Earth

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Most renderings and reconstructions of pterodactyls and other extinct flying reptiles show a flight pose much like that of bats, which fly with their hind limbs splayed wide apart. But a new method for inferring how ancient animals might have moved their joints suggests that pterosaurs probably couldn't strike that pose.

"Most of the work that's being done right now to understand pterosaur flight relies on the assumption that their hips could get into a bat-like pose," said Armita Manafzadeh, a Ph.D. student at Brown University who led the research with Kevin Padian of the University of California, Berkeley. "We think future studies should take into account that this pose was likely impossible, which might change our perspective when we consider the evolution of flight in pterosaurs and dinosaurs."

The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is an effort to help paleontologists infer the range of motion of joints in a way that takes into account the soft tissues -- particularly ligaments -- that play key roles in how joints work. Generally, soft tissues don't fossilize, leaving paleontologists to infer joint motion from bones alone. And there aren't many constraints on how that's done, Manafzadeh says. So she wanted to find a way to use present-day animals to test the extent to which ligaments limit joint motion.

It's an idea that started with grocery store chickens, Manafzadeh says.

"If you pick up a raw chicken at the grocery store and move its joints, you'll reach a point where you'll hear a pop," she said. "That's the ligaments snapping. But if I handed you a chicken skeleton without the ligaments, you might think that its joints could do all kinds of crazy things. So the question is, if you were to dig up a fossil chicken, how would you think its joints could move, and how wrong would you be?"

For this latest study, she used not a grocery store chicken, but dead quail. Birds are the closest living relative of extinct pterosaurs and four-winged dinosaurs. After carefully cutting away the muscles surrounding the birds' hip joints, she manipulated the joints while taking x-ray videos. That way, she could determine the exact 3-D positions of the bones in poses where the ligaments prevented further movement.

This technique enabled Manafzadeh to map out the range of motion of the quail hip with ligaments attached, which she could then compare to the range of motion that might have been inferred from bones alone. For the bones-only poses, Manafzadeh used traditional criteria that paleontologists often use -- stopping where the two bones hit each other and when the movement pulled the thigh bone out of its socket.

She found that over 95 percent of the joint positions that seemed plausible with bones alone were actually impossible when ligaments were attached.

The next step was to work out how the range of motion of present-day quail hips might compare to the range of motion for extinct pterosaurs and four-winged dinosaurs.

The assumption has long been that these creatures flew a lot like bats do. That's partly because the wings of pterosaurs were made of skin and supported by an elongated fourth finger, which is somewhat similar to the wings of bats. Bat wings are also connected to their hind limbs, which they splay out widely during flight. Many paleontologists, Manafzadeh says, assume pterosaurs and four-winged dinosaurs did the same. But her study suggests that wasn't possible.

In quail, a bat-like hip pose seemed possible based on bones alone, but outward motion of the thigh bone was inhibited by one particular ligament -- a ligament that's present in a wide variety of birds and other reptiles related to pterosaurs. No evidence, Manafzadeh says, suggests that extinct dinosaurs and pterosaurs wouldn't have had this ligament, too.

And with that ligament attached, this new study suggests that the bat-like pose would be impossible. According to Manafzadeh's work, this pose would require the ligament to stretch 63 percent more than the quail ligament can. That's quite a stretch, she says.

"That's a huge difference that would need to be accounted for before it can be argued that a pterosaur or 'four-winged' dinosaur's hip would be able to get into this bat-like pose," Manafzadeh said. And that, she says, may require a rethinking of the evolution of flight in these animals.

In addition to calling into question traditional ideas about flight in pterosaurs and early birds, the research also provides new ways of assessing joint mobility for any joint of any extinct species by looking at its living relatives.

"What we've done is to provide a reliable way to quantify in 3-D everything a joint can do," Manafzadeh said.

She hopes other researchers will use the method to study other joint systems and to better understand how other species may have moved their joints, walked and flown.

Higher body temperatures speed our bodies' responses to infections, wounds and tumours - researchers at the Universities of Warwick and Manchester prove

Slight rise in temperature and inflammation - such as a fever - speeds up cellular 'clock' in which proteins switch genes on and off to respond to infection

New understanding could lead to more effective and fast-working drugs which target a key inflammation protein found to be critical for the temperature response

Interdisciplinary team of Warwick mathematicians and Manchester biologists used modelling and lab experiments to jointly make discovery

The hotter our body temperature, the more our bodies speed up a key defence system that fights against tumours, wounds or infections, new research by a multidisciplinary team of mathematicians and biologists from the Universities of Warwick and Manchester has found.

The researchers have demonstrated that small rises in temperature (such as during a fever) speed up the speed of a cellular 'clock' that controls the response to infections - and this new understanding could lead to more effective and fast-working drugs which target a key protein involved in this process.

Biologists found that inflammatory signals activate 'Nuclear Factor kappa B' (NF-κB) proteins to start a 'clock' ticking, in which NF-κB proteins move backwards and forwards into and out of the cell nucleus, where they switch genes on and off.

This allows cells to respond to a tumour, wound or infection. When NF-κB is uncontrolled, it is associated with inflammatory diseases, such as Crohn's disease, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.

At a body temperature of 34 degrees, the NF-κB clock slows down. At higher temperatures than the normal 37 degree body temperature (such as in fever, 40 degrees), the NF-κB clock speeds up.

Mathematicians at the University of Warwick's Systems Biology Centre calculated how temperature increases make the cycle speed up.

They predicted that a protein called A20 - which is essential to avoid inflammatory disease - might be critically involved in this process. The experimentalists then removed A20 from cells and found that the NF-kB clock lost its sensitivity to increases in temperature.

Lead mathematician Professor David Rand, Professor of Mathematics and a member of the University of Warwick's Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology and Infectious Disease Epidemiology (SBIDER), explained that in normal life the 24 hour body clock controls small (1.5 degree) changes in body temperature.

He commented: "the lower body temperature during sleep might provide a fascinating explanation into how shift work, jet lag or sleep disorders cause increased inflammatory disease"

Mathematician Dan Woodcock from the University of Warwick said: "this is a good example of how mathematical modelling of cells can lead to useful new biological understanding."

