Culture

With a training technique commonly used to teach dogs to sit and stay, Johns Hopkins University computer scientists showed a robot how to teach itself several new tricks, including stacking blocks. With the method, the robot, named Spot, was able to learn in days what typically takes a month.

By using positive reinforcement, an approach familiar to anyone who's used treats to change a dog's behavior, the team dramatically improved the robot's skills and did it quickly enough to make training robots for real-world work a more feasible enterprise. The findings are newly published in a paper called, "Good Robot!"

"The question here was how do we get the robot to learn a skill?" said lead author Andrew Hundt, a PhD student working in Johns Hopkins' Computational Interaction and Robotics Laboratory. "I've had dogs so I know rewards work and that was the inspiration for how I designed the learning algorithm."

Unlike humans and animals that are born with highly intuitive brains, computers are blank slates and must learn everything from scratch. But true learning is often accomplished with trial and error, and roboticists are still figuring out how robots can learn efficiently from their mistakes.

The team accomplished that here by devising a reward system that works for a robot the way treats work for a dog. Where a dog might get a cookie for a job well done, the robot earned numeric points.

Hundt recalled how he once taught his terrier mix puppy named Leah the command "leave it," so she could ignore squirrels on walks. He used two types of treats, ordinary trainer treats and something even better, like cheese. When Leah was excited and sniffing around the treats, she got nothing. But when she calmed down and looked away, she got the good stuff. "That's when I gave her the cheese and said, 'Leave it! Good Leah!'"

Similarly, to stack blocks, Spot the robot needed to learn how to focus on constructive actions. As the robot explored the blocks, it quickly learned that correct behaviors for stacking earned high points, but incorrect ones earned nothing. Reach out but don't grasp a block? No points. Knock over a stack? Definitely no points. Spot earned the most by placing the last block on top of a four-block stack.

The training tactic not only worked, it took just days to teach the robot what used to take weeks. The team was able to reduce the practice time by first training a simulated robot, which is a lot like a video game, then running tests with Spot.

"The robot wants the higher score," Hundt said. "It quickly learns the right behavior to get the best reward. In fact, it used to take a month of practice for the robot to achieve 100% accuracy. We were able to do it in two days."

Positive reinforcement not only worked to help the robot teach itself to stack blocks, with the point system the robot just as quickly learned several other tasks - even how to play a simulated navigation game. The ability to learn from mistakes in all types of situations is critical for designing a robot that could adapt to new environments.

"At the start the robot has no idea what it's doing but it will get better and better with each practice. It never gives up and keeps trying to stack and is able to finish the task 100% of the time," Hundt said.

The team imagines these findings could help train household robots to do laundry and wash dishes - tasks that could be popular on the open market and help seniors live independently. It could also help design improved self-driving cars.

"Our goal is to eventually develop robots that can do complex tasks in the real world -- like product assembly, caring for the elderly and surgery," Hager said. "We don't currently know how to program tasks like that -- the world is too complex. But work like this shows us that there is promise to the idea that robots can learn how to accomplish such real-world tasks in a safe and efficient way."

New genetic sensors, developed by scientists at University of Warwick and Keele University, could function as a lab test device and even as a live monitoring system inside living cells

The innovative system can detect when a specific gene in a cell is active - instead of only detecting its presence

The technology is based on the widely utilised CRISPR system and could be applied to a variety of biotech applications, including therapeutics and diagnostics

These genetic devices could also respond to pathogen-specific sequences and activate genetic functions in cells uniquely when these are introduced in the cell

Genetic sensors that can detect the activity from genes, rather than just the genes themselves, have been developed by a team led by University of Warwick scientists.

Based on the CRISPR gene editing system, the scientists from Warwick and Keele universities have developed microscopic machines that use these sensors to detect when genes are 'on' or 'off' inside a cell, and react to those changes dynamically - making them a potentially ideal monitoring system.

These genetic sensors are detailed in a new paper published in The CRISPR Journal, where the scientists demonstrate a genetic device based on the CRISPR system inside a bacterial cell. The work is the first step in scientists developing genetic devices that can make changes to gene expression after sensing the existing gene activity within a cell.

Lead author Professor Alfonso Jaramillo from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick said: "Currently, we don't know how to design novel genetic systems to see which genes are on or off inside a cell. In nature, there are proteins that do that, they can sense the status of the cell, and the best we can do is to take those from one organism and put them in another one.

"We wanted to approach a new way of doing this, from scratch, to ask how we can program a system to listen to whatever we want inside a cell.

"Cells contain a number of genes that are expressed to perform numerous functions, from sensing their environment and processing food. By having a sensor that can detect when those genes are active, scientists could program a machine to react to a specific process, such as when the cell digests its food."

The researchers based their genetic device on the CRISPR system which is now broadly used for a variety of gene editing applications, including gene therapies. CRISPR molecules allow scientists to target and modify specific genomic sequences within cells. The advantage of the CRISPR system is its programmability, which allows it to be redirected to virtually any genetic targets, such as genetic mutations causing diseases.

