Lifeboat Foundation

Deepmind enters into a partnership with the renowned British research institute “The Crick”. Together, the organizations aim to advance the use of artificial intelligence in biology and biomedicine.

Artificial intelligence is already having a direct impact on our everyday lives, for example in autonomous driving, through generative AI systems such as DALL-E 2 and Alphacode or hand tracking for VR headsets.

Beyond these direct application scenarios, AI can be a tool that accelerates science – indirectly impacting our future, but possibly on a much larger scale.

How the brain functions is still a black box: scientists aren’t even sure how many kinds of nerve cells exist in the brain. To know how the brain works, they need to know not only what types of nerve cells exist, but also how they work together. Researchers at the Salk Institute have gotten one step closer to unlocking this black box.

Using cutting-edge visualization and genetic techniques, the team uncovered a new subtype of nerve cell, or neuron, in the visual cortex. The group also detailed how the new cell and two similar neurons process images and connect to other parts of the brain. Learning how the brain analyzes visual information at such a detailed level may one day help doctors understand elements of disorders like schizophrenia and autism.

“Understanding these cell types contributes another piece to the puzzle uncovering neural circuits in the brain, circuits that will ultimately have implications for neurological disorders,” says Edward Callaway, Salk professor and senior author of the paper published December 6 in the journal Neuron.

Clinical studies have demonstrated a strong association between Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and delirium. A change to the Tau protein, which can lead to the formation of tangles in brain, is one of the hallmarks of AD pathology, and Tau phosphorylation at threonine 217 (Tau-PT217) and threonine 181 (Tau-PT181) are new plasma biomarkers that can detect early-stage AD. A clinical study led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has shown that plasma Tau-PT217 and Tau-PT181 are associated with incidence and severity of postoperative delirium. The findings are published in Annals of Surgery.

Early studies from the same research group at MGH have shown that the ratio of beta amyloid (which causes AD’s signature plaques) to Tau in cerebrospinal fluid is associated with postoperative delirium. Recent studies in other labs have reported that plasma Tau-PT181 concentration distinguishes AD dementia from other neurological disorders. Plasma levels of Tau-PT217 are associated with the changes in cerebrospinal fluid levels of Tau-PT217 and AD development.

In this current study, the team at MGH developed a novel method to measure Tau-PT217 and Tau-PT181 concentrations in plasma of patients, called nanoneedle technology, in collaboration with NanoMosaic (Woburn, MA). “The nanoneedle technology is ultrasensitive, requires a small volume, and can measure low concentrations of molecules, including Tau-PT217 and Tau-PT181,” says lead author Feng Liang, MD, Ph.D., in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at MGH. “More than 20,000 nanoneedles are integrated on a silicon substrate assigned to detect one analyte. Each nanoneedle is a single molecule biosensor functionalized with antibodies,” says Liang.

The human brain may be the most complex piece of organized matter in the known universe, but Allen Institute researchers have begun to unravel the genetic code underlying its function. Research published this month in Nature Neuroscience identified a surprisingly small set of molecular patterns that dominate gene expression in the human brain and appear to be common to all individuals, providing key insights into the core of the genetic code that makes our brains distinctly human.

“So much research focuses on the variations between individuals, but we turned that question on its head to ask, what makes us similar?” says Ed Lein, Ph.D., Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. “What is the conserved element among all of us that must give rise to our unique cognitive abilities and human traits?”

Researchers used data from the publicly available Allen Human Brain Atlas to investigate how gene expression varies across hundreds of functionally distinct brain regions in six human brains. They began by ranking genes by the consistency of their expression patterns across individuals, and then analyzed the relationship of these genes to one another and to brain function and association with disease.

New immune-evading Omicron subvariant BA.5 is now dominant in the U.S.—and previous heavy hitter “stealth Omicron” is now a shadow of its former self, according to federal health data released Tuesday.

BA.5 is estimated to have caused nearly 54% of COVID infections in the U.S. last week, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Along with twin variant BA.4, it swept South Africa this spring thanks to its ability to evade immunity from both prior infection and vaccination.

The week before that, the two variants combined made up slightly more than half of U.S. cases. But last week, BA.5 accomplished the same feat alone, without the help of BA.4, which came in third at 16.5%.

Summary: Researchers have developed a new implantable device that can “cool” nerves and provide on-demand pain relief for those suffering from neuropathic or chronic pain.

Source: AAAS

An implantable device designed to “cool” nerves can provide targeted, on-demand pain relief, researchers report. When tested on rats with neuropathic pain, the device produced highly localized cooling.

Summary: Recent antibiotic use impacts the way in which people pay attention to negative facial expressions. Findings shed light on how antibiotic use can increase the risks of depression.

Source: Lieden University.

People who have taken antibiotics in the past three months pay more attention to negative facial expressions, according to research by postdoc Katerina Johnson and assistant professor Laura Steenbergen. This may explain how antibiotics increase the risk of developing depression.

A new UC Davis-led study sheds light on cell type-specific biomarkers, or signs, of melanoma. The research was recently published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Melanoma, the deadliest of the common skin cancers, is curable with early diagnosis and treatment. However, diagnosing melanoma clinically and under the microscope can be complicated by what are called melanocytic nevi—otherwise known as birth marks or moles that are non-cancerous. The development of melanoma is a multi-step process where “melanocytes,” or the cells in the skin that contain melanin, mutate and proliferate. Properly identifying melanoma at an early stage is critical for improved survival.

“The biomarkers of early melanoma evolution and their origin within the tumor and its microenvironment are a potential key to early diagnosis of melanoma,” said corresponding author of the study Maija Kiuru, associate professor of clinical dermatology and pathology at UC Davis Health. “To unravel the mystery, we used high-plex spatial RNA profiling to capture distinct gene expression patterns across cell types during melanoma development. This approach allows studying the expression of hundreds or thousands of genes without disrupting the native architecture of the tumor.”

Krishna Shenoy helps to restore lost function for disabled patients by designing prosthetic devices that can translate neural brain activity.

Krishna Shenoy directs the Neural Prosthetic Systems Lab, where his group conducts neuroscience and neuro-engineering research to better understand how the brain controls movement and to design medical systems to assist those with movement disabilities. Shenoy also co-directs the Neural Prosthetics Translational Lab, which uses these advances to help people with severe motor disabilities. Shenoy received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from UC-Irvine and his master’s and doctoral degrees in the same field from MIT. He was a neurobiology postdoctoral fellow at Caltech in Pasadena and then joined Stanford University, where he is a professor of electrical engineering, bioengineering and neurobiology.