectively reducing mortality in breast cancer patients. According to a study, published today in Nature Cell Biology, breast cancer cells shift their metabolic strategy in order to metastasize. Instead of cycling sugar (glucose) for energy, they preferentially use mitochondrial metabolism.

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La proteína tóxica tau es una de las principales características biológicas en los cerebros de las personas con enfermedad de Alzheimer, pero aún no se entiende bien los factores que hacen a la gente más susceptible o resistente a la acumulación de esta proteína. Un estudio preliminar de Mayo Clinic muestra que en los ancianos puede haber una relación entre variantes heredadas en el ADN y la aparición de depósitos de proteína tau.

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Cleveland Clinic researchers have identified a gut microbe generated byproduct – phenylacetylglutamine (PAG) – that is linked to development of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, stroke and death. The study was published in Cell today.

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In the past, biologically-active peptides – small proteins like neurotoxins and hormones that act on cell receptors to alter physiology – were purified from native sources like venoms and then panels of variants were produced in bacteria, or synthesized, to study the structural basis for receptor interaction. A new technique called zombie scanning renders these older processes obsolete.

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With the help of a $1.98 million award from the NIH, Wayne State University researchers are working to develop biomarker technology for identification of biomarkers of sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease of unknown causes that affects multiple organs in the body.

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A new culprit — hydrogen sulfide — worsens the deadly disease tuberculosis. When Tb bacteria invade the lung, the amounts of hydrogen sulfide in the lung microenvironment greatly increase, and this makes the microbe more virulent and better able to block the body’s protective immune response.

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Researchers know that the protein tau develops into tangles in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. But until now they have struggled to understand what factors make you more or less likely to develop these tangles. In a preliminary study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 72nd Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada, April 25 to May 1, 2020, researchers say that they have identified gene variants that are associated with a susceptibility to developing tau deposits in older age.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a way to make radiation therapy for colorectal cancer more effective by inhibiting a protein found in cancer cells in the gut.

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Netherton syndrome is exacerbated by the presence of Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis living on human skin report University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers.

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An Indiana University scientist has identified eight new genomic regions that increase a person’s risk for skin cancer.

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Doctors face a difficult decision when they must choose a drug combination that will benefit the person sitting before them in an exam room. Statistics can’t show how any one person will respond to a reatment.works in people. Dr. Sarah Adams is using a $1.2M to find better ways to predict which women will benefit from her drug combination, now in clinical trials.

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New research from the University of Notre Dame shows these silent mutations are worth a closer look.

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The National Science Foundation has recognized Fabrizio Sergi, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Delaware, with its CAREER award to support fundamental research in motor control. His work is seeking to help those with movement disorders and identify robot-based interventions.

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A new study shows that lung stem cell secretions – specifically exosomes and secretomes – delivered via nebulizer, can help repair lung injuries due to multiple types of pulmonary fibrosis in mice and rats.

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Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have made significant progress toward development of a simple, noninvasive liquid biopsy test that detects prostate cancer from RNA and other specific metabolic chemicals in the urine.