To generate these novel genetic devices, the scientists used as a scaffold the programmable part of CRISPR which is also responsible for sequence recognition and binding, called guide RNA sequence (gRNA). They were able to redesign the gRNA sequence by introducing in it a sensor so that the CRISPR complex would be able to bind the DNA target only after being activated by a trigger signal, such as short segments of viral RNA sequences. The sensor can be triggered by any chosen RNA sequence and in this way it activates a CRISPR system at any point of the life cycle of a cell or virus.

The authors tested the genetic devices also in living Escherichia coli bacteria, by introducing a fluorescent gene that they could switch on or off only after interaction between the sensing device and the triggering molecule. They further validated their system to detect an RNA molecule deriving from the HIV virus, exemplifying its potential usability in medicine.

The scientists believe their system will be useful for many researchers looking to program cells with greater sophistication, for example to generate new synthetic circuits.

Dr Jaramillo adds: "This is quite different from gene editing, where you simply modify the genome. This is about watching the behaviour of the genome. If you have a monitor of the cell's behaviour then you can make the cell correct that behaviour if you don't like it, you can suppress it, or you can exploit that to switch on other genes.

"The drive is to have a genetic device able to monitor the behaviour of a cell. Monitoring the behaviour allows us to reprogram the cell to respond to specific signals, this is the first step towards so many other things."

Co-lead author Dr Roberto Galizi, from the School of Life Sciences at Keele University said:
"Coupling a genetic sensor with CRISPR tools offers an unprecedented opportunity for researchers to take genetic editing technologies to a completely new dimension. Eukaryotic cells could be programmed to detect deleterious mutations that may arise within its own genes, or to respond when invaded by pathogens like bacteria naturally do against phages.

"One interesting feature is that we can program these molecular tools to sense any predesigned RNA molecule in a sequence-specific manner and, at the same time, target any desirable gene or genetic sequence to stimulate various genetic actions, all within the same cell.

"Even genetic technologies aimed to control vector-borne diseases could benefit of such innovation. For example, we could engineer mosquitoes to sense and counteract pathogen transmission, or even mutations that makes vector or pest insects resistant to insecticides."

In a new study published in Politics & Policy, Deserai Crow, PhD, associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver in the School of Public Affairs, found significant differences in rhetoric between both party affiliation and gender. Narratives from both Republican and Democratic candidates in 48 U.S. House campaigns from the 2018 midterm election were analyzed in this study.

While both Republican and Democratic candidates spoke mostly about the same issues, the frequency at which they were discussed varied. Democrats were more likely to discuss women's issues/abortion, campaign finance reform, education, environment, civil rights, infrastructure/transportation, and workers/wages. Republicans, on the other hand, were more likely to focus on immigration and spending/taxes.

After analyzing the data, Crow found that the issues campaigns focused on not only varied based on political affiliation, but by candidate gender. Female candidates were significantly more likely to talk about the economy, education, environment, and gun violence issues on their campaign websites than male candidates. On social media, female candidates were more likely to discuss taxes, the economy, and worker/wage issues than their male counterparts.

According to researchers, females also were found to regard the purpose of conversation different than males. Female candidates, for example, place higher value on the communication process rather than the outcome, while males tend to use more assertive or outcome-oriented communication tactics. Creating a social connection and enhancing relationships using affiliative language is more common in females.

"The data show that despite all of the media/social media conversation around issues like immigration, civil rights, and similar issues that capture media attention, candidates who are more likely to win talk about the kitchen table issues that affect voters' lives like healthcare, education, the economy, and similar topics," said Crow.

One other set of differences researchers saw that varied by gender was in the type of people, or narrative characters, that candidates used in their communications about policy issues. Some of the characters most referenced by female candidates included families, their home states ("Coloradans"), and citizens, suggesting that relational or familiar language was more frequently used by female candidates. In fact, female candidates were 20% more likely to discuss family issues on social media than males.

"It will be interesting to assess what candidates this election cycle focus on and who prevails, given the major upheaval during 2020 with protests against masks, Black Lives Matter protests, and similar concerns across the country," said Crow. "It's possible that we could see a major change this year and we will be exploring that as well."

HOUSTON - (Oct. 26, 2020) - Nanomechanics at Rice University and the University of Houston are getting ready to rev their engines for the second international Nanocar Race.

While they'll have to pump the brakes for a bit longer than expected, as the race has been bumped a year to 2022, the Rice-based team is pushing forward with new designs introduced in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Organic Chemistry.

The work led by chemists James Tour of Rice and Anton Dubrovskiy of the University of Houston-Clear Lake upgrades the cars with wheels of tert-butyl that should help them navigate the course laid out on a surface of gold, with pylons consisting of a few well-placed atoms.

Like their winning entry in 2017's first international Nanocar Race, these nanocars have permanent dipole moments to increase their speed and drivability on the surface.

"The permanent dipoles make the cars more susceptible to being influenced by electric field gradients, which are used to propel and maneuver them," Tour said. "It is a feature we introduced for the first competition, and I'm sure many of the entries will now have this advanced design element built into their nanocars."

This year's models are also lighter, a little more than the minimum 100 atoms required by new regulations. "The car we used in the first race had only 50 atoms," Tour said. "So this is a substantial increase in the molecular weight, as required by the updated standards.
"It's likely the race organizers wanted to slow us down since the last time, when we finished the 30-hour race in only 1.5 hours," he said.

