#Researchers retrieve ostmemories Retrograde amnesia is the inability to recall established memories. In humans, amnesia is associated with traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer disease,
and other neurological conditions. Whether memories lost to amnesia are erased completely or merely unable to be recalled remains an open question.
Now, in a finding that casts new light on the nature of memory, published in Science,
researchers from the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics demonstrated in mice that traces of old memories do remain in the amnestic brain,
and that the cellular pathways underlying them can be reactivated, allowing lost memories to be found.
whose storage was disrupted by chemically inducing retrograde amnesia, could still be recalled. rain researchers have been divided for decades on
whether amnesia is caused by an impairment in the storage of a memory, or in its recall, said Tonegawa.
thus inducing retrograde amnesia. Other mice received saline as a control. As expected, amnestic mice returned to chamber A did not freeze,
despite the induction of retrograde amnesia, the authors suggest that different processes may control memory encoding and recall.
says Tonegawa, s that in retrograde amnesia, past memories may not be erased, but could simply be lost and inaccessible for recall.
and save thousands of dollars per transplant. UCLA researchers measured liver function in 53 potential organ donors using the fingertip probe.
In the study, it successfully predicted every time which livers would function properly in transplant patients,
the study first author and an assistant professor of surgery in UCLA division of liver and pancreas transplantation. his device is best single predictor of organ survival in our patients,
Larger scale gene function studies A relatively new method of targeting specific DNA sequences in zebrafish could dramatically accelerate the discovery of gene function and the identification of disease genes in humans, according to scientists at the National Human genome Research
or have been identified as possible disease genes, but the functions of those genes have not been confirmed by knocking them out in animal models and seeing
Dr. Burgess said. he study of zebrafish has led already to advances in our understanding of cancer
and other human diseases, said NHGRI Director Eric Green, M d, . Ph d. e anticipate that the techniques developed by NHGRI researchers will accelerate understanding the biological function of specific genes
and the role they play in human genetic diseases. The CRISPR/Cas9 method of gene editing is one of the two essential components in the NHGRI team high-throughput method.
of which are similar to human genes involved in deafness. Hearing is one of the other interests of Dr. Burgess lab.)This produced mutations in 82 of the 83 genes.
#Injectable electronics New system holds promise for basic neuroscience, treatment of neurodegenerative diseasesit a notion that might be pulled from the pages of science-fiction novel electronic devices that can be injected directly into the brain,
and treat everything from neurodegenerative disorders to paralysis. It sounds unlikely, until you visit Charles Lieber lab. A team of international researchers, led by Lieber, the Mark Hyman, Jr.
would it be possible to deliver the mesh electronics by syringe needle injection, a process common to delivery of many species in biology and medicine you could go to the doctor
and you inject this and youe wired up.''hough not the first attempts at implanting electronics into the brain deep brain stimulation has been used to treat a variety of disorders for decades the nano-fabricated scaffolds operate on a completely different scale. xisting techniques are crude relative
and administered like any other injection. After injection, the input/output of the mesh can be connected to standard measurement electronics
so that the integrated devices can be addressed and used to stimulate or record neural activity. hese type of things have never been done before, from both a fundamental neuroscience and medical perspective,
Lieber said. t really exciting there are a lot of potential applications. oing forward, Lieber said, researchers hope to better understand how the brain
and Applied science and California Nanosystems Institute has identified an unexpectedly general set of rules that determine which molecules can cause the immune system to become vulnerable to the autoimmune disorders lupus and psoriasis.
the multidisciplinary team also included Michel Gilliet of Switzerland Lausanne University Hospital, and Jure Dobnikar and Daan Frenkel of the University of Cambridge.
Autoimmune diseases strike when the body attacks itself because it fails to distinguish between host tissue
and disease-causing agents, or pathogens. Two such disorders are lupus, which can damage the skin, joints and organs, causing rashes, hair loss and fatigue;
and psoriasis, which causes rashes, lesions and arthritis, and creates an increased risk for cancer and diabetes.
When a healthy person is infected by a virus, VIRAL DNA can activate immune cells via a receptor called TLR9.
The receptor triggers the cells to send signaling molecules called interferons to initiate a powerful defensive response.
In people with lupus or psoriasis, these cells are activated by their own DNA, or self-DNA.
