Lifeboat Foundation

Investigating the relationship between diet, gut bacteria and systemic inflammation, a team of Stanford University researchers has found just a few weeks of following a diet rich in fermented foods can lead to improvements in microbiome diversity and reductions in inflammatory biomarkers.

The new research pitted a high-fiber diet against a diet with lots of fermented food. Thirty-six healthy adults were recruited and randomly assigned one of the two diets for 10 weeks.

“We wanted to conduct a proof-of-concept study that could test whether microbiota-targeted food could be an avenue for combatting the overwhelming rise in chronic inflammatory diseases,” explains Christopher Gardner, co-senior author on the new study.

Investing in the convergence of bioelectrics & biologics for regeneration & healing — howard J. leonhardt, founder, leonhardt ventures.

Howard Leonhardt is the Founder of Leonhardt Ventures, the world’s first Innovation Accelerator focused on the convergence of bioelectrics & biologics for organ regeneration and tissue healing.

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NAD Coenzymes, Metabolic Stress, And Novel Preventative And Therapeutic Interventions — Dr. Charles Brenner, Ph.D., City of Hope.

Dr. Charles Brenner Ph.D. is the Alfred E Mann Family Foundation Chair in Diabetes and Cancer Metabolism, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Diabetes & Cancer Metabolism, at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center (https://www.cityofhope.org/faculty/charles-brenner).

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Health Innovation Investment For The Future Generations — Dr. Aboubacar Kampo, MD, MPH — Director of Health Programs — UNICEF.

Dr. Aboubacar Kampo, MD, MPH is the Director of Health Programs at UNICEF (UN Headquarters) where he provides strategic leadership, management support and overall direction to UNICEF’s global health program.

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Most of the tests that doctors use to diagnose cancer — such as mammography, colonoscopy, and CT scans — are based on imaging. More recently, researchers have also developed molecular diagnostics that can detect specific cancer-associated molecules that circulate in bodily fluids like blood or urine.

MIT engineers have now created a new diagnostic nanoparticle that combines both of these features: It can reveal the presence of cancerous proteins through a urine test, and it functions as an imaging agent, pinpointing the tumor location. In principle, this diagnostic could be used to detect cancer anywhere in the body, including tumors that have metastasized from their original locations.

“This is a really broad sensor intended to respond to both primary tumors and their metastases. It can trigger a urinary signal and also allow us to visualize where the tumors are,” says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.

Viruses that infect bacteria may drive the evolution of drug-resistant superbugs by inserting their genes into the bacterial DNA, a new study suggests.

The bacteria-attacking viruses, called phages, act as parasites in that they depend on their hosts for survival. The viral parasites often kill off their microbial hosts after infiltrating their DNA, said senior study author Vaughn Cooper, director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. But sometimes, the phages slip into the bacterial genome and then lay low, making sneaky changes to the bacterium’s behavior, Cooper said.

For the first time ever, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine discovered that phages — tiny viruses that attack bacteria — are key to initiating rapid bacterial evolution leading to the emergence of treatment-resistant “superbugs.” The findings were published today in Science Advances.

The researchers showed that, contrary to a dominant theory in the field of evolutionary microbiology, the process of adaptation and diversification in bacterial colonies doesn’t start from a homogenous clonal population. They were shocked to discover that the cause of much of the early adaptation wasn’t random point mutations. Instead, they found that phages, which we normally think of as bacterial parasites, are what gave the winning strains the evolutionary advantage early on.

“Essentially, a parasite became a weapon,” said senior author Vaughn Cooper, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Pitt. “Phages endowed the victors with the means of winning. What killed off more sensitive bugs gave the advantage to others.”

NIH will award nearly $80 million to support the establishment of the Mendelian Genomics Research Consortium and the development of novel methods and approaches that help researchers identify the genetic causes of single-gene diseases.

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. In fact, when it comes to the rise of new variants, the worst may still be yet to come.

That’s according to World Health Organization (WHO), who spelled out a strong warning this week to countries hoping to loosen their social distancing measures amidst rising COVID-19 cases and deaths.

“The Committee has expressed concern that the pandemic is being mischaracterized as coming to an end when it is nowhere near finished,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said at a media briefing on July 15.