Research News

Inflammation is an essential part of the body's healing process. But when it persists, it can contribute to a wide range of complex diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases.

Now, world-first genetic research from the University of South Australia shows a direct link between low levels of vitamin D and high levels of inflammation, providing an important biomarker to identify people at higher risk of or severity of chronic illnesses with an inflammatory component.

Scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore have uncovered a mechanism that leads to an advanced form of fatty liver disease—and it turns out that vitamin B12 and folic acid supplements could reverse this process.

These findings could help people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, an umbrella term for a range of liver conditions affecting people who drink little to no alcohol, which affects 25 per cent of all adults globally, and four in 10 adults in Singapore.

The preliminary analysis of Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) from the PvPI database reveals that Tacrolimus is associated with Gingival Hypertrophy.

Medical interns from India studies adverse Events after COVID-19 Vaccine in Indian Population. The study determined the incidence of adverse events experienced by participants post-COVID-19 vaccination and compared adverse events in participants receiving Covishield and Covaxin.

There are a lot of published studies on the efficacy of these vaccines but little is known about adverse events following vaccination outside of clinical trial data.

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE announced that the companies have initiated a randomized, active-controlled, observer-blind, Phase 2 study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and immune response of an enhanced COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccine candidate at a 30 µg dose level. This next-generation bivalent COVID-19 vaccine candidate, BNT162b5, consists of RNAs encoding enhanced prefusion spike proteins for the SARS-CoV-2 ancestral strain (wild-type) and an Omicron variant.

Colorectal tumors are swarming with white blood cells, but whether these cells help or hinder the cancer is hotly debated. While some studies have shown that white blood cells heroically restrict tumor growth and combat colorectal cancer, equally compelling evidence casts the white blood cells as malignant co-conspirators bolstering the tumor and helping it spread.

The current wave of COVID-19 highlights a particularly high risk of reinfection by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Why is this? A team from the Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and of the Geneva University Hospital (HUG) analysed the antibody neutralisation capacity of 120 people infected with the original SARS-CoV-2 strain, or with one of its Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Zeta or Omicron (sub-variant BA.1) variants.

A team of researchers at the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has developed a GPU-based machine learning algorithm that promises to help identify early signs of aging or deterioration of brain function before they manifest behaviourally in Alzheimers patients.

Eating a larger proportion of protein while dieting leads to better food choices and helps avoid the loss of lean body mass, according to a Rutgers study.

An analysis of pooled data from multiple weight-loss trials conducted at Rutgers shows that increasing the amount of protein even slightly, from 18 percent of a person’s food intake to 20 percent, has a substantial impact on the quality of the food choices made by the person. The study was published in the medical journal Obesity.