To bring the cars past 100 atoms while streamlining their syntheses, the researchers used a modular process to make five new cars with either all tert-butyl, all adamantyl wheels (as in previous nanocars) or combinations of the two.

At 90 atoms, cars with only butyl wheels, which minimize interactions with the track, and shorter chassis were too small. By using wheel combinations, the Rice lab made nanocars with 114 atoms. "This keeps the weight at a minimum while meeting the race requirements," Tour said.

The nanocars will again be driven by a team from University of Graz in Austria led by Professor Leonhard Grill. The team brought the Rice vehicle across the finish line in 2017 and has enormous expertise in scanning tunneling microscope-directed manipulations, Tour said. The Grill and Tour groups will meet again in France for the race.

The overarching goal of the competition is to advance the development of nanomachines capable of real work, like carrying molecular-scale cargo and facilitating nano-fabrication.

"This race pushes the limits of molecular nanocar design and methods to control them," Tour said. "So through this competitive process, worldwide expertise is elevated and the entire field of nanomanipulation is encouraged to progress all the faster."

The race, originally scheduled for next summer, has been delayed by the pandemic. The racers will still need to gather in France to be overseen by the judges, but all of the teams will control their cars via the internet on tracks under scanning tunneling microscopes in their home labs.

"So the drivers will be together, and the cars and tracks will be dispersed around the world," Tour said. "But the distance of each track will be identical, to within a few nanometers."

The Rice-Graz entry won the 2017 race with an asterisk, as its car moved so quickly on the gold surface that it was impossible to capture images for judging. The team was then allowed to race on a silver surface that offered sufficient resistance and finished the 150-nanometer course in 90 minutes.

"The course was supposed to have been only 100 nanometers, but the team was penalized to add an extra 50 nanometers," Tour said. "Eventually, it was no barrier anyway." First prize on the gold track went to a Swiss team that finished a 100-nanometer course in six-and-a-half hours.

Tour's lab built the world's first single-molecule car in 2005 and it has gone through many iterations since, with the related development of molecular motors that drill through cells to deliver drugs.

Rice graduate student Alexis van Venrooy is lead author of the paper. Co-authors are Rice alumnus Victor García-López and undergraduate John Tianci Li. Dubrovskiy is an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Houston-Clear Lake and an academic visitor at Rice. Tour is the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of computer science and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice.

CHAPEL HILL, NC - University of North Carolina School of Medicine scientists have made a curious discovery about a well-known human protein that helps the immune system fight viral infections. The lab of Stan Lemon MD, and colleagues found that one class of viruses actually requires this protein to infect cells and replicate.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research reveals an Achilles heel of rhinoviruses, which account for as much as 70% of common colds and acute wheezing episodes, and likely account for tens of billions of dollars in health-related costs each year in the United States. There is no effective anti-viral treatment.

"We found that a large proportion of these rhinoviruses, particularly the ones that cause severe disease, need a human protein called STING to make copies of its RNA," said Lemon, professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology at the UNC School of Medicine. "We don't know how or why; we'll have to study this further. But our work opens the door to a new strategy for controlling infection of these pesky and at times very dangerous pathogens."

Viruses are relatively simple bugs able to infect human cells and then replicate to cause diseases from the common cold to COVID-19 and more dangerous pathogens, such as HIV and Ebola. Humans have developed some defenses against these invasions, and one part of the defense is called the 'stimulator of interferon gene' protein, or STING, so named for its ability to sense invaders and enhance our immune response to many viruses, including herpes viruses and cytomegalovirus, a common bug that infects half of adults by age 40 and causes symptoms similar to many other viral infections. Rhinoviruses turn STING against us, and use it to promote their own growth. The genomes of many viruses are made up of DNA, whereas the genomes of rhinoviruses are composed of RNA, a similar kind of genetic code at the foundation of all living things. STING helps us defend against DNA viruses, but is instead helping this RNA virus.

Human rhinoviruses comprise a large group of common respiratory tract pathogens - dozens of different viruses - that are associated with asthma, pneumonia and exacerbations of chronic lung disease in both children and adults. There are no vaccines available to prevent these common infections because the viruses are very diverse and different from each other in terms of how they are 'seen' by the human immune system.

"If you are immune to one, you can easily catch another," Lemon said. "There is also no effective antiviral therapy for any of them."

Lemon's lab studies how viruses like rhinoviruses interact with human proteins with the hope of finding a way to block or limit the interaction and, as a result, limit symptoms and disease progression. While studying the human proteins involved in this interaction, they found something completely unexpected. Using cell cultures, they employed experimental techniques to disable STING to see what happened. To their surprise, the virus could not infect cells and replication was stopped.

"It could be possible to target this protein with a small molecule in way that would benefit people with rhinoviruses, especially children and others who can become severely ill," Lemon said.

