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Category: health – Page 4

New CRISPR tool spreads through bacteria to disable antibiotic resistance genes

Antibiotic resistance (AR) has steadily accelerated in recent years to become a global health crisis. As deadly bacteria evolve new ways to elude drug treatments for a variety of illnesses, a growing number of “superbugs” have emerged, ramping up estimates of more than 10 million worldwide deaths per year by 2050.

Scientists are looking to recently developed technologies to address the pressing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are known to flourish in hospital settings, sewage treatment areas, animal husbandry locations, and fish farms. University of California San Diego scientists have now applied cutting-edge genetics tools to counteract antibiotic resistance.

The laboratories of UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences Professors Ethan Bier and Justin Meyer have collaborated on a novel method of removing antibiotic-resistant elements from populations of bacteria. The researchers developed a new CRISPR-based technology similar to gene drives, which are being applied in insect populations to disrupt the spread of harmful properties, such as parasites that cause malaria. The new Pro-Active Genetics (Pro-AG) tool called pPro-MobV is a second-generation technology that uses a similar approach to disable drug resistance in populations of bacteria.

Oxytocin, Physical Intimacy, Wound Healing, and Stress Responses

RCT: Daily oxytocin administration combined with positive physical intimacy was linked to improved wound healing and reduced cortisol. Oxytocin alone or positive interactions without physical intimacy did not enhance healing, suggesting the neurohormone acts to amplify the health effects of social behaviors.

This double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial tested whether intranasal oxytocin, instructed positive interaction (PAT), and naturally occurring intimacy influence wound healing. Oxytocin enhanced wound healing only in interaction with social behaviors, by tendency with PAT and significantly with affectionate touch and sexual activity, whereas oxytocin or PAT alone showed no effect. These findings suggest that oxytocin amplifies the benefits of intimacy rather than exerting direct effects.

Previous animal data on this topic are mixed, with oxytocin alone showing no effect on healing,31 but synergistic effects with social interaction in hamsters29 and with social housing in mice.30 Human evidence remains scarce, limited to 1 study linking endogenous oxytocin with partner communication and faster healing.33

Despite early enthusiasm in oxytocin administration studies, more recent reviews have highlighted that findings from intranasal oxytocin research are inconsistent and studies are often underpowered.47-49 Several large-scale replications have failed to reproduce key effects, such as the link between oxytocin and trust,50 and null results have been reported in both healthy and clinical populations.51 Given these limitations, researchers have increasingly called for a shift from testing general main effects of oxytocin toward examining interactions that consider individual and contextual factors.48,52 As summarized by Yao and Kendrick,53 oxytocin effects in romantic contexts vary depending on factors like relationship type and perceived partner characteristics; for example, oxytocin enhances partner attractiveness, especially when the partner is seen as trustworthy.

Tailoring Mesoporous Silica-Coated Silver Nanoparticles and Polyurethane-Doped Films for Enhanced Antimicrobial Applications

Can surface charge reversal boost AgNP efficacy? 🧫Functionalizing silica-coated silver nanoparticles with amine groups significantly enhances activity against Salmonella and E. coli in polyurethane films.

Read more.

The global increase in multidrug-resistant bacteria poses a challenge to public health and requires the development of new antibacterial materials.

Sleep disruption damages gut’s self-repair ability via stress signals from brain: A biological chain reaction

Chronic sleep disruption doesn’t just leave people tired and irritable. It may quietly undermine the gut’s ability to repair itself, increasing vulnerability to serious digestive diseases. A new study from the University of California, Irvine, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Agricultural University reveals, step by step, how disturbed sleep causes the brain to send harmful signals to the intestines, ultimately damaging the stem cells responsible for maintaining a healthy gut lining.

The research uncovers a previously unknown biological chain reaction linking the brain’s sleep center to intestinal health. The findings are published in Cell Stem Cell and offer new insight into why people with chronic sleep problems are more likely to develop gastrointestinal disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes-related gut complications and chronic inflammation.

Physicians have long known that irregular or insufficient sleep is associated with a wide range of health problems, from mood disorders to high blood pressure. Yet how changes in sleep can directly harm organs that do not sleep themselves, such as the intestines, has remained largely elusive. This study answers that question by tracing the damage from its neurological origins all the way to the gut’s regenerative machinery.

AI model reads brain MRIs in seconds, hitting up to 97.5% accuracy

An AI-powered model developed at the University of Michigan can read a brain MRI and diagnose a person in seconds, a study suggests. The model detected neurological conditions with up to 97.5% accuracy and predicted how urgently a patient required treatment.

Researchers say the first-of-its-kind technology could transform neuroimaging at health systems across the United States. The results are published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

“As the global demand for MRI rises and places significant strain on our physicians and health systems, our AI model has the potential to reduce burden by improving diagnosis and treatment with fast, accurate information,” said senior author Todd Hollon, M.D., a neurosurgeon at University of Michigan Health and assistant professor of neurosurgery at U-M Medical School.