Using synchrotron X-ray scattering and other techniques, researchers determined that a broad range of molecules,
Wong said. his new knowledge will make it easier to design new therapeutic strategies to control immune responses.
and triggering responses in disorders such as lupus and psoriasis. We were able to elucidate something that was understood poorly a key to triggering the immune response is that the molecules must arrange the DNA
reduce agility and result in fatigue, joint sprains or long-term ailments like arthritis or chronic back problems.
ETOWL measures the stress placed on each avatar joints as well as its balance, flexibility and center of gravity.
Squire believes this will prevent future injuries and reduce the time and financial cost of unnecessary field trials.
The polymer is known as Ropy 352 and produced by a non-disease-causing bacterium. his is one of many naturally occurring,
non-disease-causing bacterial strains my research program isolated and studied for years, said Janine Trempy,
In basic research, wee also broadened our understanding of how and why non-disease-causing bacteria produce polymers.
non-disease-causing bacterial strains that produce unique polymers with characteristics desirable and safe for food products,
These are driven chemical processes by naturally occurring bacteria that do not cause disease in humans, Trempy said,
but is derived from a bacterium known to be a plant pathogen and suspected of causing digestive distress
or fever-inducing. Trempy research program has determined the new polymer will thicken whole and nonfat milk,
#Petri dish tumor test could personalize drug therapy for cancer patients In a highly successful, first-of-its-kind endeavor,
The advance could mean a giant step forward in efforts to tailor medical treatment plans to individual patients.
Led by Shigeki Miyamoto, a professor of oncology at UW-Madison, and David Beebe, the John D. Macarthur Professor and Claude Bernard professor of biomedical engineering at UW-Madison, the researchers published news of the advance May 1, 2015, in the Royal Society
which involves co-culturing multiple myeloma tumor cells with their surrounding nontumor cells, all from the same patient, in a microscale petri dish.
The researchers then treated the tumor cells with bortezomib, a drug commonly used in multiple myeloma therapy.
And after only three days, the researchers could determine whether the drug was effective or not.
Multiple myeloma is a universally fatal cancer. Rising in the blood marrow due to an accumulation of abnormal,
or cancerous, plasma cells, myeloma is treatable but incurable. he median survival rate has improved, but is only about five to seven years,
The new assay could save many multiple myeloma cancer patients the psychological stress of having to try multiple drugs until they find the most effective one.
The fundamental idea behind the research was to focus on everything surrounding a tumor not just the tumor itself.
These surroundings can include bone marrow stromal cells, macrophages and other immune cells, all of which represent an integral part of the tumor environment.
By including these components in a microfluidic petri dish a device developed by Beebe and Miyamoto lab a few years ago the researchersability to accurately gauge results increased dramatically.
The researchers essentially created a miniaturized external model of an individual cancer, says Pak. She has founded a service-based company called Lynx Biosciences based on these findings,
In addition, they are starting to consider what this discovery means for other cancer types and other drugs.
The researchersresults could have interesting and wide-ranging implications for the future of cancer treatment and therapy,
although their work is far from over. his is only one type of cancer, one particular drug,
#First functional, synthetic immune organ with controllable antibodies created by engineers Cornell University engineers have created a functional,
synthetic immune organ that produces antibodies and can be controlled in the lab, completely separate from a living organism.
The engineered organ has implications for everything from rapid production of immune therapies to new frontiers in cancer or infectious disease research.
Like a real organ, the organoid converts B cells which make antibodies that respond to infectious invaders into germinal centers,
mature and mutate their antibody genes when the body is under attack. Germinal centers are a sign of infection
and are not present in healthy immune organs. The engineers have demonstrated how they can control this immune response in the organ
get activated and change their antibody types. According to their paper, their 3-D organ outperforms existing 2-D cultures and can produce activated B cells up to 100 times faster.
the organ could be used to study specific infections and how the body produces antibodies to fight those infections from Ebola to HIV. ou can use our system to force the production of immunotherapeutics at much faster rates,
he said. Such a system also could be used to test toxic chemicals and environmental factors that contribute to infections or organ malfunctions.
The process of B cells becoming germinal centers is understood not well, and in fact, when the body makes mistakes in the genetic rearrangement related to this process,
blood cancer can result. n the long run, we anticipate that the ability to drive immune reaction ex vivo at controllable rates grants us the ability to reproduce immunological events with tunable parameters for better mechanistic understanding of B cell development and generation of B cell tumors,
as well as screening and translation of new classes of drugs, Singh said g
#New drug triggers tissue regeneration: Faster regrowth and healing of damaged tissues Research focuses on select tissues injured through disease, surgery and transplants,
but early findings indicate potential for broad applicationsthe concept sounds like the stuff of science fiction:
take a pill, and suddenly new tissues grow to replace damaged ones. Researchers at Case Western Reserve and UT Southwestern Medical center this week announced that they have taken significant steps toward turning this once-improbable idea into a vivid reality.