Philadelphia, October 26, 2020 - A dual therapy treatment regimen of expanded-spectrum cephalosporins (ESCs) plus azithromycin (AZM) is the recommended standard of care for gonorrhea. A strain of the Neisseria (N.) gonorrhoeae that is resistant to the ESC and AZM combination has emerged around the world with the potential to make gonorrhea untreatable. The currently used screening methods for antimicrobial resistant (AMR) determinants are slow, expensive, and not widely available. In an article in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, researchers report a rapid and cheap method that can provide real-time surveillance to help control the spread of AMR strains of N. gonorrhoeae.

"N. gonorrhoeae has developed resistance to almost all classes of antibiotics that were previously recommended for treatment," explained lead investigator Junping Peng, MD, NHC Key Laboratory of Systems Biology of Pathogens, Institute of Pathogen Biology, and Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease Pathogenomics, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China. "Timely determination and monitoring of AMR profiles are crucial for appropriately personalized treatment and maintenance of treatment effectiveness."

Current surveillance systems primarily depend on culture-based methods, which have high sensitivity but long turnaround times. Several nucleic acid amplification testing methods have been developed, but they are expensive and not widely available. Dr. Peng and his team have spent the past several years assessing the status of gonococcal AMR and the development of AMR screening technologies. They designed and developed a multiplex assay based on high-resolution melting (HRM) technology. Compared with other molecular methods that detect a single genetic mutation, HRM technology can detect the most frequent mutations associated with ESCs and AZM resistance in a single test. It uses a real time PCR system, equipment commonly found in most microbiological laboratories and clinical settings.

Forty-eight well-characterized N.gonorrhoeae clinical specimens and 15 non-gonococcal strains were selected for the initial assay establishment. The multiplex HRM assays were able to accurately identify different nucleotide variations of the AMR determinants related to ceftriaxone and azithromycin resistance. Then, results from 556 multiplex HRM tests of clinical isolates and samples were compared with results from whole gene sequencing and PCR sequencing of the same samples. Compared with whole genome sequencing, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the multiplex HRM assays for detection of AMR determinants were 98.6 percent, 99.2 percent, 98.6 percent, and 99.2 precent, respectively. The results were available within 90 minutes at a cost of less than $1.00 per sample.

This sequencing-free HRM assay may be applied to large-scale epidemiological programs for increasing surveillance of ESCs and AZM resistance and supporting identification and investigation of antimicrobial-resistant N. gonorrhoeae outbreaks in real-time. By application of this assay, gonococcal AMR surveillance could be enhanced significantly, resulting in improved management programs aimed at controlling the further spread of antimicrobial-resistant N. gonorrhoeae strains and pathogen eradication.

"Our team has been committed to the assessment of the current status of gonococcal AMR and the development of AMR screening technologies to provide scientific and technological support for the effective prevention and treatment of gonorrhea," observed Dr. Peng. This fast, simple, and cheap method could have significant implications in resource-limited countries with a high burden of disease,"

Bladder preservation with trimodality therapy can be a safe and effective alternative to cystectomy for selected patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. The phase II NRG Oncology NRG-RTOG 0712 trial evaluated two regimens. One was the prior RTOG standard using 5-flourouracil and cisplatin with twice daily radiation (FCT), and the other a regimen of gemcitabine and daily radiation (GD) which had demonstrated efficacy in single institution clinical trials. This trial sought to determine if either or both of these regimens demonstrated sufficient efficacy to be included in future larger studies. The previously published results demonstrated high efficacy rates and low rates of distant metastasis in both arms. The updated results were presented at the virtual edition of the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO) Annual Meeting in October 2020.

NRG-RTOG 0712 accrued 66 eligible patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer for analysis and randomly assigned them to either receive the FCT or (GD) regimen. The trial was designed to determine if either or both treatments exceed a 3-year distant metastasis free (DMF3) rate of 75% defined as the benchmark for efficacy. Researchers on the trial also assessed 5-year distant metastasis free rates (DMF5), toxicity, complete response, and bladder intact distant free survival for each treatment arm. This trial was not statistically powered to compare the two treatment regimens.

With a median follow up of 7.3 years, the FCT treatment arm yielded a 79% DMF3 rate and the GD treatment arm had a DMF3 rate of 85%. Secondary objectives and efficiency endpoints data demonstrated that: DMF5 was 70% in the FCT arm and 77% in the GD arm; 3-year bladder-intact distant metastasis free (BI-DMF3) rates were 67% for the FCT treatment and 72.5% for GD and 5-year rates (BI-DMF5) were 65.1% for FCT and 72.5% for GD; and, post-induction complete response rates were 88% for FCT treatment and 76% for GD treatment. 58% of patients in the FCT treatment arm had treatment related-grade 3 or 4 hematologic, gastrointestinal, or genitourinary toxicities and 52% of patients in the GD arm exhibited these toxicities. Both regimens demonstrated a DMF3 greater than 75%, thus confirming gemcitabine and daily radiation is an acceptable alternative treatment option.

"Not only did this trial conclude that gemcitabine and daily radiation is an acceptable regimen with favorable distant metastasis free rates at 3 years, the results also indicate that both treatments maintain their high rates of distant metastasis free at 5 years and both treatments had low cystectomy rates with high overall survival rates. The efficacy of the GD regimen may facilitate wider adoption of bladder preservation as many patients have comorbidities that preclude the use of cisplatin. The daily radiation schedule is also easier for patients and treatment centers to administer than twice daily treatment which will also likely increase interest in this strategy. These findings are important to future trials that may assess a systemic therapy for this muscle-invasive bladder cancer," stated John J. Coen, MD, of GenesisCare ( formerly 21st Century Oncology) and the Principal Investigator of the NRG-RTOG 0712 study.

