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Category: biotech/medical

Sibling Stem Cell Transplant Leads to Rare HIV Remission in ‘Oslo Patient’

After receiving a stem cell transplant from his brother, a 63-year-old Norwegian man known as the “Oslo patient” has become one of only a handful of people to see their HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) go into long-term remission.

While HIV can now be controlled with medication that stops the virus from replicating, the virus remains in the body, rebounding when the drugs are stopped. So case studies like this one are invaluable for researchers working towards a full cure.

The Oslo man was given a bone marrow stem cell transplant to treat a rare type of blood cancer. Discovering at the last minute that his brother carried a rare genetic mutation previously shown to resist HIV, researchers led by a team from Oslo University Hospital closely tracked the operation’s impact on the virus.

Proteomic insights into troponin elevation following COVID-19 infection

Background Raised cardiac troponin-I is a common finding in patients hospitalised with acute viral infections, including but not limited to COVID-19. This often occurs in the absence of overt myocardial injury presenting a challenge for interpretation. The mechanisms underlying troponin elevation are uncertain.

Methods The CISCO-19 (Cardiovascular Imaging in SARS-CoV-19) study (NCT04403607) is a prospective, multicentre cohort study, in which hospitalised PCR-confirmed COVID-19 participants (N=267) underwent multisystem evaluation at enrolment and at 28–60 days. The study incorporated plasma proteomics (SOMAscan V.4.1), cardiovascular MRI and clinical biomarkers. Of these, 211 had baseline plasma proteomic data and 185 completed follow-up sampling. Matched proteomic and imaging data were available for 155 participants (mean age: 55 years (SD 12); 43% female).

Results A high likelihood of myocarditis was identified in 13.2% (N=21/159) of participants. High-sensitivity troponin-I was modestly elevated at enrolment (median 3 ng/L; IQR 2–6; n=159). Among males (n=90), 9.3% had a high-sensitivity troponin that exceeded 34 ng/L. Among females (n=69), 4.5% exceeded 16 ng/L. Smooth muscle myosin light chain proteins were downregulated at follow-up (log2 fold change −0.12 to −0.6; all adjusted p0.02) and positively correlated with high-sensitivity troponin-I, but not N-terminal brain natriuretic peptide or cardiac MRI indices (n=155).

Association of Perinatal HIV Exposure and HIV Disease Severity With BP in Youth

RESEARCH ARTICLE: association of perinatal HIV exposure and HIV disease severity with BP in youth.

BACKGROUND: HIV infection is associated with cardiovascular events in adults. We compared mean blood pressure (BP) obtained at study visits between youth with/without perinatally acquired HIV infection and evaluated whether HIV disease severity was associated with BP. METHODS: BP was compared between participants with/without HIV in the Adolescent Master Protocol of the Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study. Marginal repeated measures analyses using generalized estimating equations evaluated the association of HIV disease severity with BP index (mean BP/95th percentile BP) and abnormal BP. RESULTS: 447 youth with HIV and 226 youth without HIV were included. Youth with HIV were more often Black non-Hispanic (66% versus 54%), had greater household income (54% versus 35%), and lower measures of adiposity than those without.

Integrative approaches to aging: Mechanisms, antiaging strategies, and emerging biomedical interventions

This imbalance results in dermal thinning, wrinkle formation, and loss of skin elasticity. Both intrinsic aging (chronological) and extrinsic aging (photoaging) contribute to collagen depletion. Studies have shown that UV-induced ROS accelerate collagen breakdown and inhibit new collagen synthesis, exacerbating visible signs of aging. [20]

Collagen is vital for skin firmness and elasticity. Aging, both intrinsic and extrinsic, leads to reduced collagen production and increased enzymatic degradation. Antiaging interventions such as retinoids, marine peptides, and nanoformulations aim to restore collagen levels and improve skin structure.

Understanding these cellular and molecular mechanisms provides the foundation for developing targeted antiaging interventions, ranging from holistic lifestyle modifications to advanced biomedical therapies.

