Culture

An international team of researchers, led by Professor Margaret Rayman at the University of Surrey, has identified a link between the COVID-19 cure rate and regional selenium status in China.

Publishing their findings in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers using data (up to 18 February), investigated possible links between selenium levels in the body and cure or death rates of those with the COVID-19 virus in China.

Selenium is an essential trace element obtained from the diet (i.e. fish, meat and cereals) which has been found to affect the severity of a number of viral diseases in animals and humans. For example selenium status in those with HIV has been shown to be an important factor in the progression of the virus to AIDs and death from the condition. China is known to have populations that have both the lowest and highest selenium status in the world, due to geographical differences in the soil which affects how much of the trace element gets into the food chain.

Margaret Rayman, Professor of Nutritional Medicine at the University of Surrey, said; "Given the history of viral infections associated with selenium deficiency, we wondered whether the appearance of COVID-19 in China could possibly be linked to the belt of selenium deficiency that runs from the north-east to the south-west of the country."

Examining data from provinces and municipalities with more than 200 cases and cities with more than 40 cases, researchers found that areas with high levels of selenium were more likely to recover from the virus. For example, in the city of Enshi in Hubei Province, which has the highest selenium intake in China, the cure rate (percentage of COVID-19 patients declared 'cured') was almost three-times higher than the average for all the other cities in Hubei Province. By contrast, in Heilongjiang Province, where selenium intake is among the lowest in the world, the death rate from COVID-19 was almost five-times as high as the average of all the other provinces outside of Hubei.

Most convincingly, the researchers found that the COVID-19 cure rate was significantly associated with selenium status, as measured by the amount of selenium in hair, in 17 cities outside of Hubei.

Kate Bennett, a medical statistician at the University of Surrey, said; "There is a significant link between selenium status and COVID-19 cure rate, however it is important not to overstate this finding; we have not been able to work with individual level data and have not been able to take account of other possible factors such as age and underlying disease."

Ramy Saad, a doctor at Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, currently taking an MSc degree in Nutritional Medicine at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Surrey, commented; "The correlation we have identified is compelling, particularly given previous research on selenium and infectious diseases. As such, a careful and thorough assessment of the role selenium may play in COVID-19 is certainly justified and may help to guide ongoing public-health decisions".

When a natural disaster like an earthquake strikes, a community can literally be shaken to its core. One way to assess how well and how quickly that community recovers is to measure how, and how quickly, its hospitals and wider healthcare systems can become fully functional again and take care of its patients. Predicting the trajectory of that recovery is no easy task.

That's because the resilience measures of a healthcare system are dizzyingly complex. They span everything from the availability of hospital staff, to the protection of critical equipment, to the state of the roads for ambulances to travel on, to the efficiency by which hospitals can transfer critically ill patients to different hospitals.

Hussam Mahmoud, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University, and his students spend a lot of time thinking about how to define and describe "community resilience." Mahmoud and graduate student Emad Hassan have created a modeling tool that could help city planners and emergency managers understand the full functionality and recovery of a healthcare system, in the wake of a natural disaster.

"We set out to develop models allowing us to understand, what is the demand on a hospital healthcare facility after an event like an earthquake," Mahmoud said. "When we started looking into this, we were shocked to learn that there are no models currently that allow you to understand, what is the demand on the hospital, how is the hospital being impacted by the natural disaster, how is that going to impact demand and capacity, and how will that change over time?"

Their model, described in a forthcoming issue of the journal Reliability Engineering and System Safety, has wider implications for use in other disasters, including pandemics, like the one the world is experiencing now with COVID-19.

Healthcare as a complex network

In their paper, Mahmoud and Hassan seek to understand healthcare systems as complex networks that can be visualized as nodes of different functionalities. These include number of staffed beds, hospital staff availability, housing functionality, patient waiting time for treatment, and even things like the probability of patient X going to healthcare facility Y. The availability of water, power, transportation and telecommunication also support hospital operation and factor into the model. And the researchers define healthcare not just by physical metrics, but also by quality metrics, like the level of customer satisfaction - measured by things like patient wait time.