WASHINGTON (Oct. 26, 2020) - Non-generic queries in the online tool Google Trends may yield better insight into health information-seeking behavior, according to a new study by researchers from the George Washington University (GW).

Google Trends analyzes the popularity of top Google queries geographically and longitudinally. More recently it has been used as a surveillance and retrospective epidemiological tool to study the impact of COVID-19 around the world. However, studies focusing on the pandemic's impact in the United States have been lacking, according to the researchers.

"What's interesting about Google Trends is that it is a free platform that allows researchers like me to assess information-seeking behavior from a big data perspective," said King John Pascual, a third-year MD student at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) and first author on the study. "Just like with any big-data platform, if you have the right research questions, it can be a powerful epidemiological tool."

The study, conducted by Pascual and his mentor Ali Pourmand, MD, MPH, professor of emergency medicine at SMHS, utilized Google Trends to assess the extent of the public's perceived exposure to COVID-19 as it relates to disease prevalence during the early phase of the pandemic in the U.S. The team collected four weeks of search volume index (SVI) data from March 2020.

Out of the five queries analyzed, two that signal perceived exposure to the virus, "How do I get tested for coronavirus?" or "Do I have coronavirus?" had statistically significant differences in mean SVI between states with the highest and lowest numbers of COVID-19 cases. Generic queries such as "What is coronavirus?" or "How is coronavirus spread?" that do not necessarily reflected perceived exposure to the virus were not associated with the number of COVID-19 cases. The study findings imply how analyzing specific phrases, in lieu of those borne out by general interest, may yield more meaningful data about perceived exposure to a communicable disease on a population level.

"Early access to population health data is crucial and potentially lifesaving," said Pascual. "Digital tools such as Google Trends may help bridge the gap in knowledge and transparency."

THIS year due to the pandemic the 8th International Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention Conference had to be redesigned. In its place arose an online international Wounds Week and it was so successful it is certainly going to happen again.

Wounds Week, hosted by the University of Huddersfield's Institute of Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention in conjunction with the Journal of Wound Care, happened over five days, between 6pm and 7.30pm (UK time) and included a roster of multidisciplinary expert international speakers. They explored and investigated issues surrounding wound infection, identification, prevention and management of pressure.

With 10 engaging topics, Wounds Week was an opportunity for the wound care community to come together during an extremely difficult time due to the ongoing global pandemic and allowed them to engage in key education free of charge.

Anonymous feedback

"Well done to Huddersfield Uni and all the brilliant staff. It is not always convenient to attend full study days so the online training is enough to keep you interested. I was very surprised to see people watching from TEXAS, HAWAII and USA - this must be very rewarding for you all."

Keynote session by Dr Sarah Jarvis

The opening session entitled 'COVID-19: State of the Nation' was by the new patron of the University's Institute of Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention Dr Sarah Jarvis, MBE, a renowned Medical Broadcaster and Clinical Director at Patient.info.

Dr Jarvis cleared up numerous myths surrounding COVID and spoke about how well she feels the public and UK Government have handled the pandemic, how close we really are to finding a vaccine and whether or not she thinks the nation will see a second wave of infection as winter approaches.

Each session had live Q&A where participants asked questions of the experts which allowed the audience to feel connected to others taking part no matter their COVID-19 situation. All the webinars can now be viewed for free online via https://www.woundsweek.com/webinars-on-demand/.

Antimicrobial Stewardship

The Director of the ISIaIP Professor Karen Ousey delivered a session on 'Antimicrobial Stewardship - Is this important in a pandemic?' where she discussed how COVID-19 has challenged all aspect of healthcare, including both recognition and management of serious acute bacterial infection and effective delivery of antimicrobial stewardship.

Professor Ousey was recently announced as being the new European Director of the International Skin Tear Advisory Panel (ISTAP) in recognition of her excellent research in the field of wound care.

The International Skin Tear Advisory Panel (ISTAP) was formed to raise international awareness of the prediction, assessment, prevention & management of skin tears. The panel includes healthcare professionals representing Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East, North America and South America.

Wound Hygiene

Dr Leanne Atkin, a senior lecturer and Vascular Nurse Consultant at the University of Huddersfield/Mid Yorks NHS Trust delivered a session on the Treatment of hard to heal wounds: Investigating international consensus documents (TIMERS and Wound Hygiene) - what does this mean to clinical practice?.

In a second session, Dr Atkin spoke alongside Phil Bowler, Vice-president of Science & Technology at Convatec who outlined the role of biofilm, how it develops and acts as a primary barrier to healing, followed by Dr Atkin who demonstrated the benefits of implementing wound hygiene into daily practice.

Additional sessions looked at Negative Pressure Wound Therapy, recent developments in Pressure Ulcer Prevention, Evidence-based prevention of surgical site infection, point-of-care biomarker testing and fluorescence imaging and diabetic foot ulcers.

