Lifeboat Foundation

This post has been updated.

We’ve all just barely forgotten about the great American lettuce contamination of 2018, in which we were forced to forgo romaine over Thanksgiving, and another E. coli outbreak has already hit. The Centers for Disease Control released a notice of an ongoing outbreak centralized around Kentucky earlier this month, but at the time they weren’t sure what foods were to blame for the 72 illnesses and eight hospitalizations. Nearly half of those infections were in Kentucky, with the rest in Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, and Virginia.

On April 12 the CDC posted an update: 109 people have been sickened by E. coli so far (that the CDC is aware of), and cases have cropped up in a sixth state (Indiana). Seventeen people have gone to the hospital, but no deaths are reported at this time.

Continue reading “A mysterious E. coli outbreak has infected 72 people and counting” »

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The rise of Candida auris embodies a serious and growing public health threat: drug-resistant germs.

Cell-by-cell genetic analyses of developing brain tissues in neonatal mice and laboratory models of brain cancer allowed scientists to discover a molecular driver of the highly aggressive, deadly, and treatment-resistant brain cancer, glioblastoma.

Published findings in Cell Stem Cell describe how the single-cell analyses identified a subpopulation of cells critical to glioblastoma formation—the early primitive progenitor cells of oligodendrocyte brain cells, pri-OPC progenitors, according to Q. Richard Lu, Ph.D., lead investigator and Scientific Director of the Brain Tumor Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

The data suggest that reprogramming of primitive oligodendrocyte progenitors into a stem-like state plays an important role in glioma initiation and progression. The researchers’ primary molecular target in the study, a protein called Zfp36l1, launches biological programs that mirror those of healthy early brain development in the mice, but instead help fuel brain cancer growth. The discovery presents an opportunity to find out if new therapeutic approaches can stop glioblastoma at its earliest stages of initial formation or recurrence, Lu said.

Continue reading “Shutting down deadly pediatric brain cancer at its earliest moments” »

Researchers have identified ketamine-induced brain-related changes that are responsible for maintaining the remission of behaviors related to depression in mice—findings that may help researchers develop interventions that promote lasting remission of depression in humans. The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health, appears in the journal Science.

Major depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States, with approximately 17.3 million adults experienced a major depressive episode in 2017. However, many of the neural changes underlying the transitions between active depression, remission, and depression re-occurrence remain unknown. Ketamine, a fast-acting antidepressant which relieves depressive symptoms in hours instead of weeks or longer, provides an opportunity for researchers to investigate the short- and long-term biological changes underlying these transitions.

“Ketamine is a potentially transformative treatment for depression, but one of the major challenges associated with this drug is sustaining recovery after the initial treatment,” said study author Conor Liston, M.D., Ph.D., of Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City.

Continue reading “Ketamine reverses neural changes underlying depression-related behaviors in mice” »

Guest writer Dr. Asimina Pantazi gives her impressions of the recent Berlin Undoing Aging Conference from the point of view of someone working in research.

As a millennial with limited orientation abilities but expertise with digital tools, I used Google Maps to find the venue, fearing that I would have no data and would get lost in Berlin, only to find out that I was only a couple of meters away from to the venue entrance.

The Undoing Aging 2019 conference took place on May 28–30 at Umspannwerk Alexanderplatz: a multi-level industrial setting, with metal stairs, funky lights, and a balcony overlooking the minimal conference hall. This gave me my first positive vibes.

Continue reading “Undoing Aging 2019: Highlights and Impressions” »

A team of scientists recently revealed they’d successfully conducted experiments on hundreds of pigs that involved keeping their brains alive for up to 36 hours after the animals had been decapitated.

Maybe Sergio Canavero, the mad scientist who wants to perform a brain transplant on a human, isn’t so crazy after all.

Las células cancerígenas habían formado en el pulmón del paciente un minisistema digestivo con estómago, duodeno e intestino.

Announces the publication of a new open-access quarterly report: AI for Drug Discovery, Biomarker Development and Advanced R&D Landscape Overview 2019/Q1. Except for providing the analysis of 350 investors, 50 corporations and 150 companies operating in the field, the main events that took place in the industry from January to March 2019 are covered. The report also features the list of 30 leading R&D centers that provide important researches in the segment.

Link to the Report: https://www.ai-pharma.dka.global/quarter-1-2019

#AI #artificialintelligence #drugdiscovery

Continue reading “Deep Knowledge Analytics Photo” »

Presents its list of the top 30 FemTech Influencers, whose efforts in the FemTech Healthcare, FemTech Preventive Medicine and FemTech Longevity sectors have helped to grow the industry to its current state of maturity.

Jill Angelo genneve Elina Berglund Natural Cycles Starling Bank Tania Boler Elvie Ghela Boskovich Judith Campisi Adia Femtech Collective Dame Products EMBR Robin Starbuck Farmanfarmaian Cora Lifestyle Angie Lee Janet Lieberman Nuala Murphy Moment.Health Elena Mustatea Bold Health Anastasia Georgievskaya Haut.AI Maven Clinic THINX Nicole Shanahan Clearaccessip, Inc. Tammy Sun Ida Tin

Link to the Report: https://www.aginganalytics.com/femtech-healthcare-q1-2019

Continue reading “Aging Analytics Agency Photo 4” »