Culture
FINDINGS
A preclinical study led by scientists at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer suggests that heating solid tumors during CAR T-cell therapy can enhance the treatment's success.
The researchers found that when a heating technique called photothermal ablation was combined with the infusion of CAR T cells, it suppressed melanoma tumor growth for up to 20 days in mice. Among the mice that were treated with the combination, 33 percent were still tumor free after the 20-day mark.
BACKGROUND
Liposomes are small spherical vesicles with walls comprising two layers of lipids and containing an aqueous core. These artificial structures have been developed for drug delivery or as carriers of active substances in cosmetic products. Another possible application involves the encapsulation of magnetic nanoparticles in liposomes to use them to transmit signals.
This possibility is discussed in an article published by a group of Brazilian researchers supported by São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP in Royal Society Open Science.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Kangaroo rats are abundant and seemingly defenseless seed-eating rodents that have to contend with a host of nasty predators, including rattlesnakes -- venomous pit vipers well known for their deadly, lightning-quick strikes.
Research by a student-led team from UC Riverside, San Diego State University, and UC Davis now shows that desert kangaroo rats frequently foil snakes through a combination of fast reaction times, powerful evasive leaps, and mid-air, ninja-style kicks.
Tracking animals using DNA signatures are ideally suited to answer the pressing questions required to conserve the world's wildlife, providing benefits over invasive methods such as ear tags and collars, according to a new study by University of Alberta biologists.
Genetic tagging, or the identification and tracking of individual animals using DNA, is a non-invasive method of conducting research that uses samples from shed hair, feathers, feces, or saliva.
A new way of making scaffolding for biological cultures could make it possible to grow cells that are highly uniform in shape and size, and potentially with certain functions. The new approach uses an extremely fine-scale form of 3-D printing, using an electric field to draw fibers one-tenth the width of a human hair.
The system was developed by Filippos Tourlomousis, a postdoc at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, and six others at MIT and the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. The work is being reported in the journal Microsystems and Nanoengineering.
Joint replacements are among the most common elective surgeries -- but around one in 100 patients suffer post-surgical infections, turning a routine procedure into an expensive and dangerous ordeal. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed a "self-defensive surface" for these implants that release targeted micro-doses of antibiotics when bacteria approach, potentially sharply reducing infection rates.
Researchers show that how well parents or guardians support millennials' psychological needs prior to their transition to college is an important predictor of their psychological well-being as they adapt to college life.
Scientists at the University of Sheffield and University of Turku are looking at ways to boost captive populations of Asian elephants without relying on taking them from the wild.
Almost a third of Asian elephants are in captivity in countries like India, Myanmar and Thailand, mainly being used in the timber industry to drag logs or for tourism.
Sustaining wild populations is the conservation priority but, with so many individuals in captivity, maintaining sustainable captive populations with high welfare standards is also important for the future of the species.
People with and without cancer are more likely, over time, to use a more potent form of medical marijuana with increasingly higher amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a new study shows.
In a report publishing in the Journal of Palliative Medicine on March 26, researchers say that cancer patients were more likely to favor forms of medical marijuana with higher amounts of THC, which relieves cancer symptoms and the side effects of cancer treatment, including chronic pain, weight loss, and nausea.
The good news is global and local. Keeping inland lakes from turning green means less greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. Healthy drinking water, fishing and recreation opportunities are also increased when waters are not green.
A national-scale study of U.S. forests found strong relationships between the diversity of native tree species and the number of nonnative pests that pose economic and ecological threats to the nation's forests.
"Every few years we get a new exotic insect or disease that comes in and is able to do a number on our native forests," says Kevin Potter, a North Carolina State University research associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources and co-author of an article about the research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While current therapies for HIV can successfully manage active infection, the virus can survive in tissue reservoirs, including macrophage cells, and remain a persistent problem. Now, Dr. David Russell, William Kaplan Professor of Infection Biology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, and his research team have pinpointed a novel angle of attack that could selectively eradicate these viral reservoir cells while leaving healthy cells untouched.
Brain stem cells in people with the most severe form of multiple sclerosis look much older than they really are, according to a study led by UConn Health and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The prematurely old cells act differently in the brain than normal ones, and could be the key to new treatments for the disease.
Many whales take long journeys each year, spending summers feeding in cold waters and moving to warm tropical waters to breed. One theory suggests that these long-distance migrations originated around 5 million years ago, when ocean productivity became increasingly patchy. But patterns of ancient whale migrations have, until recently, been shrouded in mystery. Scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and the University of California, Berkeley approached this question with an ingenious technique: barnacles.
A broad-scale study of U.S. forest data suggests a significant - but not simple - relationship between the number of native tree species and the number of nonnative forest pests.
"Invasive insects and diseases pose both ecological and economic threats to our forest ecosystems," says Qinfeng Guo, a research ecologist with the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station and lead author of an article about the research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.