Category Biology/Biotechnology

Immunotherapy Significantly Increases the Number of Patients Free from Bowel Cancer: Clinical trial

chemotherapy
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An immunotherapy drug given before surgery instead of chemotherapy meant that over ten times more patients with a certain genetic profile were cancer-free after surgery, according to clinical trial results presented by researchers at UCL and UCLH.

The findings, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting 2024, are interim results from the NEOPRISM-CRC phase II clinical trial assessing whether the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab can improve outcomes for patients with stage two or stage three MMR deficient/MSI-High bowel cancer. The trial was a collaboration among UCL, UCLH, the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, St...

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‘Sticky and Strain-Gradient Artificial Epineurium’ can Heal Severed Nerves in only One Minute, Study Claims

Revolutionary 'sticky and strain-gradient artificial epineurium' heals severed nerves in only one minute instead of traditional suturing
Human skin-inspired design of sticky and strain-gradient artificial epineurium (SSGAE) and its tissue-adhesion characteristics. Credit: Korea University College of Medicine

A novel medical advancement termed the “sticky and strain-gradient artificial epineurium” (SSGAE) has been developed, demonstrating remarkable efficacy in rapidly healing severed nerves without traditional microsurgical suturing techniques.

This innovation, spearheaded by a collaborative effort between Professor Jong Woong Park from Orthopedic Surgery, Korea University College of Medicine, Professor Donghee Son from Sungkyunkwan University Department of Superintelligence Engineering, and Professor Mikyung Shin from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, presents a significant breakthrough in nerve repair surge...

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Eating More Fruits and Vegetables may Lead to Optimal Sleep Duration

fruits and vegetables
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Good health depends on a healthy diet and sufficient exercise and sleep. There are clear associations among these components; for example, good nutrition provides energy for exercise, and many people report that getting enough exercise is important to their ability to get enough sleep. So how might nutrition affect sleep?

A new study looks at the connection between fruit and vegetable intake and sleep duration. The research, by a team from Finland’s University of Helsinki, National Institute for Health and Welfare, and Turku University of Applied Sciences, is published in Frontiers in Nutrition.

Why sleep is important and how it works
Sleep gives our bodies the chance to rest and recover from wakeful activity...

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Neuroscientists use AI to Simulate how the Brain makes Sense of the Visual World

brain ai
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A research team at Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute has made a major stride in using AI to replicate how the brain organizes sensory information to make sense of the world, opening up new frontiers for virtual neuroscience.

Watch the seconds tick by on a clock and, in visual regions of your brain, neighboring groups of angle-selective neurons will fire in sequence as the second hand sweeps around the clock face. These cells form beautiful “pinwheel” maps, with each segment representing a visual perception of a different angle. Other visual areas of the brain contain maps of more complex and abstract visual features, such as the distinction between images of familiar faces vs. places, which activate distinct neural “neighborhoods.”

Such ...

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