While the activities of many NF-kB controlled genes were not affected by temperature, a key group of genes showed altered profiles at the different temperatures. These temperature sensitive genes included key inflammatory regulators and controllers of cell communication that can alter cell responses.

This study shows that temperature changes inflammation in cells and tissues in a biologically organised way and suggests that new drugs might more precisely change the inflammatory response by targeting the A20 protein.

Professor Mike White, lead biologist from the University of Manchester, said the study provides a possible explanation of how both environmental and body temperature affects our health:

"We have known for some time that influenza and cold epidemics tend to be worse in the winter when temperatures are cooler. Also, mice living at higher temperatures suffer less from inflammation and cancer. These changes may now be explained by altered immune responses at different temperatures."

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine have discovered the first example of a novel mode of neurotransmitter-based communication. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, challenges current dogma about mechanisms of signaling in the brain, and uncovers new pathways for developing therapies for disorders like epilepsy, anxiety and chronic pain.

Voltage-gated potassium channels (KCNQ2-5) generate the M-current, which helps control neuronal excitability. Subunits of these channels each have high-affinity anticonvulsant drug-binding pockets, which UCI researchers discovered accommodate endogenous neurotransmitters, including Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), one of the most influential neurotransmitters in the nervous system.

The UCI research team, led by postdoctoral fellow Rían Manville, PhD and principal investigator Geoffrey Abbott, MSc, PhD, together with postdoctoral fellow Maria Papanikolaou, MSc, PhD, examined an ancient sequence motif, previously identified as a drug-binding site but overlooked with respect to native function. It was there that the team discovered a binding pocket for GABA.

Brain cells communicate by releasing chemicals called neurotransmitters that bind to specific locations, or receptors, on neighboring cells to either promote or prevent excitation, or generation of small electrical currents. Understanding which neurotransmitters bind to which receptors may allow scientists to change the way those cells behave, or to develop drugs that mimic the neurotransmitters... leading to potential new therapies.

"We looked at the anticonvulsant drug-binding site on an ion channel protein (KCNQ3) known for responding to electrical changes in the brain, and asked the question: Why has this binding site been conserved in evolution for more than half a billion years? It could not have evolved to bind modern drugs," said Geoff Abbott. "Through our study, we discovered that the site evolved to bind, with high sensitivity, certain neurotransmitters, signaling chemicals that occur naturally in the brain."

The team focused on the chemical properties known to be required for binding of the anticonvulsant action of the drug retigabine. They identified GABA, the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in metazoan nervous systems, as having similar chemical attributes, and revealed that GABA both tightly binds to, and activates, several channels in the KCNQ gene family.

"This was a complete surprise - KCNQs belong to the "voltage-activated" class of ion channels, a superfamily of channels previously concluded to not be directly activated by neurotransmitters," said Abbott.

The team pursued mutagenesis studies and a battery of pharmacological controls, further cementing their conclusion that GABA directly modulates specific ion channels in the KCNQ family. GABA activation of M-channels (encoded by KCNQ genes) was found to be direct, independent of the expression system, and occurred with both exogenously and endogenously expressed channels. Significantly, the team found that GABA binding to M-channels was able to hyperpolarize cells, an activity predicted to prevent neuronal firing. This is consistent with GABA's known role as the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, but the discovery opens up an entirely novel and unexpected mechanism for GABA to fulfil its inhibitory role.

"Our findings suggest the potential for an underlying feedback mechanism, as M-channels were previously found to regulate GABA release," said Abbott. "Additionally, our results demonstrate that certain KCNQ channels have the capacity to act as chemosensors of the extracellular neurotransmitter/metabolite landscape, which could enable M-channels to respond to the balance of these molecules and by doing so regulate cellular excitability over time."

KCNQ channels are present in both ancient and modern nervous systems and each responds to GABA differently. These channels are already targets for antiepileptic drugs, however, the first of these drugs was recently withdrawn due to unwanted off-target effects. With the identification of direct neurotransmitter activation of these channels, the potential for new epilepsy, anxiety and pain drugs that exploit this alternative chemical space is well within reach.

The team also found that synthetic and naturally occurring metabolites and analogs of GABA, including beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), also activate KCNQ channels. They are currently conducting additional studies exploring the role for BHB activation of KCNQ2/3 channels in anticonvulsant effects of the ketogenic diet, given that BHB is the first ketone body produced during fasting or ketogenic diets, and also in diabetic ketoacidosis.

Among organ transplant patients, those receiving new lungs face a higher rate of organ failure and death compared with people undergoing heart, kidney and liver transplants. One of the culprits is inflammation that damages the newly transplanted lung.

Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago have uncovered the precise cells that flow into and harm the lung soon after transplant. The resulting dysfunction is the leading cause of early death after lung transplantation and contributes to organ rejection that can lead to death months or years later. The discovery, in mice, may lead to drug therapies that target the destructive cells.

"More than 50 percent of lung transplant patients experience some lung damage after a transplant" said Daniel Kreisel, MD, PhD, surgical director of lung transplantation at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where he treats patients. "Eliminating this problem would increase the success of lung transplants."

The study is published online May 21 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Early lung damage typically occurs in the 72 hours following surgery, said Kreisel, the study's senior co-author and a Washington University professor of surgery and of immunology and pathology. When a lung is removed from a donor, it is flushed with a cold preservation fluid and placed on ice, where it is deprived of blood and oxygen. The damage typically occurs after the lung is surgically implanted and the recipient's blood enters the lung for the first time. The recipient's white blood cells seep into the transplanted lung and trigger inflammation that harms the organ's tissue. Affected patients can require extended time on a ventilator in the hospital or even a lung bypass machine to give the new lung a chance to recover.

The condition is a big reason why the success of lung transplants trails behind other solid organ transplants. Five years after lung transplantation, about half of the transplanted lungs are still functioning, according to the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. This compares with five-year organ survival rates of about 70 to 80 percent for liver, heart and kidney transplants.

"Lungs are unique, fragile organs that are particularly susceptible to early damage," said Hsi-Min "Jim" Hsiao, PhD, a staff scientist in Kreisel's laboratory and the study's co-first author. "Treatment is largely supportive as the condition is not well-understood. Our research identifies a population of inflammatory cells called monocytes that are key instigators to the inflammation. We are hopeful that these findings will help with the development of new therapies for lung transplant patients."