In a study published in the June 12 edition of Science, they detail how a new drug repaired damage to the colon,
the Ingalls Professor of Cancer Genetics at the university School of medicine and a medical oncologist at University Hospitals Case Medical center Seidman Cancer Center. e have developed a drug that acts like a vitamin for tissue stem cells,
which suggests to us that it may have applications in treating many diseases. he institutions collaborating on this work next hope to develop the drug now known as W033291for use in human patients.
they first would focus on individuals who are receiving bone marrow transplants, individuals with ulcerative colitis, and individuals having liver surgery.
The goal for each is the same: to increase dramatically the chances of a more rapid and successful recovery.
Zhang then traveled to UT Southwestern Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center where Willson serves as director.
The third finding came through collaboration between Markowitz and Stanton L. Gerson, MD, director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, UH Seidman Cancer Center,
as well as the Asa and Patricia Shiverick-Jane Shiverick (Tripp) Professor of Hematological Oncology. Case Western Reserve research associate Amar Desai, Phd, worked between the Markowitz
and then received a partial bone marrow transplant. Without SW033291, the animals died. With it they recovered.
From there, more detailed studies showed that mice given SW033291 recovered normal blood counts six days faster than mice that were transplanted without receiving SW033291.
Neutrophils battle infection, platelets prevent bleeding, and red blood cells deliver oxygen throughout the body. In addition, Desai work showed that
When investigators treated mice with other diseases the SW033291 drug again accelerated tissue recovery. For example, the investigators teamed with Fabio Cominelli, MD, Phd, a Case Western Reserve Professor and Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Liver disease,
to study a mouse model of ulcerative colitis. SW033291 healed virtually all the ulcers in the animalscolons
and prevented colitis symptoms. In mice where two-thirds of their livers had been removed surgically, SW033291 accelerated regrowth of new liver nearly twice as fast as normally happens without medication.
Because bone marrow, colon, and liver are significantly different tissues, the investigators believe the pathway by which SW033291 speeds tissue regeneration is likely to work as well for treating diseases of many other tissues of the body.
However the next stages of the research will concentrate on three diseases where SW033291 already shows promise to provide dramatic improvement.
In bone marrow transplants, for example, effects of SW033291 in accelerating tissue growth would provide the body the cells required to fight off the two most common and sometimes fatal complications, infection and bleeding.
For those suffering the debilitating impact of colitis, accelerating tissue growth could heal colon ulcers more quickly,
which in turn could allow patients to take lower dosages of other medications that treat colitis some
of which have serious side effects. Finally, the promise of tissue growth could increase survival rates for patients with liver cancer;
in some cases today, physicians are unable to perform surgery because the amount of the liver to be removed would be so great as to pose severe risk to the patient.
But having a drug to accelerate the liver regrowth could make surgery a viable option.
The team next step will be to complete studies showing safety of SW033291-related compounds in larger animals, a required part of the pathway to secure approval from the U s. Food and Drug Administration
from the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals, and from multiple National institutes of health grants that included the Case GI SPORE,
and the National Center for Accelerating Innovation at the Cleveland Clinic. Additional support was received from the Marguerite Wilson Foundation;
the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas; Inje University; and the Korean National Research Foundation.
Markowitz and Willson, former director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and now director of the Simmons Cancer Center at UT Southwestern, initiated the project to study the potential of inhibiting 15-PGDH as a tissue
Yang and Bae, now at Inje University in Korea, worked in the Markowitz laboratory on studies of colitis (Yang) and on liver regrowth after surgery (Bae.
Fink and Tiwari, both of Case Western Reserve, completed the work on the colitis mouse model.
who played a role in the success of the colitis experiments in mice, and Mark Chance, who contributed proteomics expertise for studies that showed how SW033291 works.
according to Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience reporthuman stem cells can be differentiated to produce other cell types, such as organ cells, skin cells, or brain cells.
In a new study published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, researchers report successfully growing multiple brain structures
Mesencephalic dopaminergic (mda) neurons and their connections to other neurons in the brain are believed to be related to disorders including drug abuse, schizophrenia, Parkinson disease,
and perhaps eating disorders, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, and Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. However, studying mda neurons and neocortical neurons in isolation does not reveal much data about how these cells actually interact in these conditions.
