Category Health/Medical

New Hope for Vision Regeneration by Reactivating Dormant Cells in the Retina

New hope for vision regeneration by reactivating dormant cells in the retina
Ikzf1/4 expression induces morphological reprogramming of MG ex vivo. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2122168120

There’s new hope for potentially restoring vision in patients suffering from degenerative retinal disease, thanks to work by researchers at Université de Montréal.

Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research was led by UdeM medical professor Michel Cayouette, director of cellular neurobiology research at the UdeM-affiliated Montreal Clinical Research Institute.

His research team discovered that cells that lie dormant in the retina (glial cells) can be induced to tansform into cells sharing some properties with cone photoreceptors, which allow people to do things like perceive c...

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‘Black Sheep’ of Helper T cells may hold key to Precision Allergy Treatment

A new Nature Immunologystudy led by University of Pittsburgh and National Institutes of Health researchers sheds light on how a rare type of helper T cell, called Th9, can drive allergic disease, suggesting new precision medicine approaches to treating allergies in patients with high levels of Th9.

“Th9 cells are kind of like the black sheep of helper T cells,” said senior author Daniella Schwartz, M.D., assistant professor of rheumatology at Pitt’s School of Medicine. “They need a perfect storm of occurrences to pop up, and they aren’t long-lived, which makes them hard to study. The other weird thing about Th9 cells is that they remain functional without seeing their antigen.”

T cells switch on when they encounter viruses, bacteria or other pathogens, causing them to ramp up pr...

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Deep Sleep may Mitigate Alzheimer’s Memory Loss

a green, yellow and purple composite image of three people sleeping
Research published Wednesday from University of California, Berkeley, sleep scientists suggests that deep sleep might help alleviate some of dementia’s most devastating outcomes. (Graphic by Neil Freese. Unsplash images courtesy Peyman Farmani, Nigel Tadyanehondo, Zoe Gayah Jonker and Yan Berthemy)

Deep sleep, also known as non-REM slow-wave sleep, can act as a ‘cognitive reserve factor’ that may increase resilience against brain protein beta-amyloid that is linked to memory loss caused by dementia.

Disrupted sleep has previously been associated with faster accumulation of beta-amyloid protein in the brain...

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Breakthrough for Sweat: Health Monitoring Device

Sweat is more than just a sign of a good workout. It holds vital information about our health, providing clues to dehydration, fatigue, blood sugar levels and even serious conditions such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes and heart failure. Researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Engineering have taken a giant leap forward in sweat analysis with an innovative 3D-printed wearable sweat sensor called the “sweatainer.”

Harnessing the power of additive manufacturing (3D-printing), the researchers have developed a new type of wearable sweat sensor that expands the capability of wearable sweat devices. The sweatainer is a small, wearable device similar in size to a child’s sticker that collects and analyzes sweat, offering a glimpse into the future of health monitoring...

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