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New research from UCL, investigating the biology of a rare genetic mutation that enables carrier Jo Cameron to live virtually without pain and fear while also healing quickly, discovered that the mutation in FAAH-OUT gene ‘turns down’ FAAH gene expression, affecting molecular pathways related to wound healing and mood, thereby offering potential new targets for drug discovery.

New research from University College London (UCL) has unraveled the biology behind a unique genetic mutation that results in its carrier experiencing minimal pain, enhanced healing, and lower levels of anxiety and fear.

Published in the journal Brain, the research is a follow-up to the team’s 2019 discovery of the FAAH-OUT gene and its rare mutations, which make Jo Cameron almost immune to pain, and devoid of fear and anxiety. The latest study elucidates how this mutation reduces the expression of the FAAH gene and impacts other molecular pathways associated with mood and wound healing. The insights garnered from these findings could potentially pave the way for novel drug targets and foster further research in these domains.

Scientists from Korea’s POSTECH and the US’ Northeastern University have successfully manipulated light using non-Hermitian meta-gratings, turning optical loss into a beneficial tool. They’ve developed a new method for controlling light direction using specially designed meta-grating couplers. This breakthrough could advance quantum sensor research and lead to a range of new applications, such as disease diagnosis and pollution detection.

Light is a very delicate and vulnerable physical phenomenon. Light can be absorbed or reflected at the surface of a material depending on the matter’s properties or change its form and be converted into thermal energy. Upon reaching a metallic material’s surface, light also tends to lose energy to the electrons inside the metal, a broad range of phenomena we call “optical loss.”

Production of ultra-small optical elements that utilize light in various ways is very difficult since the smaller the size of an optical component results in a greater optical loss. However, in recent years, the non-Hermitian theory, which uses optical loss in an entirely different way, has been applied to optics research. New findings in physics are being made adopting non-Hermitian theory that embraces optical loss, exploring ways to make use of the phenomenon, unlike general physics where optical loss is perceived as an imperfect component of an optical system. A ‘blessing in disguise’ is that which initially seems to be a disaster but which ultimately results in good luck. This research story is a blessing in disguise in physics.

Deeply fascinating paper wherein Venkataramani et al. describe how synaptic inputs from neurons onto glioma tumor cells induce electrical activity in the tumors and stimulate their growth and invasiveness. This knowledge could lead to new treatments involving inhibition of the synapses onto gliomas which might provide hope for fighting an otherwise largely incurable form of cancer. #neurobiology #oncology #cancer #medicine

Neurons form glutamatergic synapses with glioma cells in mice and humans, and inhibition of AMPA receptors reduces glioma cell invasion and growth.

UC San Diego engineers developed the low-cost clip that enables easy and affordable monitoring in resource-poor communities.

University of California San Diego engineers have created a low-cost clip that makes use of the camera and flash on a smartphone to measure blood pressure at the user’s fingertip.

This innovative clip, which can be produced at scale for as little as 10 cents, has the potential to revolutionize routine blood pressure monitoring and make it available to people in resource-poor regions.

In a recent study published in the Open Forum Infectious Diseases, researchers assess the resistance of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) over time in adults who received uncomplicated urinary tract infections (uUTIs) outpatient care.

Study: Multi-drug resistance of Escherichia coli from outpatient uncomplicated urinary tract infections in a large U.S. integrated health care organization. Image Credit: 220 Selfmade studio / Shutterstock.com.

Age-related hearing loss impacts one in three adults between the ages of 64 and 75 in the US, and around half of these numbers are down to genes.

The extra kicker, though, is that because hearing involves a complex genetic toolkit, it also makes this kind of hearing loss incredibly difficult to treat.

A team of researchers has for the first time targeted age-related genetic hearing loss in a much older cohort of mice, which had a mutation of the human transmembrane serine protease 3 (TMPRSS3) gene that results in autosomal recessive deafness 8/10 (DFNB8/DFNB10).

A breakthrough in fluorescence microscopy has been achieved by the research group of Ralf Jungmann at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB) and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich. The team developed Resolution Enhancement by Sequential Imaging (RESI), a revolutionary technique that enhances the resolution of fluorescence microscopy down to the Ångström scale. This innovation is poised to usher in a paradigm shift in our approach to study biological systems with thus far unprecedented detail.

Cells, the fundamental units of life, contain a plethora of intricate structures, processes and mechanisms that uphold and perpetuate living systems. Many cellular core components, such as DNA, RNA, proteins and lipids, are just a few nanometers in size. This makes them substantially smaller than the resolution limit of traditional light microscopy. The exact composition and arrangement of these molecules and structures is thus often unknown, resulting in a lack of mechanistic understanding of fundamental aspects of biology.

In recent years, super-resolution techniques have made leaps and bounds to resolve many sub-cellular structures below the classical diffraction limit of light. Single molecule localization microscopy, or SMLM, is a super-resolution approach that can resolve structures on the order of ten nanometers in size by temporally separating their individual fluorescence emission.

A man paralyzed by a cycling accident is able to walk again after an experimental operation by neuroscientists and surgeons in Switzerland.

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How we’re linking together genetic material from thousands of people — modern and ancient — to trace our ancestors and the history of our evolution.