Biology

Study confirms bats adopt multiple strategies to reduce pro-inflammatory responses, thus mitigating potential immune-mediated tissue damage and disease. Findings provide important insights for medical research on human diseases.

Therapeutic drugs, a novel test method, a fully automated testing process, and a way to conduct medical diagnosis remotely are just some of the research being done at Hiroshima University to beat COVID-19.

Osaka City University detects cancer cells in 2ml blood samples and connects them back to their origin tumor – creating a new diagnostic tool that may aid in quicker and more accurate anti-cancer measures.

Researchers at Kanazawa University and University of California, San Francisco report in Science that arbitrary proteins, when combined with anchoring and receptor proteins, can work as a signaling protein “morphogen” capable of engineered spatial patterning.

Osaka City University unravels the atomic architecture of the “Nap” protein complex found on Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Scientists have estimated that the age of an individual does not indicate how likely they are to be infected by SARS-CoV-2. However, development of symptoms, progression of the disease, and mortality are age-dependent.

Collaboration by researchers in Singapore and Australia lead to first-of-its-kind computational biology algorithm that could enable more effective cellular therapies against major diseases.

Adaptive radiation - the rapid evolution of many new species from a single ancestor - is a major focus in evolutionary biology. Adaptive radiations often show remarkable repeatability where lineages have undergone multiple episodes of adaptive radiation in distant places and at various points in time - implying their extraordinary evolutionary potential.

Researchers at Kanazawa University report in Nature Communications the mechanism making some lung-cancer patients resistant to the drug osimertinib. In addition, they suggest a combined drug treatment resolving osimertinib resistance in the case of cancer cells expressing low amounts of AXL, a protein belonging to the class of receptor tyrosine kinases.

A new apparatus improves how we study the effects of aiming high-field terahertz radiation at cells, with implications for regenerative medicine.

Marine biologists studying the genetic structure of the Humboldt squid population found it is vulnerable to overfishing by fleets on its migration path.

Scientists have found an ingredient that makes a vaccine more effective through an approach more often seen in materials science – testing molecules that self-assemble into larger structures.

Scientists have identified key molecules that mediate radioresistance in glioblastoma multiforme; these molecules are a potential target for the treatment of this brain cancer.

Climate warming will alter marine community compositions as species are expected to shift poleward, significantly impacting the Arctic marine ecosystem.

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba demonstrate that the hypnotic and teratogenic effects of thalidomide are separable. Thalidomide is a medication with several different effects, one of which is promoting sleep in the context of insomnia. In a new study, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have discovered that thalidomide exerts its hypnotic effects through mechanisms distinct from those for the drug’s notorious teratogenicity. These are striking results showing how thalidomide induces sleep independently of its known effects on the teratogenic cereblon pathway. These findings could be helpful in developing novel thalidomide-like hypnotic drugs without thalidomide’s teratogenic effects. The study was published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Testing self-collected saliva samples could offer an easy and effective mass testing approach for detecting asymptomatic COVID-19.

Drugs tackling chronic myelogenous leukemia have completely transformed prognoses of patients over the last couple of decades, with most cases going into remission. But drug resistance can occur, leading to relapses. Targeting the lipids involved in regulating part of a leukemia stem cell’s life span offers a potential second route to defeat the disease—and solid tumorous cancers as well.

A team of scientists has unraveled the molecular mechanism behind one of the causes of colorectal cancer, and a treatment target.

Scientists at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, show that it is possible to distinguish between left-handed and right-handed people by noninvasively monitoring just their brain activity during passive tactile stimulation. These results are key in haptic research (the study of sensory systems) and have various important implications for brain–computer interfaces, augmented reality, and even artificial intelligence.

This study selected the Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) as a model animal for the fetal transfer of OH-PCBs in humans, and revealed OH-PCB concentrations and their relationships in the maternal and fetal brains. The key finding from this study is that OH-PCBs can reach the developing brain of the fetus as early as the first trimester of pregnancy. These OH-PCBs may exceed the levels that induce adverse effects on neurodevelopment.

Running is a fundamental mode of human movement that most of us perform effortlessly without conscious thought. Some may run regularly for exercise, or even undergo serious, professional training for completing marathons. This apparent ease of running belies the enormous biomechanical complexity of running, the coordinated control of which is accomplished by an intricate neuronal network in the brain and spinal cord.

Scientists review macrophage activation syndrome — a feature of the cytokine storm that kills patients with severe cases of COVID-19, as well as possible treatments.

Researchers at Kanazawa University report in Nature Communications the discovery that in the developing fly brain, neurons stemming from the same parent cell experience repulsion. This lineage-dependent repulsion is regulated by a protein known as Dscam1.

Scientists are learning about species adaptation by comparing their stem cell-related genes.

Pregnant mice fed diets high in omega-6 fats and low in omega-3 fats are shown in a new study to produce offspring whose brains had a higher level of dopamine-producing neurons—the neurological reward system. These mice went on to chase hyper-caloric diets, suggesting that the fats in a pregnant mother's diet may control the eating habits of her children, and potentially offering a new obesity-prevention strategy.

A group of scientists have detected genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 in untreated wastewater samples collected in April 2020 from two wastewater treatment plants in Louisiana, USA.

Hokkaido University scientists have shown that Interleukin-34 is a prognostic marker and drug target for Triple Negative Breast Cancer.

Researchers in Kanazawa University has recently reported their study in Nano Letters regarding a high-speed atomic force microscopy study on a biological event that happens during flu virus enters infects its host cell. The real-time visualization of influenza A hemagglutinin (HA) has enhanced the understanding of fusogenic transition of HA and its interactions with host endosomes.

A group of researchers have demonstrated that, from seven methods commonly used to test for viruses in untreated wastewater, an adsorption-extraction technique can most efficiently detect SARS-CoV-2. This gives us another tool to detect the presence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic

Scientists from the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea, discover a new way to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease by analyzing the levels of specific proteins in nasal discharge. This simple and inexpensive method could help in timely diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, in order to start treatment as soon as possible, thus delaying disease progression.