A Hidden Cellular Defense May Protect the Brain From Alzheimer’s

Scientists discovered why some neurons resist tau toxicity, identifying CRL5SOCS4 as a crucial defense and linking mitochondrial stress to harmful tau fragments. New research by UCLA Health and UC San Francisco has uncovered why certain brain cells are more resilient than others to the buildup of

The Scientist Behind Moderna on How Engineering Revolutionizes Medicine

What does it take to turn bold ideas into life-saving medicine?

In this episode of The Big Question, we sit down with @MIT’s Dr. Robert Langer, one of the founding figures of bioengineering and among the most cited scientists in the world, to explore how engineering has reshaped modern healthcare. From early failures and rejected grants to breakthroughs that changed medicine, Langer reflects on a career built around persistence and problem-solving. His work helped lay the foundation for technologies that deliver large biological molecules, like proteins and RNA, into the body, a challenge once thought impossible. Those advances now underpin everything from targeted cancer therapies to the mRNA vaccines that transformed the COVID-19 response.

The conversation looks forward as well as back, diving into the future of medicine through engineered solutions such as artificial skin for burn victims, FDA-approved synthetic blood vessels, and organs-on-chips that mimic human biology to speed up drug testing while reducing reliance on animal models. Langer explains how nanoparticles safely carry genetic instructions into cells, how mRNA vaccines train the immune system without altering DNA, and why engineering delivery, getting the right treatment to the right place in the body, remains one of medicine’s biggest challenges. From personalized cancer vaccines to tissue engineering and rapid drug development, this episode reveals how science, persistence, and engineering come together to push the boundaries of what medicine can do next.

#Science #Medicine #Biotech #Health #LifeSciences.

Chapters:
00:00 Engineering the Future of Medicine.
01:55 Failure, Persistence, and Scientific Breakthroughs.
05:30 From Chemical Engineering to Patient Care.
08:40 Solving the Drug Delivery Problem.
11:20 Delivering Proteins, RNA, and DNA
14:10 The Origins of mRNA Technology.
17:30 How mRNA Vaccines Work.
20:40 Speed and Scale in Vaccine Development.
23:30 What mRNA Makes Possible Next.
26:10 Trust, Misinformation, and Vaccine Science.
28:50 Engineering Tissues and Organs.
31:20 Artificial Skin and Synthetic Blood Vessels.
33:40 Organs on Chips and Drug Testing.
36:10 Why Science Always Moves Forward.

The Big Question with the Museum of Science:

Continue reading “The Scientist Behind Moderna on How Engineering Revolutionizes Medicine” | >

4D-printed vascular stent deploys at body temperature, eliminating external heating

Next-generation vascular stents can make cardiovascular therapies minimally invasive and vascular treatments safe and less burdensome. In a new advancement, researchers from Japan and China have successfully proposed a novel adaptive 4D-printed vascular stent based on shape-memory polymer composite. The stent exhibits mechanical flexibility, radial strength, biomechanical compliance, and cytocompatibility in in vitro and in vivo experiments, making them promising for future clinical applications.

Cardiovascular diseases constitute a major global health concern. Various complications that affect normal blood flow in arteries and veins, such as stroke, blood clot formation in veins, blood vessel rupture, and coronary artery disease, often require vascular treatments. However, existing vascular stent devices often require complex, invasive deployment procedures, making it necessary to explore novel materials and manufacturing technologies that could enable such medical devices to work more naturally with the human body.

Moreover, the development of patient-specific, adaptively deployable vascular stents is crucial to further advance minimally invasive cardiovascular therapies and make vascular treatments safe and less burdensome for both patients and health care providers.

It’s time to think about human reproduction in space, scientists urge

There are currently no widely accepted, industry-wide standards for managing reproductive health risks in space, the study notes. The researchers highlight unresolved questions around preventing inadvertent early pregnancy during missions, understanding the fertility impacts of microgravity and radiation, and setting ethical boundaries for any future reproduction-related research beyond Earth.

“If reproduction is ever to occur beyond Earth,” the study notes, “it must do so with a clear commitment to safety, transparency and ethical integrity.”

This research is described in a paper published Feb. 3 in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online.

A Virus Designed in the Lab Could Help Defeat Antibiotic Resistance

Scientists can now design bacteria-killing viruses from DNA, opening a faster path to fighting superbugs.

Bacteriophages have been used as treatments for bacterial infections for more than a century. Interest in these viruses is rising again as antibiotic-resistant infections become an increasing threat to public health. Even so, progress in the field has been slow. Most research has relied on naturally occurring phages because traditional engineering methods are time consuming and difficult, limiting the development of customized therapeutic viruses.

A fully synthetic phage engineering breakthrough.

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