17.04.2020

RIT researchers build micro-device to detect bacteria, viruses

Engineering researchers developed a next-generation miniature lab device that uses magnetic nano-beads to isolate minute bacterial particles that cause diseases. Using this new technology improves how clinicians isolate drug-resistant strains of bacterial infections and difficult-to-detect micro-particles such as those making up Ebola and coronaviruses. Ke Du and Blanca Lapizco-Encinas, both faculty-researchers in Rochester Institute of…

Researchers achieve remote control of hormone release

Abnormal levels of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are linked to a variety of mental health disorders, including depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). MIT researchers have now devised a way to remotely control the release of these hormones from the adrenal gland, using magnetic nanoparticles. This approach could help scientists to learn…

Researchers identify a model of COVID-19 infection in nonhuman primates

After comparing how infections from SARS-CoV-2 (which causes COVID-19) and two other human coronaviruses develop in cynomolgus macaques, researchers report that SARS-CoV-2 gives the animals a mild COVID-19-like disease. The results – based on a combination of experimental and historical infection data – suggest these animals are a promising model for testing COVID-19 therapeutics. Treatments…

Modeling social distancing strategies for curbing the COVID-19 pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, a major unanswered question is how SARS-CoV-2 will persist in the human population after its initial pandemic stage. A new modeling study suggests that the total incidence of the virus through 2025 will depend crucially on the duration of human immunity – of which scientists know little now. Longitudinal serological…

Novel technology aims to improve treatment of neurological diseases

A recently developed system for switching on the activity of genes could improve treatments for a broad range of neurological diseases. Esteban Engel, a researcher in viral neuroengineering in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and his team have developed new gene promoters – which act like switches to turn on gene expression – that promise to…

Africa in the path of COVID-19

In a New England Journal of Medicine “Perspective” published today, Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, global director of ICAP at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and Jessica Justman, MD, ICAP’s senior technical director, and associate professor of epidemiology, urge a coordinated global effort in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, with “countries around the…

Increased rate of infections may indicate a future cancer diagnosis

Bottom Line: Patients experienced a greater occurrence of infections in the years preceding a cancer diagnosis. Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Immunology Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research Author: Shinako Inaida, PhD, a visiting researcher at the Graduate School of Medicine at Kyoto University in Japan Background: “Cancer…

Takeda/ACMG Foundation Next Generation Fellowship Award presented to Jasmine Knoll, M.D.

Jasmine Knoll, MD is the recipient of a 2020 Takeda/ACMG Foundation Next Generation Fellowship Award. Dr. Knoll’s award is in addition to the two Takeda/ACMG Foundation Next Generation Fellowship Awards that were announced in March 2020. This award is part of the fourth set of awards given after Shire–now part of Takeda–made a $1.8 million…

Lighting the way to safer heart procedures

In the first study of its kind, Johns Hopkins researchers provide evidence that an alternative imaging technique could someday replace current methods that require potentially harmful radiation. The findings, published in the April issue of IEEE Transactions in Medical Imaging, detail success in a heart procedure but can potentially be applied to any procedure that…