Recent Comments

    Category Biology/Biotechnology

    Fat-Dissolving Bile Acids may help regulate Gut Immunity and Inflammation

    January 7, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    fat cells in stomach
    The acids that break down fat in our intestines may also play a role in gut immunity and inflammation
    Image: Ugreen/iStock / Getty Images Plus

    Could bile acids—the fat-dissolving juices churned out by the liver and gallbladder—also play a role in immunity and inflammation? The answer appears to be yes, according to two separate Harvard Medical School studies published in Nature.

    The findings of the two studies, both conducted in mice, show that bile acids promote the differentiation and activity of several types of T cells involved in regulating inflammation and linked to intestinal inflammatory conditions. They also reveal that gut microbes are critical for converting bile acids into immune-signaling molecules.

    The work suggests possible therapeutic pathways for modulating ...

    Read More

    New Radiotracer offers opportunities for Earlier Intervention after Heart Attack

    January 5, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

     Binding specificity test. (A) PET/CT axial views, autoradiographs, and corresponding H&E stainings of 10-micron cross-sections prepared from MI nonblocked, blocked, and sham-operated rats. Autoradiographs and H&E stainings from nonblocked hearts show increased Ga-68-FAPI-04 uptake in infarcted area at 7 days after MI, whereas uptake is negligible after sham operation or injection of nonlabeled FAPI-04 (blocked). Infarcted areas in H&E stainings are identified with arrows. (B) PET image–derived infarct-to-noninfarct uptake ratio (derived from 6 nonblocked and 3 blocked rat hearts subjected to coronary ligation). (C) Autoradiography image–derived infarct-to-noninfarct uptake ratio (derived from 3 nonblocked and 3 blocked MI hearts). QL = quantum level.

    New radiotracer offers opp...

    Read More

    Alzheimer ‘Tau’ protein far surpasses Amyloid in predicting toll on brain tissue

    January 4, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Brain MRI scans
    Tau PET brain scans (green) in early clinical-stage Alzheimer’s patients accurately predict the location of brain atrophy measured by MRI 1–2 years later (magenta). Amyloid PET imaging (blue) does not predict the location of either tau or future brain atrophy.

    Tau PET brain imaging could launch precision medicine era for Alzheimer’s disease. Brain imaging of pathological tau-protein “tangles” reliably predicts the location of future brain atrophy in Alzheimer’s patients a year or more in advance, according to a new study by scientists at the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center...

    Read More

    Delivering TB vaccine Intravenously dramatically Improves Potency, study shows

    January 2, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    3D PET CT scans of monkey lungs showing inflammation (red and yellow) from TB infection. The top row were vaccinated the usual way with a shot into the skin The bottom row received the vaccine intravenously.
    CREDIT
    JoAnne Flynn, Ph.D., Alexander White, Pauline Maiello, and Mario Roederer, Ph.D.

    Worldwide, more people die from tuberculosis (TB) than any other infectious disease, even though the vast majority were vaccinated. The vaccine just isn’t that reliable. But a new Nature study finds that simply changing the way the vaccine is administered could dramatically boost its protective power.

    Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) discovered that intravenous TB vaccination is highly protecti...

    Read More