To develop and test their framework, the researchers applied it to a virtual community called Centerville, which was developed as a research tool by researchers at the CSU Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience, a National Institute of Standards and Technology Center of Excellence of which Mahmoud and Hassan are contributing members. The researchers applied an earthquake scenario to Centerville - an imagined mid-sized U.S. community of 50,000 residents with commercial and industrial zones, schools, fire stations and hospitals - to see how it would fare. Using the virtual environment helped them highlight the capabilities of their model and the impact of decisions made as the community recovered.

Pandemic applications

The purpose of Mahmoud and Hassan's work is to define the parameters needed to be measured by communities to assess how prepared they are for natural disasters. In the wake of COVID-19, Mahmoud said, they have begun using their model to theorize and predict how hospital networks can better manage pandemics by identifying gaps in resources and potential bottlenecks according to different worst-case scenarios. They are now working with the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health to further refine the model and apply it to pandemic planning.

WASHINGTON--Short-term cold exposure may help people with brown fat burn 15 percent more calories than those without, according to a small study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Unlike white fat, brown fat burns calories through fatty acid oxidation and heat production and is considered a promising target in the fight against the obesity epidemic. The biggest activator of brown fat is moderate cold exposure.

"This data improves our understanding of how brown fat works in humans," said the study's corresponding author, Florian W. Kiefer, M.D., Ph.D., of the Medical University of Vienna in Austria. "We found that individuals with active brown fat burned 20 more kilocalories than those without."

The researchers identified two groups using a PET scan--those with and without active brown fat. They analyzed brown fat function and energy expenditure in these individuals before and after short-term cold exposure finding that the group with active brown fat not only burned significantly more calories but had a healthier fatty acid blood profile.

"We have to study human brown fat in more detail to see if this organ can protect us against metabolic and cardiovascular disease," Kiefer said.

Bethesda, Maryland (April 28, 2020) -- Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the esophagus triggered by allergens that causes difficulty with swallowing in adults, which grows more frequent and intense over time, affecting patients' quality of life. Children experience varied symptoms that include feeding difficulty, pain, vomiting, as well as dysphagia. EoE affects an estimated one in 2,000 people.

A new guideline from the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) and the Joint Task Force for Allergy-Immunology Practice Parameters provides recommendations for the management of EoE in pediatric and adult patients.

Key guideline highlights:

Topical steroids are recommended as a first-line treatment for EoE.

The guideline also recommends proton pump inhibition (PPI) therapy, diet therapy and esophageal dilation as treatment options.

The use of novel, targeted biologic therapies for EoE are being actively evaluated and more research is needed before these can be recommended.

"Over the past two decades, EoE has emerged as a dominant cause of swallowing difficulties worldwide," said Ikuo Hirano, MD, AGAF, a gastroenterologist from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, and lead guideline author. "The recommendations we've outlined will guide allergists and gastroenterologists in effectively managing their patients' EoE and improving their quality of life. As the field moves forward, a deeper understanding of the natural history of EoE in both children and adults is needed to inform clinical decisions regarding the optimal use of disease monitoring and long-term, maintenance therapy."

This guideline was developed through a collaboration between AGA and the Joint Task Force for Allergy-Immunology Practice Parameters, which comprises the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. This guideline is jointly published in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the AGA Institute, and Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Review the guideline https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(20)30265-1/fulltext for the complete recommendations.

WHAT IS EOSINOPHILIC ESOPHAGITIS?

EoE is a chronic inflammatory disease of the esophagus triggered by food and environmental allergens. Patients with EoE experience difficulty swallowing, vomiting and pain, potentially resulting in poor eating and growth among infants and toddlers. In children and adults with EoE, solid food can get stuck in a narrowing esophagus, increasing the risk of emergency room visits for the removal of trapped food. EoE is a recently recognized disease with increasing prevalence. EoE affects an estimated one in 2,000 people. Treatment focuses on alleviating both symptoms and esophageal inflammation while helping people maintain their quality of life. Learn more about EoE in the AGA GI Patient Center. https://www.gastro.org/practice-guidance/gi-patient-center/topic/eosinophilic-esophagitis-eoe

What The Viewpoint Says: The importance of minimizing COVID-19 transmission in prisons and jails is described and policies and programs for doing so are detailed.

