Lifeboat Foundation

If you didn’t hate spiders enough, here’s something else: Their viruses are now venomous, too.

Researchers at the University of Melbourne have developed a way to radically miniaturise a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine using atomic-scale quantum computer technology.

Capable of imaging the structure of a single bio-molecule, the new system would overcome significant technological challenges and provide an important new tool for biotechnology and drug discovery.

The work was published today in Nature Communications, and was led by Prof Lloyd Hollenberg at the University of Melbourne, working closely with researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) to design the quantum molecular microscope.

For the first time, a new tool developed at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) allows researchers to interactively explore the hierarchical processes that happen in the brain when it is resting or performing tasks. Scientists also hope that the tool can shed some light on how neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s spread throughout the brain.

Created in conjunction with computer scientists at University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and with input from neuroscientists at UC San Francisco (UCSF), the software, called Brain Modulyzer, combines multiple coordinated views of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data — like heat maps, node link diagrams and anatomical views — to provide context for brain connectivity data.

“The tool provides a novel framework of visualization and new interaction techniques that explore the brain connectivity at various hierarchical levels. This method allows researchers to explore multipart observations that have not been looked at before,” says Sugeerth Murugesan, who co-led the development of Brain Modulyzer. He is currently a graduate student researcher at Berkeley Lab and a PhD candidate at UC Davis.

Chinese biologists reiterate doubts over validity of genome editing study

A number of Chinese scientists have announced publicly that they cannot replicate the breakthrough genome editing technology NgAgo discovered by a Hebei-based researcher, Han Chunyu, urging to investigate his team for the sake of “reputation of Chinese scientists.”

After months of study, 13 biologists including Wei Wensheng and Sun Yujie from Peking University’s School of Life Science, and other biologists from prestigious institutes such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said publicly that they cannot replicate Han’s results, and called on Han to publicize his raw data.

In the first controlled clinical trial of nicotinamide riboside (NR), a newly discovered form of Vitamin B3, researchers have shown that the compound is safe for humans and increases levels of a cell metabolite called NAD+ that is critical for cellular energy production and protection against stress and DNA damage.

Levels of NAD+ (first discovered by biochemists in 1906) diminish with age, and it has been suggested that loss of this metabolite may play a role in age-related health decline.

Continue reading “First human clinical trial for nicotinamide riboside” »

Mouse study furthers idea that manipulating resident stem cells could help patients with TMJ disorders and other fibrocartilage diseases or injuries.

Scientists in Japan have used cardiac muscle cells derived from the stem cells of a macaque to mend the damaged hearts of five other monkeys.

The technique shows that using donor stem cells might one day be a viable way to regenerate the organs of human heart attack patients – an approach that could dramatically reduce the time and expense of developing individualised stem cell treatments.

While using stem cell therapy to treat conditions like heart problems isn’t new, the technique usually involves cultivating stem cells taken from the patient themselves – which can be very expensive.

Continue reading “Scientists just used stem cells from one monkey to heal the hearts of five others” »

SoftBank is pouring a massive $130 million funding round into the science fiction-invoking robots at Zymergen, which creates new microbes for corporations and government agencies.

More than 20,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year in the United States, most of whom have advanced disease. Although chemotherapy can put the disease into remission, it often recurs and the treatment’s effectiveness tends to wane over time. As a result, ovarian cancer is the fifth most-common cause of cancer death in women.

On Saturday, a team of researchers including Stanford oncologist Jonathan Berek, MD, presented the results of an international, multi-center phase-3 clinical trial of a new oral medication called niraparib in 553 women with advanced, recurrent ovarian cancer at the annual meeting of the European Society for Molecular Oncology in Copenhagen. Berek, the Laurie Kraus Lacob Professor and director of the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, supervised Stanford’s involvement in the trial.

The aim of the study was to see whether niraparib could prolong the length of remission, also known as “progression-free survival,” in the women when compared to treatment with a placebo. As Berek described the niraparib treatment for me in an phone call, “This is a daily oral treatment with relatively low toxicity. Importantly, women don’t have to go to the hospital for regular infusions and are unlikely to experience significant hair loss.”

Continue reading “In International Phase-3 Clinical Trial, New Drug Shown To Prolong Ovarian Cancer Remission” »