Category Health/Medical

First Step in Allergic Reactions, Paving the way for New Preventative Strategies

Scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School have identified how the first domino falls after a person encounters an allergen, such as peanuts, shellfish, pollen or dustmites. Their discovery, published in the April issue of Nature Immunology, could herald the development of drugs to prevent these severe reactions.

It is well established that when mast cells, a type of immune cell, mistake a harmless substance, such as peanuts or dust mites, as a threat, they release an immediate first wave of bioactive chemicals against the perceived threat...

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Researchers discover ‘Trojan Horse’ Virus Hiding in Human Parasite

Apocryptovirus odysseus (Ao) genome. From (rnaspades 3.15.5) assembly of the Ngô RNA sequencing dataset (SRR1205923), we recovered a high-coverage (123× coverage) RdRp-encoding contig, and identified a second correlated contig of likely viral origin. Contig 2 (279× coverage) contains two putative ORFs: pORF1 and pORF2, but these ORFs do not have identifiable homologs via BLASTp in the non-redundant and transcriptome shotgun assembly databases (date accessed: June 2023), TBLASTN with the nucleotide database, or by InterProScan or HHpred (date accessed: June 2023). Inlay, unbranched assembly graphs (Bandage 0.8.1) of both contigs confirmed a linear genome structure.
Apocryptovirus odysseus (Ao) genome. From (RNASPADES 3.15.5) assembly of the Ngô RNA sequencing dataset (SRR1205923), we recovered a high-coverage (123× coverage) RdRp-encoding contig, and identified a second correlated contig of likely viral origin. Contig 2 (279× coverage) contains two putative ORFs: pORF1 and pORF2, but these ORFs do not have identifiable homologs via BLASTp in the non-redundant and transcriptome shotgun assembly databases (date accessed: June 2023), TBLASTN with the nucleotide database, or by InterProScan or HHpred (date accessed: June 2023). Inlay, unbranched assembly graphs (Bandage 0.8.1) of both contigs confirmed a linear genome structure.

An international team led by researchers at the University of Toronto has found a new RNA virus that they believe is h...

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

chemotherapy
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

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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