Studying mice that had undergone lung transplants, the researchers found that monocytes are rapidly released from the spleen after lung transplantation. These cells infiltrate the newly transplanted lung and then produce a protein called interleukin 1 beta, which, in turn, invites in the tissue-damaging white blood cells known as neutrophils.

"Understanding the mechanisms of this damage is important in developing novel therapeutic agents to treat or prevent the condition in lung transplant patients," Kreisel said. "We already have interleukin-inhibitor drugs for treating other inflammatory diseases. The next step is to test whether this type of drug can tamp down on the inflammatory cells that cause lung failure."

Kreisel shares senior authorship of the study with Ankit Bharat, MD, an associate professor of surgery at Northwestern University. Bharat completed his residency and fellowship training in surgery at Washington University.

"This study is a fundamental advancement in our understanding of early lung injury after transplantation," Bharat said. "We are excited because the findings build on our past research. The work demonstrates the complex yet fascinating interaction between the host's immune cells and the freshly transplanted lung. The study also introduces clinically relevant therapies that may extend the lives of lung transplant patients."

Besides researchers at Washington University and Northwestern University, scientists at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, also contributed to the study.

It may sound contradictory, but diamonds are the key to a new technique that could provide a very-low-cost alternative to multimillion-dollar medical imaging and drug-discovery devices.

An international team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley discovered how to exploit defects in nanoscale and microscale diamonds and potentially enhance the sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) systems while eliminating the need for their costly and bulky superconducting magnets.

"This has been a longstanding unsolved problem in our field, and we were able to find a way to overcome it and to show that the solution is very simple," said Ashok Ajoy, a postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab, and the Department of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, who served as the lead author of the study. "No one has ever done this before. The mechanism that we discovered is completely new."

MRI machines are employed to locate cancerous tumors and aid in the development of treatment plans, while NMR machines are used to examine the atomic-scale structure and chemistry of drug compounds and other molecules.

The new technique, described in the May 18 edition of the Science Advances journal, could lead to the direct use of these tiny diamonds for rapid and enhanced biological imaging. Researchers will also seek to transfer this special tuning, known as spin polarization, to a harmless fluid such as water, and to inject the fluid into a patient for faster MRI scans. The high surface area of the tiny particles is key in this effort, researchers noted.

Enhancing this spin polarization in the electrons of the diamonds' atoms can be likened to aligning some compass needles pointing in many different directions to the same direction. These "hyperpolarized" spins could provide a sharper contrast for imaging than conventional superconducting magnets.

"This important discovery in the hyperpolarization of nano- and microscale diamonds has enormous scientific and commercial implications," Ajoy said, as some of the most advanced MRI and NMR machines can be incredibly expensive and out of reach for some hospitals and research institutions.

"This could help expand the market for MRI and NMR," he said, and could also potentially shrink the devices from room-sized to benchtop-sized, which "has been the dream from the start." Ajoy is a member of the Alex Pines research lab at UC Berkeley - Pines is a senior faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, and a pioneer in the development of NMR as a research tool.

Scientists had struggled to overcome a problem in properly orienting the diamonds to achieve a more uniform spin polarization - and this problem was even more pronounced in collections of very small diamonds that presented a chaotic jumble of orientations. Earlier efforts, for example, had explored whether drilling tiny features into diamond samples could aid in controlling their spin polarization.

The tunable spin properties in diamonds with defects known as nitrogen vacancies - in which nitrogen atoms take the place of carbon atoms in the crystal structure of diamonds - have also been studied for potential use in quantum computing. In those applications, scientists seek to control the spin polarization of electrons as a way to transmit and store information like the ones and zeros in more conventional magnetic computer data storage.

In the latest study, scientists found that by zapping a collection of microscale diamonds with green laser light, subjecting it to a weak magnetic field, and sweeping across the sample with a microwave source, they could enhance this controllable spin polarization property in the diamonds by hundreds of times compared with conventional MRI and NMR machines.

Emanuel Druga, an electrician in the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry R&D shops, devised a large measurement tool for the new technique that proved instrumental in confirming and fine-tuning the spin polarization properties of the diamond samples. "It allowed us to debug this in about a week," Ajoy said.

The device helped researchers to home in on a good size for the diamond crystals. At first, they were using crystals that measured about 100 microns, or 100 millionths of an inch across. The tiny samples of pinkish diamonds resemble fine red sand. After testing, they found that diamonds measuring about 1 to 5 microns performed about twice as well.

The tiny diamonds can be manufactured in economical processes by converting graphite into diamond, for example.

The team of scientists has already developed a miniaturized system that uses off-the-shelf components to produce the laser light, microwave energy, and magnetic field required to produce the spin polarization in the diamond samples, and they have applied for patents on the technique and the hyperpolarization system.

"You could think of retrofitting existing NMR magnets with one of these systems," said Raffi Nazaryan, who participated in the study as an undergraduate researcher at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley. Prototypes of the system cost just several thousand dollars, he noted.

While the spin is short-lived, researchers said they are exploring ways to continuously polarize the samples, and are also researching how to transfer this polarization to liquids.
Ajoy said, "We could potentially recycle the liquid so it flows in a closed loop, or keep injecting newly polarized liquid."

Researchers have studied how a 'drumstick' made of light could make a microscopic 'drum' vibrate and stand still at the same time.

A team of researchers from the UK and Australia have made a key step towards understanding the boundary between the quantum world and our everyday classical world.

Quantum mechanics is truly weird. Objects can behave like both particles and waves, and can be both here and there at the same time, defying our common sense. Such counterintuitive behaviour is typically confined to the microscopic realm and the question "why don't we see such behaviour in everyday objects?" challenges many scientists today.

Now, a team of researchers have developed a new technique to generate this type of quantum behaviour in the motion of a tiny drum just visible to the naked eye. The details of their research are published today in New Journal of Physics.

Project principal investigator, Dr Michael Vanner from the Quantum Measurement Lab at Imperial College London, said: "Such systems offer significant potential for the development of powerful new quantum-enhanced technologies, such as ultra-precise sensors, and new types of transducers.