Authors: Laura Hawks, M.D., Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.1856)

Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflicts of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

WASHINGTON, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 -- Biological robots, or biobots, draw inspiration from natural systems to mimic the motions of organisms, such as swimming or jumping. Improvements to biobots to better replicate complex motor behaviors can lead to exciting biorobotic engineering applications to help solve real world challenges. However, this requires the creation of biohybrid robots -- biobots made up of both organic and artificial materials -- which is a challenge.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign combined an intact rat spinal cord with a tissue-engineered, 3D muscle system. They describe the novel biohybrid system in the journal APL Bioengineering, from AIP Publishing.

After culturing the system for seven days, the researchers found that the motor neurons from the spinal cord begin to produce electrical activity that causes contraction in the artificial muscles, mirroring the behavior of the peripheral nervous system.

"When we looked more deeply at how the neuron-muscle interface developed, we were very excited to observe many similarities between our tissue-engineered spinobot and in vivo development," said author Collin Kaufman, a neuroscience graduate student at UIUC.

Kaufman said this result indicates the explanted spinal cord is a viable mechanism for controlling muscular behaviors, even when removed from its natural environment.

They further tested this by varying the concentration of neurotransmitters in the system. When additional neurotransmitters are present, the contractions are more patterned and consistent, and when they are blocked, the twitching decreases.

Because studying the peripheral nervous system can be so difficult, the ability to observe it externally -- as demonstrated in the present study -- can lead to great strides in medicine.

One potential example is in Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in which the death of neurons results in the eventual loss of motor function. By developing an external peripheral nervous system, researchers can study ALS with ease of access to the impacted components in real time.

"The next steps to studying such a disease are surprisingly close," Kaufman said. "By replacing the muscle, the spinal cord, or any combination of the two tissues with an ALS mutant model, researchers would be able to study how diseased neurons interact with nearby muscles."

In addition, hybrid biobots can be used as surgical training tools, allowing medical students to perform practice surgery on real biological tissue.

"The future applications of this technology are only beginning to be understood, and we expect many great things from this area in the next few years," said Martha Gillette, professor of cell and developmental biology at UIUC.

What The Viewpoint Says: This Viewpoint describes the relevance of a palliative care approach to surgery during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

Authors: Zara Cooper, M.D., M.Sc., of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2020.1698)

Editor's Note: Please see the articles for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflicts of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Australian researchers have revealed for the first time that males infected with the Toxoplasma parasite can impact their offspring's brain health and behaviour.

Studying mice infected with the common parasite Toxoplasma, the team discovered that sperm of infected fathers carried an altered 'epigenetic' signature which impacted the brains of resulting offspring. Molecules in the sperm called 'small RNA' appeared to influence the offspring's brain development and behaviour.

'Intergenerational inheritance' of similar epigenetic changes from men exposed to extreme trauma has been well documented. This latest research, published in Cell Reports, has raised the question of whether Toxoplasma infections - or even possibly other infections - in men before conception could impact the health of subsequent generations.

The research was led by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers Dr Shiraz Tyebji and Associate Professor Chris Tonkin, in collaboration with Professor Anthony Hannan at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health.

At a glance

Melbourne researchers have revealed that mice conceived from sperm of males infected with the parasite Toxoplasma displayed changes in their brain function and behaviour.

The study showed Toxoplasma infection in male mice caused changes in levels of 'small RNA' molecules contained in their sperm, potentially altering gene expression in the resulting offspring.

As trauma in men can also cause epigenetic changes in sperm and has been associated with neuropsychiatric changes in their children and grandchildren, the research raises the possibility that men might also transmit changes associated with a Toxoplasma infection to their children.

Infectious inheritance

Toxoplasma is one of the world's most common parasites, estimated to be carried by between 25 and 80 per cent of the global population. Toxoplasma infection can cause an initial mild illness in most people, however, pregnant women, babies and people with weakened immunity experience more severe infections.

