Category Health/Medical

Scientists cast new light on how fasting impacts the immune system

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New research from The University of Manchester may reshape our understanding of what happens to the immune system when we fast. The study on mice shows that the brain’s hypothalamus controls how the immune system adapts during fasting, through a handful of highly specialized neurons responsible for making animals hungry.

Published in Science Immunology, the study shows the brain’s perception of hunger or fullness, rather than actual eating or caloric restriction, is enough to drive changes in the body’s immune cells.

The findings cast doubt on the current view that a lack of nutrients alone controls how the immune system responds to fasting, indicating the brain has a critical role, beyond the simple absence of food.

By artificially switching on specific brain neurons in mice...

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Highly accurate blood test diagnoses Alzheimer’s disease, measures extent of dementia

Kanta Horie
WashU Medicine researcher Kanta Horie, PhD, places a sample in a mass spectrometer that measures protein levels in blood plasma and other fluids. Horie co-led the development of a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease that diagnoses and stages the disease by using mass spectrometry to measure the level of a protein called MTBR-tau243.

Could help determine which patients are likely to benefit from new Alzheimer’s drugs. A newly developed blood test for Alzheimer’s disease not only aids in the diagnosis of the neurodegenerative condition but also indicates how far it has progressed, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Lund University in Sweden.

Several blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease are already clinically available, incl...

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How a critical enzyme keeps potentially dangerous genes in check

How a critical enzyme keeps potentially dangerous genes in check
Ogt deletion results in reduced DNA methylation genome-wide. Credit: Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41594-025-01505-9

You may have heard of the fantastic-sounding “dark side of the genome.” This poorly studied fraction of DNA, known as heterochromatin, makes up around half of your genetic material, and scientists are now starting to unravel its role in your cells.

For more than 50 years, scientists have puzzled over the genetic material contained in this “dark DNA.” But there’s a growing body of evidence showing that its proper functioning is critical for maintaining cells in a healthy state. Heterochromatin contains tens of thousands of units of dangerous DNA, known as “transposable elements” (or TEs)...

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DNA scaffolds enable self-assembling 3D electronic devices

DNA helps electronics to leave flatland
Chip-integrated 3D nanostructured device fabricated using DNA self-assembly (Left panel). A DNA crystal is grown at a designated substrate location (about 1000 crystals on 5μm pads are shown on a Right panel), then mineralized to silica and volumetrically templated with a semiconductor material before electrodes are attached (Center panel). The resulting device exhibits an electrical response when exposed to light. Thousands of such 3D devices can be grown in parallel using this bottom-up fabrication approach. Credit: Center for Functional Nanomaterials

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have for the first time used DNA to help create 3D electronically operational devices with nanometer-size features.

“Going from 2D to 3D can dramatically increase the density and computing power o...

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