"Excitingly, this research direction will also enable us to test the fundamental limits of quantum mechanics by observing how quantum superpositions behave at a large scale."

Mechanical vibrations, such as those that create the sound from a drum, are an important part of our everyday experience. Hitting a drum with a drumstick causes it to rapidly move up and down, producing the sound we hear.

In the quantum world, a drum can vibrate and stand still at the same time. However, generating such quantum motion is very challenging. lead author of the project Dr Martin Ringbauer from the University of Queensland node of the Australian Research Council Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems, said: "You need a special kind of drumstick to make such a quantum vibration with our tiny drum."

In recent years, the emerging field of quantum optomechanics has made great progress towards the goal of a quantum drum using laser light as a type of drumstick. However, many challenges remain, so the authors' present study takes an unconventional approach.

Dr Ringbauer continues: "We adapted a trick from optical quantum computing to help us play the quantum drum. We used a measurement with single particles of light--photons--to tailor the properties of the drumstick.

"This provides a promising route to making a mechanical version of Schrodinger's cat, where the drum vibrates and stands still at the same time."

These experiments have made the first observation of mechanical interferences fringes, which is a crucial step forward for the field.

In the experiment, the fringes were at a classical level due to thermal noise, but motivated by this success, the team are now working hard to improve their technique and operate the experiments at temperatures close to absolute zero where quantum mechanics is expected to dominate.

These future experiments may reveal new intricacies of quantum mechanics and may even help light the path to a theory that links the quantum world and the physics of gravity.

Numerous bat species hunt and migrate at great altitudes. Yet the open sky had, until recently, not been on the radar of conservation scientists as a habitat relevant to a large variety of species. Christian Voigt and colleagues from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin have collated the current scientific knowledge on potential hazards to one group of animals flying at high altitudes, bats. In their recent article published in BioScience the authors synthesise threats facing bats in troposphere and provide recommendations for potential protective measures to ensure persistence of bats and other high-flying animals.

Bats reach surprising altitudes while out on their nightly hunt. They utilise a large area to forage, stretching from the treetops to the lower troposphere. Bats have been recorded using onboard GPS loggers at heights of 500 metres above the ground in Germany, reaching up to 800 metres in Thailand. Yet the current record holder is the Mexican free-tailed bat Tadarida brasiliensis which has been recorded at the lofty height of 3000 meters above the ground! Even species like the common noctule Nyctalus noctula, inhabiting much of Europe, can reach altitudes above 1000 metres. Thus the high altitudes are an underappreciated habitat for bats and this region has largely been ignored in species conservation efforts. There are currently no specific policies or concepts for aeroconservation in Europe even though 21 of the 53 bat species native to the continent hunt for insects in these open spaces.

"When we think of the term habitat we generally think about features in the landscape: meadows, forests, or bodies of water, and other earth surfaces", says Christian Voigt. "The lower boundaries of the troposphere escape our attention as a habitat relevant and important to animals." Yet they are full of life. Both birds of passage and many insect species migrate at high altitudes. "Insects use winds to cover distances that they would not manage on their own." It's no surprise that bats use this open space: It's where their food is.

Insect density varies by region. Their numbers have also generally declined due to air pollution and the increased use of pesticides across the globe. Voigt and colleagues estimate that to bats the open sky is further fragmented into 'food-rich' and 'food-poor' zones. Large clouds of bats in South East Asia can, depending on the species, cover distances of up to 40 or 50 kilometres during their nightly foraging. Analysis of radar data from North America illustrates that they span out in all three dimensions covering large swathes of land. "Some bat colonies consist of one, two, or even ten million individuals. Not all of them can locate their prey nearby and they have to utilise high altitudes. There they also feed on insects harmful to human agriculture", Christian Voigt explains.

The animals are exposed to a variety of threats while hunting in the open air. Collisions with anthropogenic structures like high buildings, wind-power farms, drones, helicopters, and airplanes are direct impacts of human activity causing injuries and potentially death. With the increasing volume of air traffic and utilisation of wind energy sources this human influence is a growing threat.

Aside from reduced insect density, indirect impacts include light and air pollution, like dust and chemical pollutants, and exhaust fumes all of which can result in impaired health and reduced reproductive fitness. "Bats are winged athletes. We have observed two species which ascended and descended several hundred metres repeatedly in a very short timeframe. To do so requires immense effort, leaving the animal potentially highly vulnerable to air pollutants", Voigt emphasised. In addition, as nocturnal animals bats are highly sensitive to light pollution and the relationship between bats and artificial light at night has yet to be determined at such high altitudes.

Protecting the open sky is far more difficult than conserving clearly defined terrestrial and aquatic habitats. "It is, basically, the same predicament as with the oceans. The open sky is in public hands and common property which makes accountabilities harder to disentangle, and controls difficult to enforce", says Christian Voigt. Bats are the only mammals capable of flight. Next to their immediate worthiness of protection, bat conservation is also of direct economic interest to humans as bats provide agricultural pest control services across the world.

A number of practical aeroconservation approaches do already exist. "A variety of long-lasting protection strategies have been developed. In Germany, at least, wind power plant operators have to comply with a variety of permit requirements that are designed to limit bat and bird casualties. Unfortunately, how well these are implemented, across the country, is currently unknown", says Voigt. The migration corridors and roosting and resting areas of bats and birds have to be kept free of wind power plants. Strategies to reduce the impact of light emission and sky glow to bats are simple and efficient. Focus light toward the ground and limit light spill toward the sky! Voigt and colleagues urge for an expansion of research into the troposphere as an essential habitat as it is crucial for us to understand how the animals that exist in these open spaces can best be protected.

HIV patients on a single-tablet daily regimen had better treatment retention and viral suppression than patients taking multiple pills, in a study by a Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center researcher and his colleagues.

The results were published in the Feb. 25, 2018, issue of AIDS Care.

HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, weakens the human immune system. It increases the risk of catching other common infections and conditions that don't usually affect people with stronger immune systems. As the infection progresses, it can lead to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). If untreated, the average survival time with HIV is 9 to 11 years.

In 2016, more than 28,000 veterans with HIV received care from VA.

