Lifeboat Foundation

There’s some relief for people with food severe allergies. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reports the drug Xolair allows people with allergies to tolerate higher doses of allergenic foods before developing a reaction after accidental exposure. Geoff Bennett discussed more with the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Robert Wood of the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

A new study suggests abdominal fat could impact brain health and cognition among people with a high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers found that middle-aged males at risk for Alzheimer’s who had higher amounts of pancreatic fat had lower cognition and brain volumes.

Researchers in China have reported the first large-scale study characterizing the proteomics and phosphoproteomics of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) clinical cohorts, providing a comprehensive picture of the proteogenomics landscape of SCLC.

The team is led by Prof. Zhang Peng from Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital of the Tongji University, Prof. Zhou Hu from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Prof. Gao Daming and Prof. Ji Hongbin from the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology of CAS.

This study, published in Cell, reveals the molecular features of SCLC and proposed new molecular subtypes and targeted personalized treatment strategies, and laying a solid foundation for a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms and improvement of clinical therapeutic strategies for SCLC.

New study links dopamine and serotonin changes in a brain region to social perception and decision-making regarding offer acceptance.

Scientists unravel dopamine-serotonin dynamics in first-in-humans study, unveiling social decision-making during awake surgery in Parkinson’s patients’ tracking economic exchange.

After a decade of obscurity, the technology is being used to track people’s movements.

Over a decade ago, Neal Patwari lay in a hospital bed, carefully timing his breathing.

Researchers ingeniously repurposed DNA to assemble a miniaturized blaster at the molecular level.

Summary: Researchers have developed the first stem cell culture method that accurately models the early stages of the human central nervous system (CNS), marking a significant breakthrough in neuroscience. This 3D human organoid system simulates the development of the brain and spinal cord, offering new possibilities for studying human brain development and diseases.

By using patient-derived stem cells, the model can potentially lead to personalized treatment strategies for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. The innovation opens new doors for understanding the intricacies of the human CNS and its disorders, surpassing the capabilities of previous models.

A relatively new way to attack cancer, called immunotherapy, is revolutionizing cancer treatment by enabling patients’ own immune systems to attack cancer cells. It hasn’t worked for many kinds of cancers, though — evading the immune system is one of the first tricks that cancer learns. As it turns out, many cancers are also pretty good at hiding from immunotherapies.

In a recent study published in the journal Science, though, Salk Institute researchers have discovered a new way to make cancer visible to immunotherapy. To do this, the team reprogrammed mitochondria — the organelle widely memed as the “powerhouse of the cell” — to make cancer cells easier to find and kill.

The engine of cancer: What connects mitochondria and cancers? Another hallmark of cancer is their uncontrolled growth. Fueling this rapid and relentless proliferation requires a lot of energy. This increased demand is met by changes in how mitochondria function in cancer cells.

Dr. John Swierk: “This is also the first study to explicitly look at inks sold in the United States and is probably the most comprehensive because it looks at the pigments, which nominally stay in the skin, and the carrier package, which is what the pigment is suspended in.”

Do the ingredients in tattoo inks match the labels on their respective bottles? This is what a recent study published in Analytical Chemistry hopes to address as a team of researchers from Binghamton University investigated the accuracy of ink ingredients and what’s labeled on their containers. This study holds the potential to help scientists, artists, and their customers better understand the health risks, to include allergic reactions and other risks, of using the wrong ink ingredients for tattoos.

For the study, the researchers examined ingredients from 54 inks emanating from nine common brands within the United States with the goal of ascertaining their exact chemical compositions compared to what was labeled on their respective bottles. In the end, the researchers identified that 45 of the 54 inks possessed a myriad of pigments and/or additives that were not properly labeled on the bottles that could pose health risks to customers receiving ink tattoos, including allergic skin reactions and other long-term health risks, including non-skin-related risks, such as cancer. Despite the alarming findings, the researchers could not ascertain which unlisted ingredients were intentionally or accidentally added to the inks.

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