Researchers at Yale University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard screened hundreds of millions of cells exposed to the COVID-19 and MERS viruses and identified dozens of genes that both enable the viruses to replicate in cells and also those that seem to slam the door on the virus.

The pro-viral and anti-viral role of these genes will help guide scientists in development of new therapies to combat COVID-19, the researchers say.

The findings were reported Oct. 26 in the journal Cell.

Scientists have previously identified how the SARS-CoV-2 coronovirus, which causes COVID-19, attaches to and invades cells, but less is known about why some cells are more susceptible to infection. Understanding the genetics behind the host cells' susceptibility to infection may help explain why some people exposed to the virus experience few or no symptoms and others become extremely ill or die.

For the study, researchers performed a genome-wide screen of a line of green monkey cells, which are more likely to die after exposure to SARS-CoV-2 than commonly used human cell lines. The screens for the first time allowed researchers to simultaneously track interactions of virus and cells. The screens confirmed earlier findings that the ACE-2 gene, which encodes a receptor on the cell surface, promotes infection by SARS-CoV-2.

However, the screens also identified two new pro-viral protein complexes and a third, which seems to assist in preventing infection. They found that SWI/SNF complex, which turns genes on and off, and HMGB1, which has a myriad of functions including regulation of inflammation, were linked to increased cell death after infection.

The researchers then introduced small molecule drugs that inhibit function of two of the identified gene products and found they could increase survival of cells after infection in a dish.

By contrast, the histone H3 complex, which helps regulate expression of genes within the cell nucleus, seemed to provide a protective effect, inhibiting ability of SARS-CoV-2 to infect and kill cells.

"It is very important to understand wide variation of responses to COVID-19, for instance why advanced age makes it much more likely that people will die," said Yale's Craig Wilen, assistant professor in laboratory medicine and immunobiology and corresponding author of the paper. "We have identified both proviral and antiviral genes that may help us predict who is likely to get severely ill and what kind of drugs would be helpful or detrimental in treating patients."

Wilen noted the information may not only be helpful in current pandemic, but also help prepare for outbreaks of future emerging coronaviruses.

Roughly half of U.S. dentists experienced verbal or reputational aggression by patients in the past year, and nearly one in four endured physical aggression, according to a new study led by researchers at NYU College of Dentistry.

The study, published in the October issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association, is the first to document aggression toward dentists in the United States.

Workplace aggression toward health care professionals is common, with health care settings second only to law enforcement in the rate of violent incidents. However, there are no studies of aggression toward dentists in the U.S.--a workforce of 200,000--and only four studies have been conducted in other countries.

"Workplace violence toward health care professionals is both widespread and widely overlooked," said Kimberly Rhoades, a research scientist in the Family Translational Research Group at NYU College of Dentistry and the study's lead author. "The purpose of this study was to provide an initial estimate of rates of patient aggression in dental practices in the United States."

Rhoades and her colleagues surveyed 98 dentists practicing in the New York City metropolitan area; the dentists had been working an average of 17 years. Participants completed a confidential online survey assessing whether they had experienced any of 21 specific types of aggressive behaviors from their patients, including types of physical (e.g. being pushed or kicked), verbal (e.g. being insulted or sworn at), and reputational (e.g. threats of lawsuits or posting nasty comments on social media) aggression.

A substantial proportion of dentists reported experiencing aggression from patients in the past year, including physical (22.2%), verbal (55%), and reputational (44.4%) aggression. An even larger proportion of dentists surveyed were subjected to physical (45.5%), verbal (74%), and reputational (68.7%) aggression at some point during their career. These rates of patient aggression toward dentists are high and comparable with those reported in other health care settings.

Rates of aggression did not differ by dentists' sex, race, ethnicity, specialty, age, years practicing, or average number of patients treated per day.

The rates of physical and reputational aggression toward dentists were similar to those from a parallel study by NYU researchers of aggression toward dental students published earlier this year in the Journal of Dental Education. However, practicing dentists experienced less verbal aggression from patients than dental students (55% versus 86%), suggesting that additional experience may reduce the risk of verbal aggression.

"Dentistry is rife with situations that can elicit strong negative emotions, such as fear, pain, distrust, and anger. Many patients also experience high levels of anxiety and vulnerability, which may increase negative responses or aggression," said Rhoades. "Establishing that aggression toward dentists is a problem and how often it occurs can help us develop interventions to prevent aggression in dental practices."

The researchers note that, while a larger, national study is needed to determine the true prevalence of aggression in U.S. dental settings, dental practices should consider implementing training that incorporates strategies for handling workplace violence. Training could address how to prevent patient aggression, and manage or de-escalate aggression when it does occur.

Stubbornly, frustratingly, pancreatic cancer has remained resistant to immunotherapies that are revolutionizing the treatment of many types of cancer.

A new study led by the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center combined single-cell RNA sequencing with two other investigative techniques to create what is believed to be the most robust and detailed portrait to date of the network of interactions that suppress the body's immune response in and around pancreatic tumors.

The team's findings, which appear in the journal Nature Cancer, put a new spotlight on the large degree to which immune response varies from patient to patient and tumor to tumor -- which will need to be taken into account as new immunotherapy combinations are developed against the deadly disease.