HIV care has come a long way in recent years. Combination antiretroviral therapy was introduced in the 1990s. This treatment led to significant reductions in deaths due to HIV infection. However, these early treatments were not without their downsides. Early therapy involved complex regimens involving up to a dozen pills each day.

Newer treatment regimens are typically taken only once per day. Once-daily regimens are the new standard for HIV care. Having to take medicine only once per day decreases pill burden, which could improve patients' quality of life and treatment adherence. Some of the newest regimens require only a single daily pill.

While studies have shown that patients prefer a single-tablet regimen, not much research has been done on whether a single pill results in better treatment outcomes than a multiple-tablet regimen. Some of the common multiple-tablet regimens are becoming available in generic versions, meaning they will be less expensive. Insurance companies may insist on these regimens if they are cheaper than a single tablet.

To test whether one treatment approach was better, the research team studied more than 1,000 patients at a non-VA Texas clinic who were just beginning HIV treatment. They looked at 622 patients on a single-tablet regimen and 406 on a multi-tablet regimen, all taken once daily.

While both regimens were based around the drug tenofovir, they did not include the exact same combination of medicines. The multi-tablet regimen also contained an antiretroviral HIV drug class called boosted protease inhibitors, and the single-tablet regimen contained a different class called non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

After following the patients for a year, the researchers found that the single-tablet regimen compared favorably with the multi-tablet regimen. They measured three aspects of treatment: adherence, retention, and HIV suppression.

Treatment adherence means that patients took their medicine more than 80 percent of the time, based on prescription fills. Interestingly, the two regimens had similar rates of adherence. So that factor alone would not explain the apparent edge for the single-tablet group.

To show retention in care, patients had to visit their doctors for viral load measurements at least twice, at least three months apart, during the first year. Eighty-one percent of the single-tablet group showed retention, compared with 73 percent of the multi-tablet group.

HIV suppression was defined as a viral load in the blood of less than 400 copies per milliliter. In the single-tablet group, 84 percent had viral suppression after the first year. In the multi-tablet group, 78 percent showed suppression.

While the results suggest that single-tablet regimens may lead to better clinical outcomes, more research is needed. Dr. Thomas P. Giordano, a researcher at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston and corresponding author on the study, explained that it is not yet entirely clear why the single-pill regimen appears to work better.

"There were not differences in adherence as we could measure it via pharmacy refill dates, which suggests that maybe the single-tablet regimens are more efficacious," he said. "It could also be that the persons who got the multi-tablet regimens had more barriers to care and that is why they did more poorly." He says more studies will be needed to help tease out the differences in the types of medications being used versus the effect of pill burden.

Future research will also need to focus on which treatment is more cost-effective, since single-pill regimens may prove to be more expensive.

In exploring the optical properties of the Madagascar comet moth's cocoon fibers, Columbia Engineering team discovers the fibers' exceptional capabilities to reflect sunlight and to transmit optical signals and images, and develops methods to spin artificial fibers mimicking the natural fibers' nanostructures and optical properties

New York, NY--May 17, 2018--Fabrics made from silkworm fibers have long been treasured for their beautiful luster and refreshing coolness. Columbia Engineering researchers have discovered that fibers produced by the caterpillars of a wild silk moth, the Madagascar comet moth (Argema mittrei), are far superior in terms of brilliance and cooling ability. Not only do the comet moth's cocoon fibers have outstanding cooling properties, they also have exceptional capabilities for transmitting light signals and images.

Led by Nanfang Yu, associate professor of applied physics, the team characterized the optical properties associated with one-dimensional nanostructures they found in comet moth cocoon fibers. They were so fascinated by the unusual properties of these fibers that they developed a technique to spin artificial fibers that mimic the nanostructures and optical properties of the natural fibers. The study is published today in Light: Science & Application.

"The comet moth fibers are the best natural fibrous material to block sunlight we've ever seen. Synthesizing fibers possessing similar optical properties could have important implications for the synthetic fiber industry," said Yu, an expert in nanophotonics. "Another amazing property of these fibers is that they can guide light signals or even transport simple images from one end to the other end of the fiber. This means we might be able to use them as a biocompatible and bioresorbable material for optical signal and image transport in biomedical applications."

While individual fibers produced by our domesticated silkworms look like solid, transparent cylinders under an optical microscope, the individual thread spun by the comet moth caterpillars has a highly metallic sheen. The comet moth fibers contain a high density of nanoscale filamentary air voids that run along the fibers and cause strong specular (mirror-like) reflection of light. A single fiber with the thickness of a human hair, about 50 microns in diameter, reflects more than 70% of visible light. In contrast, for common textiles, including silk fabrics, to reach such level of reflectivity, one has to put together many layers of transparent fibers for a total thickness of about 10 times that of a single comet moth fiber. In addition, the high reflectivity of comet moth fibers extends well beyond the visible range into the infrared spectrum--invisible to the human eye but containing about half of the solar power. This, together with the fibers' ability to absorb ultra violet (UV) light, makes them ideal for blocking sunlight, which contains UV, visible, and infrared components.

The ability of comet moth fibers to guide light is an effect known as transverse Anderson localization, and is a result of the filamentary air voids along the fibers: the air voids cause strong optical scattering in the fiber cross-section, providing sideways confinement of light, but presenting no impediment for light propagation along the fibers.

"This form of light guiding--confining light to propagate within the interior of a strand of material with no sideways light leakage--is very different from the one utilized in light transmission through undersea fiber-optic cables, where light confinement is provided by reflection at the boundary between a fiber core and a cladding layer," said Norman Shi, lead author of the paper and a PhD student recently graduated from Yu's lab, said. "This is the first time transverse Anderson localization has been discovered in a natural materials system. Our finding opens up potential applications in light guiding, image transport, and light focusing where biocompatibility is required."

Once Yu's team had characterized the comet moth fibers, they then set to inventing novel fiber pulling methods that emulate the fiber spinning mechanism of the comet moth caterpillar to create fibers embedded with a high density of particulate or filamentary voids. The researchers achieved a density of voids several times higher than that found in the natural fibers: a single bioinspired fiber is able to reflect ~93% of sunlight. They produced these bioinspired fibers using two materials: a natural material (regenerated silk, i.e., liquid precursor of silk fibers) and a synthetic polymer (polyvinylidene difluoride). While the former is suitable for applications requiring biocompatibility, the latter is suitable for high throughput production.

