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This study aimed to explore whether the therapeutic effects of EPO rely on the suppression of the NLRP3 inflammasome and the specific mechanisms in an LPS-induced ALI mouse model. ALI was induced in C57BL/6 mice by intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of LPS (15 mg/kg). EPO was administered intraperitoneally at 5 U/g after LPS challenge. The mice were sacrificed 8 h later. Our findings indicated that application of EPO markedly diminished LPS-induced lung injury by restoring histopathological changes, lessened lung wet/dry (W/D) ratio, protein concentrations in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) levels. Meanwhile, EPO evidently decreased interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-18 (IL-18) secretion, the expression of NLRP3 inflammasome components including pro-IL-1β, NLRP3, and cleaved caspase-1 as well as phosphorylation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) p65, which may be associated with activation of EPO receptor (EPOR), phosphorylation of Janus-tyrosine kinase 2 (JAK2) and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3)

Taken together, this study indicates that EPO can effectively attenuate LPS-induced lung injury in mice by suppressing the NLRP3 inflammasome, which is dependent upon activation of EPOR/JAK2/STAT3 signaling and inhibition of the NF-κB pathway.

Continue reading “Suppression of NLRP3 Inflammasome” »

Even before the coronavirus, air pollution killed seven million people a year. Will today’s cleaner air inspire us to do better?

I rarely use the words transformative or breakthrough for neuroscience findings. The brain is complex, noisy, chaotic, and often unpredictable. One intriguing result under one condition may soon fail for a majority of others. What’s more, paradigm-shifting research trends often require revolutionary tools. When we’re lucky, those come once a decade.

But I can unabashedly say that the 2010s saw a boom in neuroscience breakthroughs that transformed the field and will resonate long into the upcoming decade.

In 2010, the idea that we’d be able to read minds, help paralyzed people walk again, incept memories, or have multi-layered brain atlases was near incomprehensible. Few predicted that deep learning, an AI model loosely inspired by neural processing in the brain, would gain prominence and feed back into decoding the brain. Around 2011, I asked a now-prominent AI researcher if we could automatically detect dying neurons in a microscope image using deep neural nets; we couldn’t get it to work. Today, AI is readily helping read, write, and map the brain.

Working around the clock for two weeks, a large team of Stanford Medicine scientists has developed a test to detect antibodies against the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, in blood samples.

In contrast to current diagnostic tests for COVID-19, which detect genetic material from the virus in respiratory secretions, this test looks for antibodies to the virus in plasma, the liquid in blood, to provide information about a person’s immune response to an infection.

The test was launched April 6 at Stanford Health Care. It differs from an externally developed test that Stanford researchers used for a prevalence study during recent community screening events.

New hope for stroke patients as scientists find way to restore mobility and touch using human stem cells to recreate nerve connections in damaged rat brain…

Scientists have found a way to restore mobility and touch in rats after a stroke using human stem cells to recreate nerve connections in damaged brains — offering patients a new hope.

Continue reading “Scientists restore mobility and touch in stroke-afflicted rats” »

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes the infectious disease COVID-19, which was first reported in Wuhan, China in December, 2019. Despite the tremendous efforts to control the disease, COVID-19 has now spread to over 100 countries and caused a global pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 is thought to have originated in bats; however, the intermediate animal sources of the virus are completely unknown. Here, we investigated the susceptibility of ferrets and animals in close contact with humans to SARS-CoV-2. We found that SARS-CoV-2 replicates poorly in dogs, pigs, chickens, and ducks, but ferrets and cats are permissive to infection. We found experimentally that cats are susceptible to airborne infection. Our study provides important insights into the animal models for SARS-CoV-2 and animal management for COVID-19 control.

In late December 2019, an unusual pneumonia emerged in humans in Wuhan, China, and rapidly spread internationally, raising global public health concerns. The causative pathogen was identified as a novel coronavirus (1–16) that was named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on the basis of a phylogenetic analysis of related coronaviruses by the Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Virus Taxonomy (17); the disease it causes was subsequently designated COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO). Despite tremendous efforts to control the COVID-19 outbreak, the disease is still spreading. As of March 11, 2020, SARS-CoV-2 infections have been reported in more than 100 countries, and 118,326 human cases have been confirmed, with 4,292 fatalities (18). COVID-19 has now been announced as a pandemic by WHO.

Although SARS-CoV-96.2% identity at the nucleotide level with the coronavirus RaTG13, which was detected in horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus spp) in Yunnan province in 2013 (3), it has not previously been detected in humans or other animals. The emerging situation raises many urgent questions. Could the widely disseminated viruses transmit to other animal species, which then become reservoirs of infection? The SARS-CoV-2 infection has a wide clinical spectrum in humans, from mild infection to death, but how does the virus behave in other animals? As efforts are made for vaccine and antiviral drug development, which animal(s) can be used most precisely to model the efficacy of such control measures in humans? To address these questions, we evaluated the susceptibility of different model laboratory animals, as well as companion and domestic animals to SARS-CoV-2.

The group of patients received the anti-viral drug remdesivir as part of a compassionate use’’ trial, not a double-blind placebo-controlled trial which would offer more definitive evidence.

Two ampuls of remdesivir are pictured during a news conference at the University Hospital Eppendorf (UKE) in Hamburg, April 8, 2020, as the spread of coronavirus disease (covid-19) continues. Ulrich Perrey/Pool via REUTERS (Pool/Reuters)By Christopher Rowland Christopher RowlandBusiness reporter foc…

Fresh air, sunlight and improvised face masks seemed to work a century ago; and they might help us now.

By Richard Hobday

When new, virulent diseases emerge, such SARS and Covid-19, the race begins to find new vaccines and treatments for those affected. As the current crisis unfolds, governments are enforcing quarantine and isolation, and public gatherings are being discouraged. Health officials took the same approach 100 years ago, when influenza was spreading around the world. The results were mixed. But records from the 1918 pandemic suggest one technique for dealing with influenza — little-known today — was effective. Some hard-won experience from the greatest pandemic in recorded history could help us in the weeks and months ahead.

DARPA is planning to develop a travel adapter for the human body. Called the ADvanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER), the new program aims to produce an implantable or ingestible bioelectronic device to help soldiers handle jet lag and diarrhea.

Anyone who has traveled extensively knows that jet lag and diarrhea are not jokes. Jet lag and other sleep-cycle disruptions such as shift work can impair alertness and athletic performance, and cause disorientation, fatigue, indigestion, irritability, insomnia, and excessive sleepiness. Meanwhile, travel diarrhea can produce symptoms that range from unpleasant to severe.

This is bad enough for tourists or business people, but for soldiers jet lag and diarrhea can be a real hindrance as hundreds or even thousands of soldiers can be deployed to the other side of the world at a moment’s notice, only to end up running so far ahead of the logistical chain that they have to rely on local food and water instead of standard military rations. The end result is soldiers impaired by disrupted sleep cycles or requiring medical attention for intestinal problems as a result of consuming contaminated food and water.