Lifeboat Foundation

Everyone has BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, but mutations in these genes—which can be inherited—increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

The study found that the immune cells in breast tissue of healthy women carrying BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations show signs of malfunction known as exhaustion. This suggests that the immune cells can’t clear out damaged breast cells, which can eventually develop into breast cancer.

This is the first time that exhausted immune cells have been reported in non-cancerous breast tissues at such scale—normally these cells are only found in late-stage tumors. The results raise the possibility of using existing immunotherapy drugs as early intervention to prevent breast cancer developing, in carriers of BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations.

Biotech startup eGenesis developed a gene-edited kidney that was successfully transplanted into a living patient last week. Its CEO says the company is just getting started.

In a new study, AI processed text from health histories and neurologic examinations to locate lesions in the brain. The study, which looked specifically at the large language model called generative pre-trained transformer 4 (GPT-4), is published in the online issue of Neurology Clinical Practice.

A stroke can cause long-term disability or even death. Knowing where a stroke has occurred in the brain helps predict long-term effects such as problems with speech and language or a person’s ability to move part of their body. It can also help determine the best treatment and a person’s overall prognosis.

Damage to the brain tissue from a stroke is called a lesion. A neurologic exam can help locate lesions, when paired with a review of a person’s health history. The exam involves symptom evaluation and thinking and memory tests. People with stroke often have brain scans to locate lesions.

Antibody-mediated depletion of myeloid-biased haematopoietic stem cells in aged mice restores characteristic features of a more youthful immune system.

On 28 March it’s the 60th anniversary of the discovery of Epstein-Barr virus, the most common viral infection in humans. The virus was first discovered in association with a rare type of cancer located in Africa, but is now understood to be implicated in 1% of cancers, as well as the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis. Ian Sample meets Lawrence Young, professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School, to hear the story of this virus, and how it might help us prevent and treat cancer and other illnesses.

Scientists have developed a new solar-powered system to convert saltwater into fresh drinking water which they say could help reduce dangerous waterborne diseases like cholera.

On social media, a bizarre trend seems to be emerging: surprise pregnancies when taking the diabetes drug Ozempic and its sister weight loss shot Wegovy.

As People reports, there are a few reasons why people might be getting pregnant unexpectedly when taking these semaglutide-based injectable drugs.

For one thing, Dr. Iman Saleh — an obstetrician, gynecologist, and obesity medicine doctor at New York’s Northwell Health system — tells People that through a roundabout mechanism, the weight people lose on these drugs may be making them more fertile.

BioMedLM

A 2.7B Parameter Language Model Trained On Biomedical Text https://huggingface.co/papers/2403.

Models such as GPT-4 and Med-PaLM 2 have demonstrated impressive performance on a wide variety of biomedical NLP tasks.

Continue reading “BioMedLM: A 2.7B Parameter Language Model Trained On Biomedical Text” »

The gene-editing technique CRISPR disabled HIV that lay dormant in immune cells in a lab experiment, raising hopes for an eventual cure.

By Clare Wilson