"The single major difference between our bioinspired fibers and fibers used universally for textiles and apparel is that the bioinspired fibers contain engineered nanostructures, whereas conventional fibers all have a solid core," Yu said. "The capability of structural engineering on the tiny cross-section of a fiber via a high-throughput, high-yield fiber spinning process opens up a new dimension of design--we can infuse completely novel optical and thermodynamic functions into fibers and textiles composed of such fibers. We could transform the synthetic fiber industry!"

These bioinspired fibers could be used for making ultra-thin summer clothing with "air conditioning" properties. Just a few layers of the fibers could make a totally opaque textile that is a fraction of a sheet of paper in thickness. Yet it wouldn't become translucent when the wearer sweats, which is a common problem with conventional textiles. While sweat reduces the opaqueness of common fabrics by reducing the number of fiber-air interfaces that reflect light, it would not affect the nanoscale air voids embedded in the bioinspired fibers. In addition, ultra-thin apparel made of the "porous" fibers would promote cooling through a combination of sweat evaporation, air flow between the microenvironment of the human body and the exterior, and radiation of body heat to the external environment. "Thus, your clothes could give you the ultimate cooling experience through the collective effect of evaporative, convective, and radiative cooling," Yu added.

The Madagascar comet moth is one of the largest in the world, with cocoons spanning 6 to 10 cm in length. The caterpillars make their cocoons in the tree canopy of Madagascar, with plenty of sunlight that could drastically heat the pupae if their cocoons did not possess their reflective metallic sheen. These extraordinary fibers, whose filamentary air voids could be the result of natural selection to prevent overheating, were brought to Yu's attention by Catherine Craig, director of the NGO Conservation through Poverty Alleviation, International. CPALI works with rural farmers in Madagascar to develop sustainable livelihoods that support both people and ecosystems by cultivating and marketing native resources, one product being the fibers produced by the caterpillars of the comet moth.

Yu is currently working on increasing the throughput of producing such bioinspired nanostructured fibers. His lab wants to achieve this with minimal modifications to the common practice of industrial fiber pulling.

"We don't want to drastically change those gigantic fiber spinning machines in use throughout the industry," said Yu. "Instead we want to introduce clever twists to a few critical steps or components so these machines can produce nanostructured, rather than solid, fibers."

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University and Shimane University have created a transparent hybrid film that combines natural clay minerals and dyes into a material that changes color in response to environmental humidity. The color change does not involve breaking chemical bonds; the team uncovered a novel mechanism that makes the process easily reversible, for long-lasting functionality using environmentally friendly materials. Applications include environmental sensors, and state-of-the-art light amplification in displays.

Combining dyes with a wide range of natural minerals like clathrates (clays) and zeolites (porous rock) is a widely applied, promising strategy for creating hybrid materials that can interact with light, or "chromic" materials. The physical structure of these materials plays a key role; tiny, nanometer-sized cavities play host to light-sensitive molecules which behave differently from when they are free in solution, with potential applications to light emitting devices, light harvesting (like in solar cells) and novel sensors. A team led by Prof Takuya Fujimura from the Department of Physics and Materials Science, Shimane University, and Prof Shinsuke Takagi from the Department of Applied Chemistry, Tokyo Metropolitan University, have created a transparent film made of an environmentally-friendly clay mineral and a dye, magnesium porphyrin, that changes color in response to humidity.

What makes this film special is the mechanism by which it achieves such a striking change. Clays have a layered structure, with nanometer-scale thin spaces in between. The team made a technical breakthrough in getting the dye into these gaps without forming aggregates, to ensure an effective response. The clay layers change their spacing in response to humidity; the confinement of the dye changes. More specifically, the electrons surrounding the dye molecule, particularly those involved in how it interacts with light, are made to line up with certain chemical groups in the clay, dramatically changing its color. Note that no chemical bonds are broken or made. This makes the film more compatible with repeated switching, with less degradation of the material.

The film is not just more durable. Both the clay and dye could be naturally derived materials. That means lower cost, improved safety and enhanced compatibility with the environment. The team hopes to apply the film and new mechanism to sensors and amplification in light emitting devices.

This work was partly supported by a JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (No. 24350100) and a JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas "All Nippon Artificial Photosynthesis Project for Living Earth" (AnApple, No. 25107521). The manuscript reporting this finding has been published online in Langmuir.

Many of the European mammals whose habitat is being destroyed by climate change are not able to find new places to live elsewhere.

30 of the 62 mammal species in the University of Exeter study will have their habitat substantially affected by climate change, but don't have the traits that could allow them to colonise a new habitat somewhere else in Europe.

These included at-risk species such as the wolverine (classified as "vulnerable" in Europe), and others not classified as under threat, such as the Eurasian elk, the Iberian wild goat and the Pyrenean chamois.

Most current assessments do not take account of climate change and species' ability to react, and the researchers say this means many species may be at greater risk than their official status shows.

"Some species that will need to move long distances due to climate change are simply not going to be able to," said senior author Dr Regan Early, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

"Unfortunately, many of the species most at risk from climate change are also will have the most difficulty in colonising new areas."

The researchers studied two sets of characteristics to see how well each species could relocate to the places where climate will be suitable in the future.

One important characteristic is whether the animals are "generalists" that can live in many kinds of habitats and eat a wide variety foods.

The other important characteristic was the animal's reproductive strategy - species that breed young and have many offspring have a better chance of establishing themselves in a new area.

However, the complexities of climate change mean that some species - even those that could move relatively long distances - will struggle to move because possible new habitats are just too far from current ones.

One example is the Western Mediterranean mouse, currently found in places including Spain and Portugal.

Under predicted climate change, it may no longer be able to live in its current habitats, and might be better off in eastern Italy.

But Dr Early points out it is "difficult" to see how the species would make such a move.

"If you look at the challenges of shifting ranges, you find that many species are a lot more threatened by climate change than we previously understood," said lead author Lisbeth Morrison.

"Even under lower estimates of climate change, we found really serious effects for many species."

