Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers have discovered the process by which dietary choline crosses the blood-brain barrier. This breakthrough has potential applications in enhancing drug delivery to the brain for treating neurological disorders.

A researcher from the University of Queensland has identified molecular doorways that could facilitate the delivery of drugs to the brain for treating neurological disorders.

Dr. Rosemary Cater from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience led a team that discovered that an essential nutrient called choline is transported into the brain by a protein called FLVCR2.

Most antibiotics target metabolically active bacteria, but with artificial intelligence, researchers can efficiently screen compounds that are lethal to dormant microbes.

Since the 1970s, modern antibiotic discovery has been experiencing a lull. Now the World Health Organization has declared the antimicrobial resistance crisis as one of the top 10 global public health threats.

When an infection is treated repeatedly, clinicians run the risk of bacteria becoming resistant to the antibiotics. But why would an infection return after proper antibiotic treatment? One well-documented possibility is that the bacteria are becoming metabolically inert, escaping detection of traditional antibiotics that only respond to metabolic activity. When the danger has passed, the bacteria return to life and the infection reappears.

A study in Nature identifies molecular responses to endurance exercise training in rats, including sex-specific responses. The findings may offer new insights into the impact of exercise on health and disease. Read the paper:

Temporal multi-omic analysis of tissues from rats undergoing up to eight weeks of endurance exercise training reveals widespread shared, tissue-specific and sex-specific changes, including immune, metabolic, stress response and mitochondrial pathways.

Some of the AI-designed gene editors could be more versatile than those found in nature.

Researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, have discovered that how a special protein complex called the Mediator moves along genes in DNA may have an impact on how cells divide. The discovery may be important for future research into the treatment of certain diseases. The study is published in Nucleic Acids Research.

Experts say the food on your plate can affect everything from your bones, heart, and gut to your mental health.

As the US grapples with an ongoing bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle, the country’s health agencies are ramping up surveillance efforts and working to develop a vaccine if needed.

By Grace Wade

A research team at the University of Pittsburgh led by Alexander Star, a chemistry professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, has developed a fentanyl sensor that is six orders of magnitude more sensitive than any electrochemical sensor for the drug reported in the past five years. The portable sensor can also tell the difference between fentanyl and other opioids.

Hvidovre Hospital has the world’s first prototype of a sensor capable of detecting errors in MRI scans using laser light and gas. The new sensor, developed by a young researcher at the University of Copenhagen and Hvidovre Hospital, can thereby do what is impossible for current electrical sensors—and hopefully pave the way for MRI scans that are better, cheaper and faster.