Research News

Researchers have analysed image and genomic data from the UK Biobank to find insights into rare diseases of the human eye. These include retinal dystrophies – a group of inherited disorders affecting the retina – which are also the leading cause of blindness certification in working-age adults.

People with HIV have impaired immune responses to some pathogens and immunizations, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, they often experienced severe symptoms if infected with SARS‐CoV‐2.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a way to sensitize metastatic breast cancer that has spread to bone to immunotherapy. Shown are two bones from mice with metastatic breast cancer. Tumors are inside the yellow outline. The left side shows an untreated tumor. The right side shows a tumor treated with a p38MAPK inhibitor. The increased green color on the right indicates the tumor is more sensitive to immunotherapy.

“To our knowledge, this is the first prospective study to report comprehensive cardiac investigations and imaging in both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients after COVID-19 vaccination,” said the study’s senior author Kate Hanneman, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor in the Department of Medical Imaging and director of cardiac imaging research at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada.

Scientists from the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) have shed new light on ageing processes in the brain. By linking the increased presence of specialised immune cells to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury for the first time, they have unearthed a possible new target for therapies aimed at treating age-related neurological diseases.

Veterinarian, immunologist, and molecular geneticist Dr. Kathy Meek and her team from the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine have made a discovery that may have implications for therapeutic gene editing strategies, cancer diagnostics and therapies, and other aspects of biotechnology.

Seizures can be predicted more than 30 minutes before onset in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, opening the door to a therapy using electrodes that could be activated to prevent seizures from happening, according to new research from UTHealth Houston.

The study, led by Sandipan Pati, MD, associate professor in the Department of Neurology with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, was recently published in NEJM Evidence, a publication of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) US researchers said that the Gambia children deaths are associated with syrup made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals. Their investigation strongly suggests that medications contaminated with diethylene glycol (DEG) or ethylene glycol (EG) imported into The Gambia led to this acute kidney injury (AKI) cluster among children.

Asking patients to take a short survey on a tablet before their appointments may help mental health providers identify young people at risk of psychosis. A UC Davis Health study found that when patients took a 21-question pre-visit survey, more than twice as many were identified at risk of psychosis compared to those who did not complete the survey.