During our lives, normal exposures cause DNA damage to build up. Eventually, this causes cancer and age-related diseases. Studying DNA-repairing animals could help treat these issues.
Category: biotech/medical
Nearly 2 million Americans suffer from type 1 diabetes — a condition that causes drastic spikes or drops in sugar levels and, in turn, dizziness, nausea, and fatigue. It’s a condition that must constantly be monitored, something that a lot of diabetics find mentally exhausting.
One diabetic, Naomi, told the BBC that she couldn’t handle “the physical or mental challenges of diabetes anymore,” and struggled to monitor her blood sugar levels multiple times a day. Naomi’s struggle isn’t unique — it’s called diabetes burnout.
There’s no cure for type 1 diabetes. However, researchers at the University of Arizona have adapted a cancer immunotherapy technique that has produced promising results in treating diabetes (in mice). The researchers engineered immune cells to fight off rogue T cells (immune cells that go haywire and attack the body) that can damage the pancreas, causing type 1 diabetes.
Several techniques currently are used to determine the pace of aging in animals and, to a lesser degree, in humans. However, the techniques used in humans lack accuracy, don’t assess aging in specific organs, are not widely available, and are expensive.
A multi-institutional research team measured the levels of nearly 5,000 human proteins in 5,676 people of all ages who were followed for as long as 15 years in five prospective longitudinal cohorts. Each measured protein was associated with specific organs, based on previous studies: adipose tissue, artery, brain, heart, immune tissue, intestine, kidney, liver, lung, muscle, or pancreas. Combinations of proteins indicated the pace of aging in each organ. Accelerated aging of one organ was found in nearly 20% of people, and accelerated aging of multiple organs was noted in ≈2%. Accelerated aging in a specific organ correlated with risk for developing disease in that organ. For example, people with accelerated heart aging (vs. those without it) had 250% higher risk for developing heart failure, and people with accelerated brain and vascular aging had nearly 60% higher risk for developing Alzheimer disease.
Various tools — from sequencing a person’s genome to measuring gene expression (e.g., the “methylome”) — are becoming available to predict a person’s risk for developing particular diseases. Will these predictions lead to interventions that lower risk? The jury is still out on that question.
A study done by Duke Health saw the procedure resulting in functioning valves and arteries that grow along with the young patient.
In a small group of veterans diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury, treatment with a psychedelic drug, ibogaine was associated with improvements in daily function and mental health symptoms, a new study out of Stanford found.
“This could be one of the first treatments for traumatic brain injury,” said Dr. Nolan Williams, associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford, and principal study investigator. “I think it’s a moment of hope for veterans and folks with permanent neurological injury.”
The Federal Drug Administration classifies ibogaine as a Schedule I drug, citing “high abuse potential” and “no accepted medical use.” To receive the one-time dose, 30 Special Ops veterans traveled to a treatment site in Mexico where ibogaine use is unregulated.
Using a new technology developed at MIT, diagnosing lung cancer could become as easy as inhaling nanoparticle sensors and then taking a urine test that reveals whether a tumor is present.
A recent study reveals that the monkeypox, or mpox, virus is evolving into multiple strains due to mutations caused by ongoing interactions with the human immune system, suggesting that the virus has been circulating in humans since 2016.
“These observations of sustained MPXV transmission present a fundamental shift to the perceived paradigm of MPXV epidemiology as a zoonosis and highlight the need for revising public health messaging around MPXV as well as outbreak management and control,” write the authors.
A history-making mission to send a commercial lander to the moon is set to carry DNA to the final frontier.
Smartphone apps can differentiate between tuberculosis and other respiratory conditions. It’s part of an AI-driven trend: using sound to diagnose illnesses.
Researchers from Harvard SEAS and Boston University reveal its transformative effects, offering newfound mobility and independence for individuals with this debilitating condition.
The wearable tech successfully eliminates a common symptom called ‘gait freezing’ to restore smooth strides for Parkinson’s disease sufferers.