Associate Professor Tonkin said people could carry the dormant Toxoplasma parasite for decades, and that this had been associated with the appearance of symptoms of mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"Toxoplasma infections have been shown to cause long-term epigenetic changes in a range of cells around our body. These are changes that do not alter the genetic sequence of DNA, but influence gene expression - that is, which genes are switched on or off," he said.

"As other epigenetic changes in fathers - such as those caused by trauma or smoking - can influence their children, we decided to look at whether the effects of epigenetic changes caused by Toxoplasma infection could also be passed between generations."

By studying male mice infected with Toxoplasma, the researchers were able to narrow their investigations down to the transmission of epigenetic information through sperm, Dr Tyebji said.

"We discovered that Toxoplasma infection alters levels of DNA-like molecules, called small RNA, that are carried by sperm," he said. "These changes in small RNA levels affect gene expression, and so could potentially influence brain development and behaviour of offspring.

"We were stunned to see that even the next generation - the 'grandchildren' of the original infected male - displayed changes in their behaviour," Dr Tyebji said.

Impacts for public health

Professor Hannan said this was the first time it had been shown that an infection in a male can result in epigenetic changes being transmitted to subsequent generations. "While our studies were in mice, it raises an important question about whether infections in human fathers before conception also impact their children," he said.

"We normally think more about how infectious diseases in women affect the developing fetus, but perhaps certain infections in men could have long-term impacts on subsequent generations' health.

"This is certainly something we are following up, both looking at what is happening in humans, as well as investigating infections other than Toxoplasma, including animal models of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19," Professor Hannan said.

Associate Professor Tonkin said the study was an outstanding example of how collaboration enhanced medical research. "We have combined more than a decade of research in my laboratory into Toxoplasma infections and their impact on brain development with the expertise Professor Hannan's team has established in understanding the role of epigenetics in brain development and behaviour," Associate Professor Tonkin said.

New Rochelle, NY, April 27, 2020--A mobile telehealth system (MTS) has been used in a hospital in China where COVID-19 patients were treated in isolation wards set off from other healthcare providers. Click here to read the article free in the peer-reviewed journal Telemedicine and e-Health. This just-published paper provides a full description of the MTS, its components, and how it maintains the security of patient information.

The MTS was able to overcome the problem that patient information stored in the hospital intranet was not available to the staff working in isolated COVID-19 wards. The MTS enabled sharing of patient information among clinicians without compromising the security of patient information.

"Telemedicine innovations like this one are rapidly being developed worldwide," says Charles R. Doarn, MBA, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal and Research Professor and Director of the Master of Public Health Program, Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences, University of Cincinnati, Ohio. "China has been able to contain COVID-19 in part by isolating individuals and using telehealth and telemedicine to support care between providers and patients using a mobile health application."

"Telemedicine applications are growing enormously" said Mary Ann Liebert, president of the publishing company that bears her name. "They will be a necessity as healthcare communities grapple with new challenges such as coronavirus. Telemedicine and e-Health has been the journal of record for 26 years."

A link has been discovered between a common gene defect and eczema, nasal blockage and wheeze among babies as young as six months, according to a new study at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). The research raises new questions about how soon in life these defects could start affecting babies, resulting in serious health problems, and suggests treatment targeted towards children carrying these genetic defects started soon after birth could improve their lives.  

The protein filaggrin is present in the skin and nasal cavity, helping to maintain the skin barrier, and previous studies have shown defects in the gene synthesising filaggrin are strongly linked to the risk of developing eczema and how serious the eczema and asthma turned out to be over childhood.  

Professor Somnath Mukhopadhyay, Chair in Paediatrics at BSMS, said: "In the first study of this kind, we recruited mothers in the antenatal clinic and followed up the babies through infancy, in order to define the link between these gene defects, the resultant skin problem, and eczema, wheeze and nasal blockage, in early infancy. Our striking finding establishing this link could mean that some babies with these gene defects could be getting primed from birth or soon after, for a life of suffering from allergy-related disease."  

The GO-CHILD study recruited 2,312 pregnant women in England and Scotland, who gave a cord blood sample at birth or saliva in infancy for genotyping of the babies. Babies were followed up for symptoms related to allergic diseases such as dry skin, eczema, wheeze and nasal blockage, at the ages of 6, 12 and 24 months by postal questionnaires sent to the carers.  

