About one-third of people with epilepsy have drug-resistant disease—but surgery can be transformative. Drs Ihnen & Arya at Cincinnati Children’s explore how SEEG is reshaping presurgical evaluation in DRE. https://ow.ly/M15c50Y0Y0W
Epilepsy society american epilepsy society epilepsy foundation of america.
DRE can be effectively treated with epilepsy surgery, leading to seizure freedom in appropriately selected individuals.
BRCA1-mediated DNA recombination repair and tumor suppression.
BRCA1 is dispensable for end resection at replication-coupled double-strand breaks (DSBs) but stimulates processing of replication-independent DSBs.
BRCA1 promotes RAD51 assembly downstream of end resection.
Canonical BRCA1/RAD51-dependent homologous recombination is essential for tumor suppression.
Loss of 53BP1 enables alternative BRCA1-independent RAD51 assembly.
Alternative BRCA1-independent RAD51 assembly supports tissue development but is not sufficient for tumor suppression. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/BRCA1-mediated-DNA-recombination-repair
In a recent study, researchers from China have developed a chip-scale LiDAR system that mimics the human eye’s foveation by dynamically concentrating high-resolution sensing on regions of interest (ROIs) while maintaining broad awareness across the full field of view.
The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.
LiDAR systems power machine vision in self-driving cars, drones, and robots by firing laser beams to map 3D scenes with millimeter precision. The eye packs its densest sensors in the fovea (sharp central vision spot) and shifts gaze to what’s important. By contrast, most LiDARs use rigid parallel beams or scans that spread uniform (often coarse) resolution everywhere. Boosting detail means adding more channels uniformly, which explodes costs, power, and complexity.
Scientists have collaborated to develop a new class of highly precise filtration membranes. The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could significantly reduce energy consumption and enable large-scale water reuse in industry. The team includes researchers from the CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI), Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences.
Everyday industrial processes, like purifying medicines, cleaning textile dyes, and processing food, rely on “separations.” Currently, these processes are incredibly energy-hungry, accounting for nearly 40% to 50% of all global industrial energy use. Most factories still use old-fashioned methods like distillation and evaporation to separate ingredients, which are expensive and leave a heavy carbon footprint.
Although membrane-based technologies are considered cleaner, most polymer membranes currently used in industry have irregularly sized pores that tend to degrade over time, limiting their effectiveness. Thus, they lack the precision and long-term stability needed for demanding industrial applications.
The scientist Stephen Hawking lived with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common type of motor neurone disease, for 55 years. He was one of the longest-surviving people with the condition.
However, most people with motor neurone disease are not as lucky. It often progresses quickly, and many pass away within two to five years of diagnosis.
There is still no cure. Genetics account for only about 10% of cases, and the rest of the causes are still largely a mystery.
APOE allele switching improves Alzheimer’s in mice.
Type of apolipoprotein E (APOE) allele carried by individuals is a major risk factor in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). For example, compared to individuals carrying two copies of the APOE ε4 allele, ε2 homozygotes have an approximate 99% reduction in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk.
The authors in this study developed a knock-in mouse model that allows for an inducible ‘switch’ between risk and protective alleles (APOE4s2). These mice synthesize E4 at baseline and E2 after tamoxifen administration.
A whole-body allelic switch resulted in a metabolic profile resembling E2/E2 humans and drives AD-relevant alterations in the lipidome and single-cell transcriptome, particularly in astrocytes.
E4 to E2 switching improved cognition, decreased amyloid pathology, lowered gliosis and reduced plaque-associated apolipoprotein E.
Thus, APOE replacement may be a viable strategy for future gene editing approaches to simultaneously reduce multiple AD-associated pathologies. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/APOE4-to-APOE2-allelic-switching
Infections caused by Cryptococcus are extremely dangerous. The pathogen, which can cause pneuomia-like symptoms, is notoriously drug-resistant, and it often preys on people with weakened immune systems, like cancer patients or those living with HIV. And the same can be said about other fungal pathogens, like Candida auris or Aspergillus fumigatus — both of which, like Cryptococcus, have been declared priority pathogens by the World Health Organization.
Despite the threat, though, doctors have only three treatment options for fungal infections.
The gold standard is a drug class called amphotericin but has major toxic side-effects on humans.
The other two antifungal drug classes that are available — azoles and echinocandins — are much less effective treatment options, especially against Cryptococcus. The author says azoles merely stop fungi from growing rather than outright killing them, while Cryptococcus and other fungi have become totally resistant to echinocandins, rendering them completely ineffective.
“Adjuvants are helper molecules that don’t actually kill pathogens like drugs do, but instead make them extremely susceptible to existing medicine,” explains the author.
Looking for adjuvants that might better sensitize Cryptococcus to existing antifungal drugs, the lab screened vast chemical collection for candidate molecules.
Quickly, the team found a hit: butyrolactol A, a known-but-previously understudied molecule produced by certain Streptomyces bacteria. The researchers found that the molecule could synergize with echinocandin drugs to kill fungi that the drugs alone could not.