This new capability to grow and interconnect two types of neurons in vitro now provides researchers with an excellent model for further study. his method,
#Tumour in a petri dish a way to a personalized cancer treatment Cancer is still one of those diagnoses that make people weak in their knees
That is why innovative cancer treatments are always in the spotlight of attention and that is why scientists have been puzzling how to treat cancer for a long time.
They understand that not every case is the same, individuals need individual treatment. And now scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison completed highly successful,
said that this research is one of the first steps of mimicking the body of the cancer patient in a dish.
which involves co-culturing multiple myeloma tumour cells with their surrounding cells that do not have cancer, all from the same patient, in a micro scale petri dish.
Then scientists treated this cancer in a dish with common drug called bortezomib, which is used often to treat myeloma,
and it only took them three days to see if treatment is effective or not.
so in is a universally fatal cancer. It is treatable but incurable. It rises in the blood marrow due to an accumulation of abnormal,
or testing process, may not help to reach the breakthrough in searching for cure for cancer.
Multiple myeloma is most likely to remain a universally fatal cancer until some major scientific discoveries are made.
However, it can save many multiple myeloma cancer patients the psychological stress of having to try multiple drugs until they find the most effective one.
Cancer is still able to interact with its surroundings as well as treatment, but outside of the body.
Scientists are already thinking how to expand this assay to test responsiveness to different drugs of other cancers as well.
This may not be a tool to cure cancer, but it will surely help cancer patients to receive personalized treatments.
It will reduce stress they get through usual trial and error method and will make treatment that a little bit less tormenting.
Which is very good news to many patients and to their families i
#Scientists announce first room-temperature magnetic skyrmion bubbles Researchers at UCLA and the U s. Department of energy Argonne National Laboratory announced a new method for creating magnetic skyrmion bubbles at room temperature.
as a result of human exploitation and disease-related die offs, says Joshua Miller, Phd student in the Department of Biological sciences and lead author on the study. hus,
and toxic agents are studied. y developing this omo minutus, we are stepping beyond the need for animal or Petri dish testing:
and toxicity analysis systems that can mimic the response of actual human organs, said Rashi Iyer, a senior scientist at Los alamos National Laboratory.
Providing a realistic, cost-effective and rapid screening system such as ATHENA with high-throughput capabilities could provide major benefits to the medical field,
ranging from fundamental science to medicine. In astronomy, it will boost the performance of adaptive optics, a technology at the heart of the European Extremely Large telescope (E-ELT.
This device would be a great leap forward in cheap medical devices for underdeveloped countries, where simple medical care,
#New imaging technique could make brain tumor removal safer, more effective Brain surgery is famously difficult for good reason:
When removing a tumor, for example, neurosurgeons walk a tightrope as they try to take out as much of the cancer as possible
while keeping crucial brain tissue intact and visually distinguishing the two is often impossible. Now Johns Hopkins researchers report they have developed an imaging technology that could provide surgeons with a color-coded map of a patient brain showing
which areas are and are not cancer. A summary of the research appears June 17 in Science Translational Medicine. s a neurosurgeon,
I in agony when I taking out a tumor. If I take out too little the cancer could come back;
too much, and the patient can be disabled permanently, says Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M d.,a professor of neurosurgery,
neuroscience and oncology at the Johns hopkins university School of medicine and the clinical leader of the research team. e think optical coherence tomography has strong potential for helping surgeons know exactly where to cut.
First developed in the early 1990s for imaging the retina, optical coherence tomography (OCT) operates on the same echolocation principle used by bats and ultrasound scanners,
but it uses light rather than sound waves, yielding a higher-resolution image than does ultrasound.
One unique feature of OCT is that unlike X-ray, CT SCANS or PET scans, it delivers no ionizing radiation to patients.
For the past decade, research groups around the globe, including a group at Johns Hopkins led by Xingde Li, Ph d,
thought OCT might provide a solution to the problem of separating brain cancers from other tissue during surgery.
Kut first built on the idea that cancers tend to be relatively dense, which affects how they scatter
Once they had found the characteristic OCT ignatureof brain cancer, the team devised a computer algorithm to process OCT data and,
nearly instantaneously, generate a color-coded map with cancer in red and healthy tissue in green. e envision that the OCT would be aimed at the area being operated on,
and the surgeon could look at a screen to get a continuously updated picture of where the cancer is
the team has tested the system on fresh human brain tissue removed during surgeries and in surgeries to remove brain tumors from mice.