The gene defects made eczema, wheeze and nasal blockage worse at six months. While the defects were affecting eczema at one year, they were no longer worsening wheeze and nasal blockage at this age. At two years, they were principally worsening eczema and nasal blockage, but not affecting wheeze. "The problems affecting the child change over time, filaggrin gene variation representing one major ensemble within the grand orchestra of allergic disease," said Professor Mukhopadhyay.   

He added: "The use of simple emollients from birth targeted towards those who have these gene defects may help correct this problem, thus alleviating suffering in infancy and also through life. This new approach for targeting treatment according to genetic information is known as precision or personalised medicine and a future trial could represent the first application of this exciting and novel approach in little babies otherwise primed to develop chronic disease from an early age. 

"This skin barrier defect leads to selective entry of allergens to increase the burden of disease. Whether such barrier defects could make us more vulnerable to agents causing infection, such as viruses, has not yet been addressed. We are in the midst of a pandemic where some people are affected but many are not. Could a defective outer barrier in skin and mouth be making some of us more vulnerable? If so, would identifying patients carrying these defects help us better protect those that are more vulnerable?" 

A large study in adolescents and children, some as young as 3 years of age, shows a link between obesity, high blood pressure, and later damage to blood vessels. The research is presented today on EAPC Essentials 4 You, a scientific platform of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

"The results of this study highlight the need to adopt healthy lifestyles from an early age," said study author Ms. Julia Bueschges, a PhD student at the Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.1

Until now, there has been little information on the connection between risk factors present in childhood - such as obesity and high blood pressure - and cardiovascular disease later in life.

The study used data from the nationally representative German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS cohort). Children from diverse backgrounds were enrolled from all over Germany irrespective of their health status; they were selected using a sophisticated sampling design to ensure they represented the German population.

Three study teams travelled over three years and set up temporary examination centres in 167 locations across the country. The baseline examination of 4,716 participants aged 3 to 17 included blood pressure, height and weight. The measurements were repeated 11 years later in the 14 to 29-year-olds, who also had an ultrasound of their arteries. The ultrasound assessed the thickness of the inner two layers of the carotid artery: thicker lining is an early indicator of clogged arteries.

High blood pressure (hypertension) at baseline was associated with a 33% increased risk of having a thicker lining of the artery 11 eleven years later, while baseline obesity was linked with a 38% elevated risk of thicker artery lining. Thicker lining was defined as the top 25% of measurements according to current guidelines. Being hypertensive at both examinations was linked with a 63% raised risk of thicker artery lining, while being obese at both examinations carried a 53% greater risk.

Ms. Bueschges said: "The study provides evidence from a large general population sample for a connection between cardiovascular risk factors in children and adolescents - namely high blood pressure and obesity - and subsequent deleterious changes in the blood vessels." She cautioned that individual risk prediction is only moderate, meaning that not all children and adolescents with high blood pressure or obesity will develop subclinical atherosclerosis.

She said: "These findings underline the importance of good cardiovascular health from an early age. Physical activity and a healthy diet can help prevent high blood pressure and obesity. Alcohol and tobacco should be avoided. Last but not least, it is important to manage stress."

She concluded: "Tackling these unhealthy behaviours does not depend on children and their families alone but also on the promotion of healthy environments and the reduction of social inequalities which are strongly associated with cardiovascular disease."

With the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in lockdowns in different parts of the world, from the US to many European nations, there have been intense debates on when and how we can safely reopen the economy.

New research led by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) computer scientists has used a data-driven modelling approach to answer the time-critical question of when the stringent social distancing and quarantine measures against COVID-19 can be loosened so that normal life and economic activities can be restored in a safe manner.

The research team developed a novel computational model that explicitly characterises and quantifies the underlying transmission patterns among different populations throughout the various phases of the COVID-19 outbreak. Based on the model, the research team carried out a prospective analysis of the different work resumption plans, revealing the respective economic implications and the levels of disease transmission risk associated with each plan.