HarmonyGNN boosts graph AI accuracy on four tough benchmarks by up to 9.6%

Researchers have demonstrated a new training technique that significantly improves the accuracy of graph neural networks (GNNs)—AI systems used in applications from drug discovery to weather forecasting. GNNs are AI systems designed to perform tasks where the input data is presented in the form of graphs. Graphs, in this context, refer largely to data structures where data points (called nodes) are connected by lines (called edges). The edges indicate some sort of relationship between the nodes. Edges can be used to connect nodes that are similar (called homophily)—but can also connect nodes that are dissimilar (called heterophily).

For example, in a graph of a neural system there would be edges between nodes representing two neurons that enhance each other, but there would also be edges between nodes that suppress each other.

Because graphs can be used to represent everything from social networks to molecular structure, GNNS are able to capture complex relationships better than many other types of AI systems.

Minimally Invasive Ablation Can Treat Small Kidney Tumors

Among patients with T1a renal cell carcinoma (T1a RCC), ablation and surgical resection showed comparable risks for tumor progression. However, ablation was associated with higher rates of local recurrence but fewer complications and shorter hospital stays than resection or nephrectomy.

“Follow-up data revealed that most local recurrences in patients who underwent ablation were successfully treated with additional ablation or surgery,” the authors wrote.

“[T]his study suggests ablation as a less invasive alternative to surgery for patients with T1a RCC, resulting in a similar high level of oncologic control,” they added.

This study was led by Johanne Ahrenfeldt, PhD, MScEng, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark. It was published online in Radiology.

APOE4, the Alzheimer’s risk gene, silently undermines bone quality in women

Scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, along with collaborators at UC San Francisco, have discovered that APOE4, the most common genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, causes bone quality deficits specifically in female mice, through a mechanism that is invisible to standard imaging and can emerge as early as midlife. The findings, published in Advanced Science, reveal an unexpected biological link between Alzheimer’s risk and skeletal health, and identify a new molecular pathway that could one day inform earlier diagnosis of cognitive decline or guide treatment for bone quality loss in women who carry the APOE4 gene.

“What makes this finding so striking is that bone quality is being compromised at a molecular level that a standard bone scan simply will not catch,” says Buck professor Birgit Schilling, Ph.D., a senior author of the study. “APOE4 is quietly disrupting the very cells responsible for keeping bone strong, and it is doing this specifically in females, which mirrors what we see with Alzheimer’s disease risk.”

Physicians have long observed that people with Alzheimer’s disease suffer bone fractures at higher rates, and that a diagnosis of osteoporosis in women is actually the earliest known predictor of Alzheimer’s. But the underlying mechanism connecting brain and bone health has remained elusive.

New ‘molecular handle’ uses common amino acid to build complex medicines

In a new study published in Nature Communications, a team of chemists has unveiled a radically simple way to attach a highly sought-after “molecular handle,” known as the dichloromethyl group, onto complex compounds. Instead of relying on the aggressive, heavy-metal or radiation-heavy techniques of the past, the team used a common, naturally occurring amino acid called proline to gently choreograph the assembly.

“Rather than forcing these molecules into conventional reactivity modes or circumventing their electronic ambivalence, we harnessed their electronic ambivalence as a design principle,” says Prof. Dmitry Tsvelikhovsky, who led the research team at the Institute for Drug Research at the Hebrew University, alongside Elihay Kuniavsky and Dvora R. Levy.

Compact CRISPR system unlocks targeted in-body gene editing, with up to 90% efficiency

A research team has discovered an enhanced CRISPR gene-editing system that could enable targeted delivery inside the human body—a key step toward broader clinical use. Researchers identified a naturally occurring enzyme, Al3Cas12f, that is small enough to fit into adeno-associated virus vectors, a leading targeted delivery method for gene therapies. They then engineered an enhanced version that dramatically improved gene-editing performance in human cells.

The advance addresses a major limitation in CRISPR technology. Commonly used gene-editing proteins are too large for targeted delivery systems, restricting clinical applications to cells modified outside the body, such as blood and bone marrow.

“Smart delivery of gene editing systems is a powerful notion with broad clinical implications, and this basic science finding takes us a significant step toward that future,” said Erica Brown, Ph.D., acting director of NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).

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