The researchers hope to begin clinical trials in patients this summer. If those trials are successful
it will be a big step up from imaging technologies now available during surgeries, says Quinones-Hinojosa. ltrasound has a much lower resolution than OCT,
The system can potentially be adapted to detect cancers in other parts of the body, Kut says.
She is working on combining OCT with a different imaging technique that would detect blood vessels to help surgeons avoid cutting them s
Dr Perriman from Bristol School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine said: rom our preliminary experiments, we found that we could produce these artificial membrane binding proteins
or knee osteoarthritis or the severe injuries caused by major trauma, for example in road traffic accidents or war injuries. heir new methodology,
which helped to make possible the first successful transplant of a tissue-engineered trachea, utilising the patient own stem cells.
#New tool on horizon for surgeons treating cancer patients Surgeons could know while their patients are still on the operating table
if a tissue is cancerous, according to researchers from the Department of energy Oak ridge National Laboratory and Brigham and Women Hospital/Harvard Medical school.
which looks for specific protein biomarkers to make a diagnosis . Although the IHC approach provides a high degree of spatial recognition,
and specificity of the antibody used to detect the protein. ORNL researchers trace this success to patents resulting from previously funded DOE projects
While yet other mass spectrometry-based techniques such as desorption electrospray ionization and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry are being evaluated for classifying tumors and providing prognostic information,
and proteins would harness the diagnostic value of validated immunohistochemistry approaches for surgical decision-making, Kertesz said.
rapidity and specificity of our method, there is great potential for our technology to assist surgeons in the detection of cancer from tissue biopsy samples,
#Scientists successfully test immunogen a component for potential HIV vaccine Team of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute, INTERNATIONAL AIDS Vaccine Initiative and The Rockefeller University have shown successfully that an experimental vaccine candidate
can stimulate the immune system activity necessary to stop HIV infection. This research is extremely significant.
In fact, scientists believe that findings of the study could provide key information for the development of an effective AIDS vaccine.
A protein nanoparticle called OD-GT8 60mer which already proved to help immunity of mouse models to cope with HIV,
may become one of the parts of first successful HIV vaccine. Image credit: scripps. eduefforts to create effective vaccine against HIV so far have been virtually fruitless.
However, scientists already describe results of this latest research as spectacular. The long-term goal of the research is to develop a vaccine that prompts the body to produce antibodies that bind to HIV
and prevent infection and current experiments with mice models showed promising results. Many vaccines for other diseases use a dead
or inactive version of the disease-causing microbe itself to trigger antibody production. However, this simple approach does not work with HIV immunizations with ativehiv proteins are ineffective in triggering an effective immune response
due to HIV ability to evade detection from the immune system and mutate rapidly into new strains.
This makes HIV vaccine a particularly challenging task for scientists, which explains why science still has produced not an effective one.
This challenge did not make scientists believe that AIDS vaccine is impossible. Instead they figured out that it has to consist of a series of related,
but slightly different proteins, called immunogens, to train the body to produce broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV.
It is a completely different approach than a traditional, so called oostershot, where a person is exposed to the same immunogen multiple times,
until develops imunity to a certain disease. The research required a broad partnership between different institutions.
During it scientists tested a protein nanoparticle designed to bind and activate B cells needed to fight HIV.
so another lab using genetic engineering created a mouse model to produce antibodies that resemble human antibodies.
The experiments showed that immunization with the compound produced antibody recursorswith some of the traits necessary to recognize
and block HIV infection. This suggests that eod-GT8 60mer immunogen could be a good candidate to serve as the first in a series of immunizations against HIV.
Professor David Nemazee evaluated results like that he vaccine appears to work well in our mouse model to rimethe antibody response In another research scientists used the same immunogen in a slightly different mouse model,
which showed promising results As well as scientists have taken approach to collect a variety of different immunogens to develop a united HIV vaccine,
now they have to find other needed immunogens. For further testing mouse models will have to be developed,
HIV vaccine would be a major breakthrough at fight against AIDS, as it still is arguably the biggest threat to human population.
As previous attempts to prevent the spread of the disease proved ineffective and there is no cure for it,
vaccine could be one of the greatest scientific achievements of the century. Source: Scripp s
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