The original research was titled "What are the Underlying Transmission Patterns of COVID-19 Outbreak? An Age-specific Social Contact Characterization", and it was published in The Lancet's EClinicalMedicine journal.

Novel data science approach to public health issues

The model was developed by a research team from HKBU's Department of Computer Science, and the study was led by Professor Liu Jiming, Chair Professor of the Department, in collaboration with the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"For over a decade, our research team at HKBU has been dedicated to adopting an interdisciplinary approach while leveraging novel data analytics and artificial intelligence methodologies to address global public health challenges such as malaria and influenza. Our current work, published in an international medical journal, represents a unique scientific attempt in response to the COVID-19 pandemic," said Professor Liu.

An age-specific social contact characterisation model

The researchers were able to characterise the disease transmission patterns by examining the interactions between people. The computational model divided the population into seven age groups with their own specific social circles, gathering places and activity patterns. Four representative social contact settings, namely households, schools, workplaces, and public places, were considered as they are examples of dense populations in which the spread of COVID-19 may occur.

Six cities in mainland China, including Wuhan and five cities from three key economic zones, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Shenzhen, were analysed. In each case, a contact matrix was inferred to describe the contact intensity between different age-groups for each of the four settings, and this enabled the dynamics of disease transmission to be computed. Confirmed cases, population sizes, and the cities' respective intervention measures were taken into account when building the model.

Prospective analysis of work resumption plans

With this age-specific social contact-based transmission model, the team proceeded to project the prospective development of the COVID-19 outbreak, with a focus on work resumption plans.

Disease transmission risks and the estimated impact on local GDP growth were examined for the different work resumption plans. These plans vary from more lenient ones, in which work resumes earlier and completes within a shorter time frame, to stricter ones where work resumes later within a longer overall time frame. Results of the analysis on Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Shenzhen are summarised in Appendix. Wuhan was also analysed and the researchers suggest that the city should take longer to complete work resumption in order to reduce the potential transmission risk.

Projections that help policymaking

The data-driven computational model developed by the research team provides a science-based analytical solution which enables policymakers to design plans that can achieve both the containment of disease transmission risk and the gradual reopening of affected cities in a safe manner. By conducting a data-driven prospective analysis, policymakers can calculate the best time to reopen the economy. For instance, they can work out whether they should reopen their cities as late as possible and hence have no disease transmission risk, or alternatively, resume work and life gradually and systematically while keeping all the necessary control measures in place to eliminate any potential disease transmission.

The research team will openly share their data-driven computational modelling and analytical tools with public health policymakers and researchers around the world, and this will enable them to capitalise on these tools for decision making using their domestic epidemiological data.

Scientists are one step closer to understanding how the cancer-fighting drug Taxol is produced by trees.

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, a group of researchers led by Washington State University's Mark Lange, has found candidate genes that could eventually be used to manufacture Taxol more quickly and efficiently.

"Our goal is to find enzymes that activate precursors contributing to the complex structure of Taxol," said Lange, a professor in WSU's Institute of Biological Chemistry. "That will enable engineers to know which genes to throw into the mix to develop organisms that can produce the drug."

Also known as paclitaxel, Taxol is a natural compound discovered in the bark of Pacific Yew trees.

It is used to treat a variety of cancers, from breast to ovarian to bladder to prostate and more.

It used to be harvested directly from trees by stripping their bark, but harvests weren't done sustainably and many of the trees died. Currently, most of the drug sold in the United States is made by extracting the substance from Yew tree cell cultures grown in a laboratory.

This process is time consuming and expensive.

"We've been working on this for many years because the structure of Taxol is so complex," Lange said. "There are over 500 known taxane natural products, of which Taxol is only one. We're trying to find enzymes that activate precursors to make Taxol, but not other taxanes."

Enzymes are substances in living organisms that act as catalysts to start a chemical reaction.

"Ideally, you want an enzyme that activates a specific reaction, as opposed to multiple reactions," Lange said.

These results will be used by other scientists to add genes to yeast or other microbes, allowing them to produce the drug in large quantities.

"It's very challenging," Lange said. "It could involve 30 to 50 genes. But the genes we characterized here can be part of that."