"Pancreas cancers just have not been sensitive to immune therapy, and those of us in the field are trying to sort out is why that is, what makes this cancer so different," says study senior author Marina Pasca di Magliano, Ph.D., a professor of surgery and of cell and developmental biology at Michigan Medicine. "What has been lacking is even a basic understanding of the variety and individual differences in immune response between patients."

The new research lays a foundation for future translational studies and clinical trials, with the ultimate goal of one day being able to use personalized molecular profiles to determine which immunotherapies would be of greatest benefit to each patient, she adds.

Years in the making, the study represents the effort of nearly 40 U-M clinicians and bench scientists working closely together to develop a trove of data that research groups in the field can draw upon for years to come, the team says.

Along with single-cell analysis, the group employed high-definition multiplex immunofluorescence and mass cytometry -- which combines mass spectrometry and flow cytometry -- to evaluate the complex biology of tumor samples in multiple ways.

"I think the key lesson for me as a clinician is that getting immunotherapy to work in this disease will continuing to be challenging because there are complexities that we're only just starting to appreciate," says study co-senior author Filip Bednar, M.D., an assistant professor of surgery. "This work opens the door to understanding those complexities and to figuring out how we might overcome them."

One key finding of the study was a new potential biomarker that showed up in the bloodstream of a subset of patients with pancreatic cancer -- an immune receptor called TIGIT (for T cell immunoreceptor with Ig and ITIM domains.)

"When people talk about immunotherapy, they're primarily talking about targeting a couple of specific molecules -- PD-1 and CTLA4," says co-senior author Howard Crawford, Ph.D., a professor of molecular and integrative physiology and of internal medicine. "What these research efforts have shown is that there's a lot more than just those two bad actors that are inhibiting the immune system and contributing to the ineffectiveness of immune therapy. TIGIT has been barely a blip on the radar."

Importantly, the researchers found that expression of TIGIT in patients' blood corresponded closely with its activity in tumors.

"So that suggests there could be a non-invasive way to assay individual patients to see whether they might be candidates for a future therapy targeting that particular checkpoint receptor -- which would be a significant advancement to the current standard of care," says Nina Steele, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow in Pasca di Magliano's lab and one of four first authors of the study.

Another unique aspect of the study was the breadth and depth of the samples that were collected, the researchers note.

Unusually, the analysis included a significant number of samples from patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Only about 1 in 4 pancreatic cancer patients are candidates for surgery, so those with earlier stage disease are greatly over-represented in many studies because they rely on samples collected during surgery, explains co-first author Eileen Carpenter, M.D., Ph.D., a gastroenterology fellow.

Early in their cancer journey, however, most patients have a tissue sample collected via needle biopsy so that doctors can obtain a definitive diagnosis -- so Carpenter coordinated the collection of research samples at the same time.

Blood samples were also collected from patients, allowing researchers to examine changes to immune cells circulating in the blood and correlate them with what was happening in a patient's tumor microenvironment, adds co-first author Samantha Kemp, a graduate student studying molecular and cellular pathology.

"I think there is often a surprising disconnect between research labs and clinics, even in something as straightforward as bio-specimen collection," Carpenter notes. "I think the bridges we were able to build and the contributions made by so many different labs really speak to the collaborative environment at the University of Michigan. There's a reason we were able to accomplish this work here."

Along with the clinical and laboratory efforts, data analysis was critical to the study, Pasca di Magliano stresses. Those efforts were led by Steel, Kemp and Veerin Sirihorachai, a graduate student in cancer biology.

"With single-cell sequencing especially, the actual acquisition of the data is relatively straightforward, but then analyzing the data is incredibly complex," Pasca di Magliano says.

In single-cell analysis, spatial information about the cells is lost. So the group, led by co-senior author Timothy Frankel, M.D., an assistant professor of surgery, also used a technique called multiplex immunohistochemistry, which allows for the identification of multiple cell types within a tissue slide while preserving the position of tumor cells relative to components of the microenvironment.

DALLAS (October 26, 2020) - After the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the global economy, scientists at the Center for BrainHealth®, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, worked with researchers across the world to develop a science-based plan that could help the economy recover and prevent similar collapses in the future. The Brain Capital Grand Strategy is an economic reimagination wherein organizations invest in employees' brain health as a critical, measurable asset. Improving brain health - emotional, behavioral and cognitive functioning - helps people tap into their brain's limitless potential, catalyze innovative thinking and improve their productivity, in turn strengthening the transforming economy.

The paper was recently published in Molecular Psychiatry. The Brain Capital Grand Strategy was a massive collaborative effort by numerous researchers, including Sandra Bond Chapman, PhD, founder and chief director of the Center for BrainHealth, and Ian Robertson, PhD, both co-directors of The BrainHealth Project. The author group also included experts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Science has shown that many people think about intellect as fixed. This is inaccurate and limits the potential of the human mind. The BrainHealth Project - the largest scientific study to redefine brain health and provide strategies for improving and maintaining the brain's performance - is central to the Brain Capital Grand Strategy. The BrainHealth Project defines brain health as a holistic health measure that includes components like a person's psychological well-being, social adeptness, and capacity for innovation.