A team of researchers believe that, paradoxically, climate change may result in Quebec's national and provincial parks becoming biodiversity refuges of continental importance as the variety of species present there increases. They used ecological niche modeling to calculate potential changes in the presence of 529 species in about 1/3 of the protected areas in southern Quebec almost all of which were under 50 km2 in size. Their results suggest that fifty - eighty years from now (between 2071-2100) close to half of the protected regions of southern Quebec may see a species turnover of greater than 80 %.

The research team, from l'Université du Québec à Rimouski, le Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs, and McGill University believe that, depending on the region, the gain in the number of species of birds, amphibians, trees, and vascular flowering plants could range from 12 and 530 %. It is the first study to examine in such details the potential effects of climate change on the biodiversity of a large network of northern protected areas.

A need to rethink conservation paradigms?

The researchers believe that the scale and rapidity of the species turnover will also result in a necessary reexamination of current conservation paradigms, since it will be impossible to preserve a snapshot of today's biodiversity in the National Parks. More specifically, the researchers believe that:

1) Rather than trying to preserve current biodiversity in the National Parks, a more effective conservation strategy to ensure future biodiversity may be to preserve site resilience and a diversity of physical features and conditions.

2) There will potentially be complicated choices ahead for managers of protected areas as increasing numbers of new immigrant species colonize protected sites. If historical communities are deeply modified, the managers may need self-sustaining populations of non-native species in some protected areas. But newly arriving species may also have negative impacts on ecosystem structure and function.

3) Assigning conservation status to rare and recently naturalized species may prove a thorny issue, given that a significant portion of northern species are already at risk. But the conservation value of rare new species should be considered in a long-term continental perspective rather than short-term national perspective.

4) It will be important to preserve and restore connectivity of protected areas to allow potential corridors for migration. In this way, species will avoid being trapped for decades or centuries between rapid retreat from the territory's southern edge and only a slow advance on the northern edge.

The researchers caution, however, that potential species gains should not draw attention away from the potential extinction of local species that may no longer find suitable conditions in future in the protected areas where they are at the moment. The geographical pattern of potential relative species loss suggests that several species could disappear in both the southernmost protected areas of Quebec, and in the higher latitudes, where the extinction of only a few local species can have drastic effects on whole ecological communities.

BOSTON (May 17, 2018) Airborne marine biologists were dazzled by the diversity and abundance of large, unusual and sometimes endangered marine wildlife on a recent trip to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Monument, about 150 miles southeast of Cape Cod. Scientists with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium observed dozens of dolphins mixing with schools of pilot whales plus more than a dozen of the very rarely seen and mysterious Sowerby's beaked whales. The researchers, aboard a twin engine airplane, also spotted endangered, Moby Dick-like sperm whales as well as the second largest species of sharks in the world and the bizarre-looking giant ocean sunfish or mola mola.

The Northeast Canyons marine monument is a critical hotspot of biodiversity on the edge of the continental shelf where the shallow seas off of New England drop sharply into the deep waters of the northwestern Atlantic. In 2016, President Obama designated three underwater canyons that are deeper than the Grand Canyon, and four seamounts as tall as the Rockies, as the first American marine national monument in Atlantic waters. However in 2017, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke recommended to President Trump that the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts either be downsized or eliminated. The exact nature of the recommendation has yet to be specified.

Given the great distance offshore, documenting the marine life there is a challenge. During the 4.5-hour aerial survey, the team spotted 169 bottlenose dolphins, 57 pilot whales, 44 Risso's dolphin's, 13 rare Sowerby's beaked whales, four sperm whales, and 44 other dolphins of various species. In two sightings, they saw a mixed group of up to 50 bottlenose dolphins and 30 pilot whales, but what intrigued the researchers most was that three groups of Sowerby's beaked whales were spotted at the water's surface, a rare occurrence given their marathon dive times

This is "extraordinary for such a small area," said Dr. Ester Quintana, the lead scientist on the Anderson Cabot Center aerial team, adding that they also observed basking sharks, the second largest species of shark in the world, and the strange, large, plankton-feeding Mola mola, or ocean sunfish.

The aerial sightings help researchers understand how the species are using the richly biodiverse monument waters and deep coral canyons at different times of year and for different purposes. "One of the reasons we do this work is that we are just discovering what's going on out there," said Dr. Scott Kraus of the Anderson Cabot Center. "This is an opportunity to see how animals use this habitat. No one has ever done this before."

This was the third in a series of aerial surveys of the monument that began in summer 2017, and the number of sightings by the scientists during this survey was higher than any other, nearly double the number of animals observed last fall.

"These surveys continue to show the incredible abundance of marine life in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument," said Kraus. "These sightings support the idea that this area is worthy of complete protection."

"This area was declared protected because it is a fragile ecosystem with a wide diversity of corals, deep water fishes, and invertebrates around these pristine canyons and seamounts that support a vast array of whales, dolphins, and large fish," Dr. Quintana said. "As new policies recommend opening more waters off the US coast to offshore drilling, it is incredibly important to have areas that remain protected."

She said the Northeast Canyons monument area is about one-tenth of one percent of all US ocean territorial waters. "Yet, the wildlife diversity we are seeing out there highlights the importance of preserving its ecological value," Dr. Quintana said.

New research identifying climate vulnerability hotspots has found that the number of people affected by multiple climate change risks could double if the global temperature rises by 2°C, compared to a rise of 1.5°C.

The team, led by IIASA Energy Program researcher Edward Byers, investigated the overlap between multiple climate change risks and socioeconomic development to identify the vulnerability hotspots if the global mean temperature should rise by 1.5°C, 2°C and 3°C by 2050, compared to the pre-industrial baseline. Since those in poverty are much more vulnerable to climate change impacts, knowing where and how many vulnerable people are at high risk is therefore important for creating policies to mitigate the situation.

The researchers from IIASA, Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the University of Oxford, and the University of Washington, developed 14 impact indicators in three main sectors - water, energy, and food & environment - using a variety of computer models. The indicators include a water stress index, water supply seasonality, clean cooking access, heat stress events, habitat degradation, and crop yield changes. They compared the potential risks at the three global temperatures and in a range of socioeconomic pathways, to compare more equitable, sustainable development with pathways characterized by development failures and high inequality.