Lange and his team are part of a much larger group working on the project, including a Stanford University engineer and biologists from the University of California system and the John Innes Centre in the UK.

They received a $4 million grant from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, part of the National Institutes of Health, last fall in support of the project.

Since MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) started the OpenCourseWare movement, by publishing its course materials as open educational resources, many types of initiatives have been developed to open access to education via the use of digital technologies. Among other resources, the MOOCs have proliferated. These offer specialised online courses (frequently free) to an unlimited number of students. However, the drop-out rate of students that starts a MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) are very high, which makes it useful to analyse the student profiles, establishing typologies and individual profiles. As the study by the LRPC (Personal Network and Community Laboratory) and the JRC shows, the initial diagnosis of learning intention can be very useful for improving educational performance.

Researchers from the University of Seville have carried out a study within the Moocknowledge project, a European initiative which collects data on a large scale on participant in MOOCs between 2014 and 2018. The project gathered information from more than 23,000 users from a total of 84 different MOOCs.

The study analysed the psychological factors that influence the learning of the participants in the massive online courses. Its results show that initial intention is related to individual differences in drop-out probability.

The research was carried out by means of a survey of 1768 participants from 6 different MOOCs. The students were classified in function of their motivational profile and learning intentions at the start of the course. The results show that initial motivation is clearly associated with the satisfaction and the quality perceived on the quality of the learning experience. "A good initial diagnosis of the learning intention and motivational profile of each student can therefore help to design personalised learning plans, as well as improve the degree to which students benefit from the course", explains the University of Seville teacher Isidro Maya.

The Laboratorio de Redes Personales y Comunidades de la Universidad de Sevilla (Personal Network and Community Laboratory) collaborated in the preparation of the databases generated in this European Commission project. Currently, the data is being used in various research projects, and have been especially useful for exploring the impact of the MOOCs on learning, employability and the development of professional careers.

Although the article was available online in June 2019, the printed version was issued in February 2020.

A drug that has life-extending effects on mice also reverses age-related dental problems in the animals, according to a new study published today in eLife.

Periodontal disease, also known as gum disease, is a common problem in older adults that causes painful inflammation, bone loss and changes in the good bacteria that live in the mouth. Yet there are no treatments available beyond tooth removal and/or having good oral hygiene. The findings suggest that treatments targeting the aging process in the mouth might help.

Rapamycin is an immune-suppressing drug currently used to prevent organ rejection in transplant recipients. Previous studies in mice have also suggested that it may have life-extending effects, which has led to interest in studying the drug's effects in many age-related diseases.

"We hypothesised that biological aging contributes to periodontal disease, and that interventions that delay aging should also delay the progress of this disease," says lead author Jonathan An, Acting Assistant Professor at the Department of Oral Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, US.

To find out if rapamycin might slow periodontal disease, An and his colleagues added the drug to the food of middle-aged mice for eight weeks and compared their oral health with untreated mice of the same age. Similar to humans, mice also experience bone loss, inflammation and shifts in oral bacteria as they age.

Using a 3D-imaging technique called micro-computed tomography, the team measured the periodontal bone, or bone around the tooth, of the rapamycin-treated and untreated mice. They showed that the treated mice had more bone than the untreated mice, and had actually grown new bone during the period they were receiving rapamycin.

The work also showed that rapamycin-treated mice had less gum inflammation. Genetic sequencing of the bacteria in their mouths also revealed that the animals had fewer bacteria associated with gum disease and a mix of oral bacteria more similar to that found in healthy young mice.

"By targeting this aging process through rapamycin treatment, our work suggests that we can delay the progress of gum disease and actually reverse its clinical features," explains senior author Matt Kaeberlein, Professor of Pathology and Adjunct Professor of Oral Health Sciences at the University of Washington.

However, Kaeberlein adds that while rapamycin is already used to treat certain conditions, it can make people more susceptible to infections and may increase their risk of developing diabetes, at least at the higher chronic doses typically taken by organ transplant patients. "Clinical trials in humans are needed to test whether rapamycin's potential oral health and other benefits outweigh its risks," he concludes.