This measure, known as the BrainHealth Index™, could serve as a predictor of when a community, corporation or country have the wherewithal to be resilient.

"The BrainHealth Index will be a central component of the Brain Capital strategy," said Harris Eyre, MD PhD, the senior author on the paper. "This measurement of brain health will allow for us to track, benchmark and implement the Brain Capital Grand Strategy in policy. This Index can also be used by executives, human resource managers and board members," he said.

In today's economy, many jobs require strong cognitive, emotional and social skills. Holistic education and policies promoting brain health through investment in brain capital could help people build cognitive resilience. Cognitive resilience is crucial in an economy where brain skills are central to productivity, especially in the midst of massive change. By redefining brain health and improving employees' resilience, The BrainHealth Project provides an avenue for lasting economic reform.

"Brain Capital is the economic benefit that accrues from keeping our brains powered at the highest level," said Dr. Chapman. "This is exactly what The BrainHealth Project is all about: helping people everywhere realize that they have this limitless power to become a more resilient version of themselves at all ages."

Introduced to the United States over 60 years ago, soybean cyst nematode (SCN) has spread broadly throughout the Midwest and eastern parts of the country. After penetrating the root tissue, SCN take nutrients away from the soybean plant and reduce plant growth and yield. These nematodes are the leading cause of soybean losses in the United States--in 2014, SCN resulted in the loss of 3.5 million tons of soybean.

While there are management strategies in place, many of them have become less effective in curtailing SCN populations. University of Illinois and USDA plant pathologists M.L. Pawlowski and G.L. Hartman, respectively, have been involved in an on-going effort to increase soybean productivity by reducing soybean diseases and pests. Their latest research found that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in a potential tool in SCN management.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form symbiotic relationships with the roots of most plants, including soybean. Previous research has shown that these fungi can reduce the severity of plant disease caused by pathogens and pests including SCN. Pawlowski and Hartman set out to understand how AMF suppress SCN populations.

In one experiment they found that several different AMF species from different families reduced the number of cysts on soybean roots by 59 to 80 percent. They also found that one AMF species reduced counts of SCN by 60 percent and was able to suppress egg hatching by as much as 30 percent.

"We were surprised to find that AMF was so good at repressing SCN," said Hartman. "This opens up new avenues of research, which is needed to determine the efficacy of using AMF in field conditions, with a goal of providing another management tool to reduce the impact of SCN on soybean production."

Hartman also suggests that industries interested in biological control using arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi might consider commercializing the strain (F. mosseae) that was effective in reducing SCN. For more information, read "Impact of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Species on Heterodera glycines" in the September issue of Plant Disease.

Boulder, Colo., USA: Floating gardens sound so idyllic. Now, a study proves that they are more than just a pretty place. The study, by researchers at Illinois State University, demonstrates that such constructed gardens can have a measurable, positive impact on water quality.

Floating gardens are essentially rafts built on a frame of plastic caging, wrapped in coconut husks, and filled in with native plantings. As plants grow, they extend their roots into the water, growing hydroponically. On Chicago's North Branch of the Chicago River, non-profit Urban Rivers and partners are developing a mile-long, floating eco-park. Dubbed the Wild Mile, the re-development of this former industrial canal is Urban Rivers' flagship project. As part of the park, floating gardens, attached to shore, are being installed.

The primary intent of the floating gardens is beautification. But the Illinois State team, from the University's Department of Geology, Geography, and the Environment, saw an ideal setup for a controlled experiment. "We got involved because it's the perfect opportunity to see if there's an impact on water quality," explains lead author Abigail Heath.

Heath will present the results of the study in an online talk on Tuesday from 10:45 to 11:00 a.m. EDT, during the Geological Society of America's annual meeting.

The study is novel: previous studies have explored floating gardens' impact on water quality over time, primarily in wastewater treatment ponds, but not over space, in moving water. The project also meshes well with Urban Rivers' broader goals. "The city is interested in water quality," says Phil Nicodemus, Urban Rivers Director of Research. "Happily, Illinois State got involved."

Starting in spring 2018, Heath and co-authors have sampled water immediately upstream and downstream of a narrow 3 meter by 50 meter floating garden installed along the shoreline. Samples are collected weekly, at the surface and from 0.3 meters deep, the depth where roots reach from the garden's base into the water. Although the garden is set at the edge of Chicago's urban core, water quality is also impacted by upstream agriculture. Analyses are focused on nutrients including nitrate as nitrogen, chloride, sulfate, and phosphate.

Could this small slice of human-made paradise improve water quality? An average of data collected over the course of the study show modest but definitive improvement. For example, nitrate as nitrogen dropped from 4.69 milligrams per liter in surface water just upstream of the garden to 4.43 milligrams per liter just downstream, a drop of about 1 percent. Phosphate was also lower downstream of the garden.

"Despite how small this garden was there was measurable improvement in water quality from upstream to downstream, especially for nitrates," notes Heath. She and colleagues see this as a scalable model for how larger floating gardens might help remediate water in similar settings. "Even this tiny garden makes a difference," she says.