In 2011, an estimated 767 million people were living on less than US$1.90 per day, classed as extreme poverty, and the research team estimated that a further 3.5 billion people are "vulnerable to poverty", living on less than US$10 per day.

"Few studies have consistently investigated so many overlapping climate and development challenges," says Byers. "The research considers both different global mean temperature rises, such as the differences between 1.5°C and 2.0°C, and uses new socioeconomic datasets of income levels and inequality, to identify where and to what extent the most vulnerable in society are exposed to these climate-development challenges."

Multisector risk is one where the risk goes beyond tolerable in at least two of the three main sectors. At lower temperatures, hotspots occur primarily in south and east Asia, but with higher global temperatures, hotspots further spread to Central America, west and east Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The actual global land mass affected is relatively small, at 3-16% depending on the scenario. However, the areas at highest risk tend to be densely populated. At 1.5°C of warming, 16% of the population of the world in 2050, 1.5 billion people, will have moderate-to-high levels of multisector risk. At 2°C of warming, this almost doubles to 29% of the global population, 2.7 billion people. At 3°C of warming, that figure almost doubles again, to 50% of the population, or 4.6 billion people.

Depending on the scenario, 91-98% of the exposed and vulnerable population live in Asia and Africa. Around half of these live in south Asia alone, but Africa is likely to face greater risks as the least developed region with high social inequality.

With the world already around 1.0°C warmer than pre-industrial averages, in 2015 global leaders agreed in Paris to limit average warming by 2°C, with the ambition of limiting warming to 1.5°C if possible. The large differences, the researchers note, even between warming of 1.5°C compared to 2°C, are striking, and underline the multidimensional risks of climate change and the need to keep warming as low as possible.

Targeting socioeconomic development in hotspot areas is particularly important for reducing vulnerability in places where impacts will be most severe. Sustainable development in hotspot areas could reduce the number of people who are exposed and vulnerable by an order of magnitude, from 1.5 billion to 100 million, compared to the high inequality scenario. The poorest in society will likely be disproportionately impacted by climate change, and greater efforts to reduce inequality and promote adaptation are urgently needed.

"The research will be most relevant to policymakers and others looking to understand the benefits of keeping the average global temperature rise to 1.5°C rather than 2°C, as well as providing insights into the regions most at risk across different sectors. The poorest and most vulnerable countries are most at risk and this work will aid to identify integrated, cross-sectoral approaches and target resources for maximum impact," says Astrid Hillers, senior environmental specialist at GEF.

Keywan Riahi, IIASA Energy program director, adds: "The research indicates locations where meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is not only important but also very challenging, and shows the substantial importance of targeted poverty reduction that is required in some regions to reduce vulnerability."

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Brown University researchers studying the biology of aging have demonstrated a new strategy for stimulating autophagy, the process by which cells rebuild themselves by recycling their own worn-out parts.

In a study published in the journal Cell Reports, the researchers show that the approach increased the lifespans of worms and flies, and experiments in human cells hint that the strategy could be useful in future treatments for Alzheimer's disease, ALS and other age-related neurodegenerative conditions.

"Autophagy dysfunction is present across a range of age-related diseases including neurodegeneration," said Louis Lapierre, an assistant professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry at Brown who led the work. "We and others think that by learning how to influence this process pharmacologically, we might be able to affect the progression of these diseases. What we've shown here is a new and conserved entry point for stimulating autophagy."

Autophagy has become a hot topic in recent years, earning its discoverer the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2016. The process involves the rounding up of misfolded proteins and obsolete organelles within a cell into vesicles called autophagosomes. The autophagosomes then fuse with a lysosome, an enzyme-containing organelle that breaks down those cellular macromolecules and converts it into components the cell can re-use.

Lapierre and his colleagues wanted to see if they could increase autophagy by manipulating a transcription factor (a protein that turns gene expression on and off) that regulates autophagic activity. In order for the transcription factor to switch autophagic activity on, it needs to be localized in the nucleus of a cell. So Lapierre and his team screened for genes that enhance the level of the autophagy transcription factor, known as TFEB, within nuclei.

Using the nematode C. elegans, the screen found that reducing the expression of a protein called XPO1, which transports proteins out of the nucleus, leads to nuclear accumulation of the nematode version of TFEB. That accumulation was associated with an increase in markers of autophagy, including increased autophagosome, autolysosomes as well as increased lysosome biogenesis. There was also a marked increase in lifespan among the treated nematodes of between about 15 and 45 percent.

"What we showed was that by blocking the escape of this transcription factor from the nucleus, we could not only influence autophagy but we could get an increase in lifespan as well," Lapierre said.

The next step was to see if there were drugs that could mimic the effect of the gene inhibition used in the screening experiment. The researchers found that selective inhibitors of nuclear export (SINE), originally developed to inhibit XPO1 to treat cancers, had a similar effect -- increasing markers of autophagy and significantly increasing lifespan in nematodes.

The researchers then tested SINE on a genetically modified fruit fly that serves as a model organism for the neurodegenerative disease ALS. Those experiments showed a small but significant increase in the lifespans of the treated flies. "Our data suggests that these compounds can alleviate some of the neurodegeneration in these flies," Lapierre said.

As a final step, the researchers set out to see if XPO1 inhibition had similar effects on autophagy in human cells as it had in the nematodes. After treating a culture of human HeLa cells with SINE, the researchers found that, indeed, TFEB concentrations in nuclei increased, as did markers of autophagic activity and lysosomal biogenesis.

"Our study tells us that the regulation of the intracellular partitioning of TFEB is conserved from nematodes to humans and that SINE could stimulate autophagy in humans," Lapierre said. "SINE have been recently shown in clinical trials for cancer to be tolerated, so the potential for using SINE to treat other age-related diseases is there."

Future research, Lapierre said, will focus on testing these drugs in more clinically relevant models of neurodegenerative diseases. But this initial research is a proof of concept for this strategy as a means to increase autophagy and potentially treat age-related diseases.

Lapierre is a faculty member in the newly approved Center on the Biology of Aging within the Brown Institute for Translational Science. This center, led by Professor of Biology John Sedivy, studies the biological mechanisms of aging. The center's mission is to expand biomedical research and education programs in the emerging discipline of biogerontology, and to bring forth scientific discoveries related to aging and associated disorders.