Lifeboat Foundation

Helicobacter pylori, a globally distributed gastric bacterium, is genetically highly adaptable. Microbiologists at LMU have now characterized its population structure in individual patients, demonstrating an important role of antibiotics for its within-patient evolution.

The cosmopolitan bacterium Helicobacter pylori is responsible for one of the most prevalent chronic infections found in humans. Although the infection often provokes no definable symptoms, it can result in a range of gastrointestinal tract pathologies, ranging from inflammation of the lining of the stomach to gastric and duodenal tumors. Approximately 1 percent of all those infected eventually develop stomach cancer, and the World Health Organization has classified H. pylori as a carcinogen. One of Helicobacter pylori’s most striking traits is its genetic diversity and adaptability. Researchers led by microbiologist Sebastian Suerbaum (Chair of Medical Microbiology and Hospital Epidemiology at LMU’s Max von Pettenkofer Institute have now examined the genetic diversity of the species in the stomachs of 16 patients, and identified specific adaptations that enable the bacterium to colonize particular regions of the stomach.

Many mutations in DNA that contribute to disease are not in actual genes but instead lie in the 99% of the genome once considered “junk.” Even though scientists have recently come to understand that these vast stretches of DNA do in fact play critical roles, deciphering these effects on a wide scale has been impossible until now.

Using artificial intelligence, a Princeton University-led team has decoded the functional impact of such mutations in people with autism. The researchers believe this powerful method is generally applicable to discovering such genetic contributions to any disease.

Publishing May 27 in the journal Nature Genetics, the researchers analyzed the genomes of 1,790 families in which one child has autism spectrum disorder but other members do not. The method sorted among 120,000 mutations to find those that affect the behavior of genes in people with autism. Although the results do not reveal exact causes of cases of autism, they reveal thousands of possible contributors for researchers to study.

Continue reading “Artificial intelligence detects a new class of mutations behind autism” »

The role that the gut microbiome plays in aging is increasingly being appreciated in the research world as more evidence arrives to support it. A new publication reviews the various supporting evidence and takes a look at the gut microbiome in the context of nutrient-rich diets and how they facilitate the progression of dysbiosis and disease [1].

What is the microbiome?

The microbiome is the varied community of bacteria, archaea, eukarya, and viruses that inhabit our guts. The four bacterial phyla of Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria comprise 98% of the intestinal microbiome.

Continue reading “Nutrient-Rich Diets May Lead to Dysbiosis and Age-Related Diseases” »

Humans may not be able to burp properly in space, but we can now edit a genome. For the first time, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit the DNA of brewer’s yeast.

The goal wasn’t to create super space yeast. The astronauts were studying how DNA repair mechanisms work in space, so they snipped through strands of the fungus’s genetic code in a number of places to mimic radiation damage.

“The damage actually happens on the space station and the analysis also happens in space,” said Emily Gleason of miniPCR Bio, the company that designed the DNA lab aboard the ISS. “We want to understand if DNA repair methods are different in space than on Earth.”

Continue reading “For The First Time, DNA Has Been Edited With CRISPR in Space” »

Brain cancer kills more Australian children than other cancers; University of Melbourne research finds genetically engineered killer T-cells could change that.

Microorganisms like bacteria and fungi are increasingly becoming resistant to our best drugs, which is hurtling us towards a terrifying future where once-easily-treated infections become potentially life-threatening again. In a new approach to this problem, researchers from the University at Buffalo and Temple University have tested an alternative to antibiotics that uses existing drugs to starve a fungal infection of vital nutrients.

An exciting new study from the University of Cambridge is demonstrating how a novel virtual reality navigation test can better predict which patients are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease compared to other currently used “gold standard” cognitive tests.

Researchers from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg present a new method which can double the energy of a proton beam produced by laser-based particle accelerators. The breakthrough could lead to more compact, cheaper equipment that could be useful for many applications, including proton therapy.

Proton therapy involves firing a beam of accelerated protons at cancerous tumours, killing them through irradiation. But the equipment needed is so large and expensive that it only exists in a few locations worldwide.

Modern high-powered lasers offer the potential to reduce the equipment’s size and cost, since they can accelerate particles over a much shorter distance than traditional accelerators — reducing the distance required from kilometres to metres. The problem is, despite efforts from researchers around the world, laser generated proton beams are currently not energetic enough. But now, the Swedish researchers present a new method which yields a doubling of the energy — a major leap forward.

Continue reading “Colliding lasers double the energy of proton beams” »

A new study has affirmed the anesthetic drug xenon can help prevent long-term damage associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI). The researchers, from Imperial College London and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, have effectively demonstrated in mice that if xenon is administered within a few hours of a TBI it can prevent brain tissue damage that would result in long-term cognitive problems.