Diseases

Microgravity worms help solve astronaut muscle problems, CO2 recycling and drug development, Remote control of robot hand, Enabling the study of diverse Hepatitis B. Read all in the March's Editor's Choice and even more in the Asia Research News 2022 magazine.

A research group has revealed that amyloid-β (Aβ) detected in blood is secreted from peripheral tissues (pancreas, adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, liver, etc.) that are sensitive to glucose and insulin. Also, that Aβ secreted from peripheral tissues acts as a regulator on pancreatic β-cells to suppress insulin secretion. The results of this study indicate that blood Aβ levels fluctuate significantly with diet, and special care should be taken when using blood samples as a diagnostic marker for Alzheimer's disease, such as taking blood samples during fasting.

A soft hydrogel could help scientists find treatments for drug-resistant cancer stem cells.

Tests using a mouse model of Alport syndrome suggests that turning off a cell signalling protein may significantly prolong life by preventing kidney scarring.

Whale and dolphin post-mortem imaging could breathe new life into marine conservation.

Asia Research News surveyed institutions in Asia to learn about their latest contributions to antimicrobial resistance research.

The Asian Development Bank partnered with global institutions to examine efforts to curb one of humanity’s most significant global health threats.

A recent study in The Lancet provides the most comprehensive understanding of this global health problem to-date.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are linking carbon offsets to crypto, using math to predict vaccine efficacy, and a benefit of COVID restrictions for Dengue-prone regions.

Policy-makers should engage more closely with social scientists to understand the socio-economic, cultural and political contexts behind the behaviours we need to change in response to global crises.

Giants in History: Ogino Ginko (3 March 1851 – 23 June 1913) was the first registered female doctor to practise modern medicine in Japan. After contracting gonorrhoea from her first husband and being embarrassed from having to seek medical attention from male doctors, Ginko resolved to become a doctor to help women in similar situations.

• Your chances of getting resuscitated by a bystander in Asia if your heart suddenly stops while in a public place depends on whether you’re a man or a woman. • Across nine Asian communities, in public locations, the bystander CPR rates were 31.2 per cent for females and 36.4 per cent for males. • For women, the chances of receiving bystander CPR when suffering a cardiac arrest in a public out-of-hospital setting is lower than for men; in homes or private places, the likelihood is reversed.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are an android child, "unhackable" internet, a cancer-fighting nanoparticle from corn, and less-than-green practices by some oil companies.

Giants in History: Barry Paw (29 August 1962 – 28 December 2017) was a biologist and oncologist born in Myanmar who discovered several novel genes and their functions in red blood cells.

Low volcanic temperature ushered in global cooling and thriving dinosaurs, Broccoli compound induces cell death in yeast, A single molecule makes big splash in quantum mechanics, Dengue virus makes mosquitos bite more often, and Asia Research News: How it all began, all in the February's Editor's Choice

A new, global training programme that aims to provide deeper understanding about SARS-CoV-2 genomics and biodata, and how this knowledge can be used to prepare for future pandemics has been launched by COG-Train. This is a partnership between Wellcome Connecting Science (WCS) and the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, alongside their international collaborators, including Wellcome’s Africa and Asia programmes.

A booster dose of the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine (BNT162b2) against SARS-CoV-2 after an initial two doses of either the CoronaVac inactivated virus vaccine or Pfizer–BioNTech mRNA vaccine is shown to provide protection against the Omicron variant, in a pair of papers published in Nature Medicine.

A specific deep neural network model called Bidirectional Long-Short-Term Memory can use cough sounds to distinguish sick from healthy children, paving the way for preliminary screening.

The dengue virus alters mosquito behaviour in a way that makes it three times more efficient at transmitting infection.

Giants in History: Filipina chemist María Orosa (29 November 1892–13 February 1945) fought malnutrition and food insecurity in the Philippines by devising over 700 culinary creations including Soyalac, a nutrient rich drink made from soybeans, and Darak, rice cookies packed with Vitamin B1, which could prevent beriberi disease caused by Vitamin B1 deficiency.

Researchers from Osaka City University have shown in mice models of Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies, that the intranasal administration of rifampicin and resveratrol in combination is safer and improves cognitive function more than rifampicin alone. The research results are expected to lead to the development of safe and effective nasal spray for the prevention of dementia.

By searching for the protein transglutaminase 1 (TGM1) among patients with various autoimmune skin diseases, researchers have successfully identified a separate disease that can be linked to autoimmunity against TGM1. This backward method demonstrates a new way of identifying autoantigens as markers for various diseases. By letting autoantigens point to the disease, diagnosis and treatment can be facilitated, according to the study now published in PNAS.

Zika virus infection hijacks glucose metabolism for its own good and to the detriment of infected foetuses.

A new saliva-based COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test (ART) technology co-developed by the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre and the National University of Singapore shows promise in early clinical testing, outperforming existing ARTs and delivering results in minutes, with nearly comparable sensitivity to the gold standard Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test.

Scientists at Hokkaido University and Texas A&M University have identified a key mechanism used by the SARS-CoV-2 virus to evade host immune systems.

Researchers at the Department of Microbiology at The University of Hong Kong have succeeded in the isolation of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant from clinical specimens. This is the first known research team in Asia that has succeeded in isolating the Omicron variant. The isolated variant will enable the development and production of vaccines against Omicron, which has been designated as a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization.

Researchers from the Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine have shown in patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma who received cancer treatment that eliminating the hepatitis C virus with a direct-acting antiviral treatment reduces the risk of the liver cancer progression and increases overall patient survival.

Giants in History: Indian organic chemist Asima Chatterjee (1917 to 2006) studied the medicinal properties of plant products, especially compounds known as vinca alkaloids.

Scientists are turning to genomics to better understand the epidemiology of malaria and to inform control and elimination interventions and strategies. In the Lake Victoria region of Kenya, malaria burden remains very high despite more than a decade of intense control activities. A team of researchers from Osaka City University, Nagasaki University, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Mount Kenya University generated whole Plasmodium falciparum genome sequences from the lake region. Their analyses revealed that malaria parasites from this region appear distinct from other parasites from East Africa, while frequencies of known drug resistance markers were similar to those in other East African parasite populations. Their findings will help to develop improved surveillance tools to determine parasite transmission routes and aid clinical disease management.

We have clarified at the molecular level the mechanism by which a microenvironment, a so-called niche that surrounds cancer cells, is formed in which stromal cells and immune cells are attracted at an initiation stage of breast cancer onset. A molecule called FRS2β is found to be critical for creating this microenvironment. The present finding is expected to be beneficial in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancers at the initiation stage.