News by Subject Medicine & Health

Cancer cells use an ancient mechanism of self-nonself discrimination to remain hidden from the immune system. A nanoscale molecular machine, akin to an arm that flexes and extends, allows cancer cell to fend off immune. defenders. The stiff-arm is delivered by components of the complement system. It prevents the initiation of immune responses, without which the current generations of immunotherapeutics, like checkpoint inhibitors, are not effective. The hypotheses presented in the paper are pre-clinical.

A multi-institutional study finds that COVID-19 can be found in post-mortem corneal tissue, highlighting the importance of the donor screening process.

Scientists from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) together with leading international experts suggest reconsidering the existing treatment protocol for severe spasticity, one of the main complications after spinal cord injury with partial spinal cord disruption. Spasticity aggravates a patient's state and dramatically reduces the prospects of rehabilitation. The new treatment protocol has been run at FEFU Medical Center. A related article was published in the Progress in Brain Research journal.

Could number two be number one when it comes to combating recurrent Clostridium difficile (CDI) infections? Using genetic material analysis and machine learning, UBC researchers have pinpointed several key factors to ensure successful fecal microbiota transplants (FMT), which have proven successful in treating bacterial infections in the gut including illnesses like C. difficile, Crohn's Disease, Colitis and even obesity, explains lead author Negin Kazemian.

Data from the United Network for Organ Sharing database were used to examine variation at the state level in waitlist and transplant outcomes among patients listed for heart transplantation from 2011 to 2016.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have combined synthetic biology with a machine learning algorithm to create human liver organoids with blood and bile handling systems. When implanted into mice with failing livers, the lab-grown replacement livers extended life.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet and the Helmholtz Diabetes Research Center shows that primary cilia, hair-like protrusions on endothelial cells inside vessels, play an important role in the blood supply and delivery of glucose to the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreatic islets. The findings are published in eLife and may be relevant for transplantation therapies in diabetes, as formation of functional blood vessels is important for the treatment to be successful.

A new paper analyzes the metrics used to evaluate organ procurement organizations and proposes three complimentary metrics to reflect more accurate and equitable performance rankings.

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba have shown that the skin fibrosis seen in chronic graft-versus-host disease is mediated by transforming growth factor-β1 expressed by epidermal cells undergoing programmed death when they are stimulated by interferon-γ. Further investigations elucidate the sclerodermatous changes characteristic of autoimmune and inflammatory conditions such as systemic sclerosis, discoid lupus erythematosus and toxic epidermal necrolysis, thus opening up research avenues in pharmacotherapeutics based on targeting apoptosis and interferon-γ.