Research News

The phase II trial, led by researchers at St George’s, University of London and St George’s Hospital was joint-funded by the US-based Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and the UK Alzheimer’s Society. The trial tested whether tadalafil increases brain blood flow in older men and women with narrowing of the brain arteries, a condition that can cause strokes and vascular dementia.

A team of scientists has developed a new technology, platform for fluorometric detection of pathogens such as viruses by measurement of fluorescent light emitted. The potential of the new technology has been demonstrated for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. This technology platform can also be used to detect other DNA/RNA pathogens such as HIV, influenza, HCV, Zika, Ebola, bacteria, and other mutating/evolving pathogens.

Critically ill COVID-19 patients on a mechanical ventilator or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation lived more often when randomized to receive baricitinib. Doctors call this drug bari, and receiving the pill once a day for up to 14 days yielded one of the largest a survival advantages seen yet in the COVID pandemic, according to a study published.

A revolutionary pacemaker that re-establishes the hearts naturally irregular beat is set to be trialled in New Zealand heart patients this year, following successful animal trials. Currently, all pacemakers pace the heart metronomically, which means a very steady, even pace. But when you record heart rate in a healthy individual, you see it is constantly on the move, says Professor Julian Paton, a lead researcher and director of Manaaki Manawa, the Centre for Heart Research at the University of Auckland.

Vasopressin and glucocorticoids compared to placebo, improved return of spontaneous circulation among adults for in-hospital cardiac arrest, says recent findings in Resuscitation.

The clinical and imaging characteristics of COVID-19 breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated patients tend to be milder than those of partially vaccinated or unvaccinated patients, according to a new multicenter study published in the journal Radiology.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide now exceeds 270 million with an overall mortality rate of approximately 2%.

A robot has performed laparoscopic surgery on the soft tissue of a pig without the guiding hand of a human a significant step toward fully automated surgery on humans. Designed by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot, or STAR, is described today in Science Robotics.

Garden soil houses a variety of bacteria and their natural byproducts - including one that may help halt tumor growth. Lankacidins are molecules that can be isolated from Strepomyces rochei, a common bacterium in soil. In addition to antimicrobial properties, a type of lankacidins, called lankacidin C, can inhibit tumor activity in various cancer cell lines, including leukemia, melanoma, ovarian and breast cancers.

Once you know how it works for one disease, immuneML can make diagnostic tools for other types of diseases as well.

Different diseases have different methods for testing if a person has the disease or not. immuneML, a new open source machine learning platform, can potentially look for a lot of diseases in just one blood sample.