Category Health/Medical

New Antiplatelet Drug shows promise for treating Heart Attack

UIC’s Dr. Xiaoping Du oversees Ph.D. student Yaping Zhanga enter a sample in an aggregometer in his lab at the College of Medicine Research Building (Photo: Joshua Clark/University of Illinois at Chicago)

Peptide-derived nanoparticle shows promise in lab. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed a new drug that prevents blood clots without causing an increased risk of bleeding, a common side effect of all antiplatelet medications currently available.

A new study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine describes the drug and its delivery mechanisms and shows that the drug is also an effective treatment for heart attack in animal models.

Xiaoping Du, UIC professor of pharmacology and regenerative medicine at the College of Medicine, led ...

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High-Fat Diet with Antibiotic use linked to Gut Inflammation

Image of changes in sections of the cecal mucosa based on combinations of low-fat diet (LFD), high-fat diet (HFD), with streptomycin (Strep) treatment
Image of changes in sections of the cecal mucosa based on combinations of low-fat diet (LFD), high-fat diet (HFD), with streptomycin (Strep) treatment

Combining Western diet and antibiotic use is a pre- IBD risk factor. UC Davis researchers have found that combining a Western-style high-fat diet with antibiotic use significantly increases the risk of developing pre-inflammatory bowel disease (pre-IBD). The study, published July 14 in Cell Host and Microbe, suggests that this combination shutsdown the mitochondria in cells of the colon lining, leading to gut inflammation.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) affects approximately 11% of people worldwide. It is characterized by recurring episodes of abdominal pain, bloating and changes in bowel habits...

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Scientists discover Key Element of Strong Antibody response to COVID-19

Many anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies are produced by a common antibody gene. X-ray crystallography revealed how specific features of these antibodies (two of which are depicted here in yellow and orange, attached to the virus) enable potent recognition of the virus’s spike protein. Graphic by Meng Yuan, Hejun Liu and Nicholas Wu in the Wilson lab.

The findings support many vaccine strategies being used to tackle the new coronavirus. A team led by scientists at Scripps Research has discovered a common molecular feature found in many of the human antibodies that neutralize SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The scientists, whose study appears July 13 in Science, reviewed data on nearly 300 anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies that their labs and others have found in convalescent COVID...

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Artificial ‘Neurotransistor’ created

Intrinsic plasticity of silicon nanowire neurotransistors for ...
Structure and electrical characteristics of Si NW neurotransistors.

Imitating the functioning of neurons using semiconductor materials. While the optimization of conventional microelectronics is slowly reaching its physical limits, nature offers us a blueprint how information can be processed and stored efficiently: our own brain. Scientists have now successfully imitated the functioning of neurons using semiconductor materials.

Especially activities in the field of artificial intelligence, like teaching robots to walk or precise automatic image recognition, demand ever more powerful, yet at the same time more economical computer chips...

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