A collection of studies that chart how mammalian brain cells grow and differentiate is a ‘very valuable’ tool for neuroscientists.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 3
Goodbye, Cavities? Scientists Just Found a Way to Regrow Tooth Enamel
A newly developed material has been used to create a gel capable of repairing and rebuilding tooth enamel, offering a potential breakthrough in both preventive and restorative dental care.
Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering designed this bioinspired substance to restore damaged or eroded enamel, reinforce existing enamel, and help guard against future decay. Their findings were published in Nature Communications.
This protein-based gel, which contains no fluoride, can be quickly applied to teeth using the same method dentists use for traditional fluoride treatments. It imitates the natural proteins responsible for guiding enamel formation early in life. Once in place, the gel forms a thin, durable coating that seeps into the tooth surface, filling small cracks and imperfections.
New brain atlas offers unprecedented detail in MRI scans
The human brain comprises hundreds of interconnected regions that drive our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. Existing brain atlases can identify major structures in MRI scans – such as the hippocampus, which supports memory and learning – but their finer sub-regions remain hard to detect. These distinctions matter because sub-regions of areas like the hippocampus, for example, are affected differently during Alzheimer’s disease progression.
Examining the brain at the cellular level is achievable using microscopy (histology), but cannot be done in living individuals, limiting its potential for understanding how the human brain changes during development, ageing and disease.
Published in Nature, the new study introduces NextBrain, an atlas of the entire adult human brain that can be used to analyse MRI scans of living patients in a matter of minutes and at a level of detail not possible until now.
The creators of the atlas, which is freely available, hope it will ultimately help to accelerate discovery in brain science and its translation into better diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as Alzheimer’s.
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Coordinating health AI to prevent defensive escalation
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can analyse medical images, records, and claims are becoming accessible to everyone. Although these systems outperform physicians at specific tasks, such as detecting cancer on CT scans, they are still imperfect. But as AI performance progresses from occasionally correct to reliably superior, there will be increasing pressure to conform to algorithmic outputs.
Is fungi our secret tool against antibiotic resistance?
face_with_colon_three fungi is even better than current medicines and frankly better for you. We can also ingest fungi that can help be a natural food medicine to help prevent worse diseases.
While all attention is on the pandemic right now, the SARS-CoV-2 virus isn’t the only microbial threat we face.
While we’re all rightly focused on the COVID-19 pandemic at the moment, the SARS-CoV-2 virus isn’t the only microbial threat we face.
Back in 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that within a decade, antibiotic-resistant bacteria could make routine surgery, organ transplantation and cancer treatment life-threateningly risky — and spell the end of modern medicine as we know it.
United Nations General Assembly’s AUDACITY 100 Disruptors Summit
face_with_colon_three Fungi can save all life on earth. This lecture teaches that mushrooms are outperforming even age old medicines.
Watch my 15 minute speech at the United Nations General Assembly’s AUDACITY 100 Disruptors Summit was a powerful reminder of how interconnected we all are.
I spoke about how fungal mycelium can help heal ecosystems, strengthen food systems, and strengthens the health.
of the residents of the planet. Mycelium supports our collective immunity.
When Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World was published in 2005, it foretold the mycelial revolution that continues to sweep the planet. This book is as relevant today as it was then. What has happened since? The scientific community continues to verify that mycelium is essential for our collective health, whether as nutritional supplements, or as the core fabric of our food webs.
Scientists map DNA folding at single base-pair resolution in living cells
Scientists from Oxford’s Radcliffe Department of Medicine have achieved the most detailed view yet of how DNA folds and functions inside living cells, revealing the physical structures that control when and how genes are switched on.
Using a new technique called MCC ultra, the team mapped the human genome down to a single base pair, unlocking how genes are controlled, or, how the body decides which genes to turn on or off at the right time, in the right cells. This breakthrough gives scientists a powerful new way to understand how genetic differences lead to disease and opens up fresh routes for drug discovery.
“For the first time, we can see how the genome’s control switches are physically arranged inside cells, said Professor James Davies, lead author of the study published in the journal Cell titled ” Mapping chromatin structure at base-pair resolution unveils a unified model of cis-regulatory element interactions.”
AI-designed antibodies created from scratch
Research led by the University of Washington reports on an AI-guided method that designs epitope-specific antibodies and confirms atomically precise binding using high-resolution molecular imaging, then strengthens those designs so the antibodies latch on much more tightly.
Antibodies dominate modern therapeutics, with more than 160 products on the market and a projected value of US$445 billion in 5 years. Antibodies protect the body by locking onto a precise spot—an epitope—on a virus or toxin.
That pinpoint connection determines whether an antibody blocks infection, marks a pathogen for removal, or neutralizes a harmful protein. When a drug antibody misses its intended epitope, treatment can lose power or trigger side effects by binding the wrong target.
Textbook view of NMDA receptor calcium signals upended by new findings
Drugs that act on NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptors, which are essential for learning, memory and moment-by-moment consciousness, are key for treating neuropsychiatric disorders. These drugs were developed based on the assumption that the proportion of calcium in the current produced by these receptors remains constant. That assumption turns out to be false, according to University at Buffalo research published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our research reveals that small variations in the brain environment in which NMDA receptors operate can increase or decrease the amount of calcium in the currents fluxed by these receptors,” explains Gabriela K. Popescu, Ph.D., corresponding author and professor of biochemistry in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. “This, in turn, could mean the difference between normal and impaired learning, memory and cognition, symptoms that accompany many neuropsychiatric conditions.”