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Using tiny ripples at skin level to monitor for possible health problems below

Caltech scientists have developed a method that detects tiny, imperceptible movements at the surface of objects to reveal details about what lies beneath. By analyzing the physics of waves traveling across the surface of an object—whether that be a manufactured product or the human body—the new technique can determine both the stiffness and thickness of the underlying material or tissue. This lays the groundwork for the project’s ultimate goal of enabling inexpensive, at-home health monitoring using little more than a smartphone camera.

“There is information scattered all around us in plain sight that we just haven’t learned to tap into. Our work is trying to leverage that information to recover material properties from inside objects by studying tiny movements on the surface,” says Katie L. Bouman, professor of computing and mathematical sciences, electrical engineering, and astronomy at Caltech and both a Rosenberg Scholar and a Heritage Medical Research Institute (HMRI) Investigator.

Bouman and her colleagues from Caltech presented the technique, called visual surface wave elastography, and its medical applications in a paper presented at the International Conference on Computer Vision in Honolulu last fall. The lead authors are Alexander C. Ogren, Ph.D., and Berthy T. Feng, Ph.D., who completed the work while at Caltech.

Functional photoacoustic microscopy reaches super-resolution by tracking red blood cells

The brain relies on real-time delivery of oxygen and nutrients through its microvasculature, which threads through neural tissue like electrical wires. While modern imaging technologies allow researchers to follow the activity of individual neurons in the brain, they are not yet advanced enough to dissect the microvascular function at a comparable spatial scale. This gap hinders our understanding of cerebral small vessel disease and its contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia.

To address this challenge, a team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University, led by Song Hu, professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering, have developed super-resolution functional photoacoustic microscopy (SR-fPAM).

By tracking the movement and oxygenation-dependent color change of red blood cells, SR-fPAM allows researchers to image blood flow and oxygenation at single-cell resolution in the mouse brain, which bridges a critical gap in functional microvascular imaging and could provide new insight into microvascular health and disease, such as stroke, vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Abstract: Challenging the dogma…

Here, Adrian Vella & team show hepatic resistance to glucagon’s effects on amino acid catabolism is not a significant factor in postprandial metabolism, regardless of obesity or hepatic steatosis: type2diabetes MASH Glucagon.

Address correspondence to: Adrian Vella, Endocrine Research Unit, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, 200 First St. SW, 5–194 Joseph, Rochester, Minnesota 55,905, USA. Phone: 507.255.6515; Email: [email protected].

Find articles by Christie, H. in: | Google Scholar |

1Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Metabolism and Nutrition, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.

Universal Vaccine Blocks Viruses, Bacteria, And Allergies With a Nasal Spray

Imagine getting a nasal spray in the fall months that protects you from all respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and the common cold, as well as bacterial pneumonia and early spring allergens.

As vital as vaccines are, they can be frustratingly selective about their targets.

Scientists from institutions across the US have now developed a strikingly “universal” vaccine, which has protected mice against a range of viruses, bacteria, and even allergies.

The new GLA-3M-052-LS+OVA vaccine can be delivered as a nasal spray. Three doses protected mice from infection from SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses for three months, and reduced the viral load in their lungs 700-fold, compared to unvaccinated mice.

Painful Side Effect of Statins Explained After Decades of Mystery

It’s the most common reason patients quit statins, and it’s a very real problem that needs a solution.

Around 10 percent of people who take statins to lower cholesterol experience mysterious muscle pains, causing many to discontinue these potentially life-saving medicines.

Now, researchers from Columbia University and the University of Rochester in the US have revealed that statin-associated muscle symptoms (SAMS), such as aches and fatigue, result from an influx of calcium into muscle cells, which leads to tissue damage and potentially life-threatening complications.

Statins work by blocking an enzyme that’s required for the biosynthesis of cholesterol in the liver. As a result, levels of ’bad’ LDL cholesterol are reduced in the blood, helping to prevent one of America’s top killers: cardiovascular diseases like atherosclerosis, the buildup of fatty deposits in blood vessels.

Sensitive CAR T cells redefine targetable CD70 expression in solid tumors

Solid tumor antigen heterogeneity is a major challenge for cancer immunotherapies, including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. Unlike CD19 for B cell malignancies, no target with pan-cellular expression in solid tumors and absence in normal vital cells has been identified. CD70 is a promising candidate, physiologically confined to immune cell subsets and aberrantly expressed in many cancers. We show that heterogeneous CD70 expression in tumors is epigenetically regulated, ranging from high to very low in individual cells, appearing negative by conventional detection methods. Using a highly sensitive CD70 receptor, HLA-independent T cell (HIT) receptor coexpressing CD80 and 4-1BBL for costimulation, we efficiently eliminated CD70-heterogeneous tumors that evade prototypic CAR T cells. These findings provide a potential strategy to treat a broad range of solid tumors.

Efficient amyloid-β degradation in Alzheimer’s disease using SPYTACs

Now online! SPYTAC is a synthetic peptide-programmed targeted protein degradation platform harnessing LRP1 to drive lysosomal degradation of extracellular amyloid-β in the brain and periphery. In 5×FAD mice, SPYTAC treatment efficiently degrades amyloid-β, preserves neurons, and improves cognition with reduced neuroinflammation and microhemorrhage when compared with antibody therapy.

This isn’t just about living longer

Scientists are discovering that targeting senescent cells the “aged” cells surrounding tumors may weaken cancer itself.

Cancer often forces nearby cells into accelerated aging. Those senescent cells then release growth factors that help the tumor survive and expand.

A new therapy called Senovax aims to eliminate those surrounding cells, effectively collapsing the tumor’s support system.

Preclinical data from Immortebio shows tumor reduction in mouse models of:

Lung cancer.

Read more

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