Lifeboat Foundation

Changes in the brain caused by Alzheimer’s disease are associated with shortening of the telomeres—the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that shorten as cells age—according to a new study led by Anya Topiwala of Oxford Population Health, part of the University of Oxford, UK, published March 22 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Telomeres on chromosomes protect DNA from degrading, but every time a cell divides, the telomeres lose some of their length. Short telomeres are a sign of stress and cellular aging, and are also associated with a higher risk of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Currently, little is known about the links between telomere length and changes that occur in the brains of people with neurological conditions. Understanding those relationships could offer insights into the biological mechanisms that cause neurodegenerative disorders.

In the new study, researchers compared telomere length in white blood cells to results from brain MRIs and electronic health records from more than 31,000 participants in the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing anonymized genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million UK participants.

Researchers have shown for the first time exactly how immature neutrophils—white blood cells that are an important part of the immune system—are hijacked by pancreatic cancers to drive immunosuppression and treatment resistance. The study, led by investigators at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, is published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The paper describes a previously unrecognized signaling circuit in pancreatic cancer that instigates immunosuppression and tumor-promoting inflammation in the pancreatic tumor microenvironment, ultimately creating treatment resistance. The central regulator of this treatment resistance is neutrophil-derived TNF signaling. TNF, or tumor necrosis factor, is a substance in the body that causes inflammation.

This is the first study to implicate immunosuppressive signaling from immature neutrophils—the earliest sentinels in developing pancreatic cancer—in this process, said Jashodeep Datta, M.D., associate director of Translational Research at the Sylvester Pancreatic Cancer Research Institute. Datta, whose laboratory at Sylvester led the research, is senior author of the multicenter study.

For the first time, scientists at the University of Sydney.

The University of Sydney is a public research university located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1,850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is consistently ranked among the top universities in the world. The University of Sydney has a strong focus on research and offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs across a variety of disciplines, including arts, business, engineering, law, medicine, and science.

A superconducting ink made through a simple process called chemical exfoliation could be used to print the cold circuits inside quantum computers and MRI machines.

By Leah Crane

And just in time for the “Last of Us” series. 😂

A drug-resistant fungus Candida Auris is spreading in US hospitals at an alarming rate. Those with fragile immune systems are at risk. What happens if it enters your country or your neighbourhood? Should you be scared? Molly Gambhir reports.

Continue reading “Gravitas: Alarming rise of drug-resistant fungus | Candida Auris spreads in US” »

Electronic neurons made from silicon mimic brain cells and could be used to treat autism¹.

Researchers plan to use the technology in conjunction with machine learning to retrain damaged or atypical neurons and restore function in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, autism or other conditions.

Another team attempted to make artificial neurons in 2015 from a conductive organic chemical, but that version oversimplified brain signaling and was too large to implant in a human brain².

An international team of researchers has developed artificial neurons that could be implanted in the brain to repair the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.

Chloe Kent

Accurately reconstructing how the parts of a complex molecular are held together knowing only how the molecule distorts and breaks up—this was the challenge taken on by a research team led by SISSA’s Cristian Micheletti and recently published on Physical Review Letters. In particular, the scientists studied how a DNA double helix unzips when translocated at high velocity through a nanopore, reconstructing fundamental DNA thermodynamic properties from the sole speed of the process.

The translocation of polymers through nanopores has long studied as a fundamental theoretical problem as well as for its several practical ramifications, e.g. for genome sequencing. We recall that the latter involves driving a DNA filament through a pore so narrow that only one of the double-helical strands can pass, while the other strand is left behind. As a result, the translocated DNA double helix will necessarily split and unwind, an effect known as unzipping.

The research team, which also includes Antonio Suma from the University of Bari, first author, and Vincenzo Carnevale from Temple University, used a cluster of computers to simulate the process with different driving forces keeping track of the DNA’s unzipping speed, a type of data that has rarely been studied despite being directly accessible in experiments.

At a company that helps people find jobs, 2,200 employees will now have to embark on a job search of their own. Indeed laid off 15% of employees today, CEO Chris Hyams announced in an all-hands meeting.

In a blog post, Hyams elaborated on the decision by explaining that the job market is expected to continue to cool down. Indeed makes its money by allowing companies to sponsor job listings, which shows the listing to more job seekers. But Hyams said that as of last quarter, sponsored job volumes were down 33% year over year, and total job openings were down 3.5%.

“With future job openings at or below pre-pandemic levels, our organization is simply too big for what lies ahead,” Hyams wrote. “We have held out longer than many other companies, but the revenue trends are undeniable. So I have decided to act now.”